Newsletters and Email Marketing

[Decoy 119 / 2,421]

Even in 2018, email marketing is still the most effective form of online marketing. As we work on increasing sign ups to the forum we'll be collecting more and more emails.

• Using a service such as MailChimp, automated email campaigns can be set up. Example: Immediately after sign up - send a welcome email with a new focused Call To Action, like: Join us on Discord. And then schedule an automated email for new sign ups 2 days later to advertise game servers, etc..

• Re-marketing to currently active and inactive members is much more effective to increase activity and re-engage members than trying to acquire new members. This is because you know the person is already or was interested in GFL enough to sign up to the forum.

• Example: On a Monday send a newsletter to advertise a GFL Play Pubg event happening on the following Friday. Then send a reminder on the day of. Minimum this gets people thinking about GFL and visiting GFL's website, even if they're not interested in the specific event.

 

@Snoopy

 

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Another great idea and something we plan on implementing.

 

I'd imagine the user should have the option to opt-out of GFL newsletters. Perhaps an opt-out link at the end bottom of the email? 

 

Thanks.

[Decoy 119 / 2,421]

4 minutes ago, Roy said:

I'd imagine the user should have the option to opt-out of in GFL newsletters. Perhaps an opt-out link at the end bottom of the email?

Right, legally speaking, an unsubscribe link must be included in every email (at least as per Canadian law, UK law, and I assume US law as well).

 

Edit: It should be opt-in by default, however beside the 'complete signup' button we could also include a checkbox to opt out of newsletters/marketing.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Decoy

[Worgee 812 / 13,264]

I think a combination of mail and twitter would get out to most in america while facebook is very popular in EU. We could consider instagram too

[Snoopy 1,480 / 15,610]

When you sign up to the forums there is an option there that allows you to receive emails from site administrators. It's ticked by default as far as I know. There is also an option in the forum ACP to send out mass emails through there which can be easily done by a higher up.

 

This is a great idea and is potentially a decent way to drive more people to the forums. I know that for me and my friends an active community with a forums certainly keeps us interested. @the shuria first showed me the GFL forums when I first started here and that's partially what has kept me here.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

1 minute ago, Snoopy said:

When you sign up to the forums there is an option there that allows you to receive emails from site administrators. It's ticked by default as far as I know. There is also an option in the forum ACP to send out mass emails through there which can be easily done by a higher up.

 

This is a great idea and is potentially a decent way to drive more people to the forums. I know that for me and my friends an active community with a forums certainly keeps us interested. @the shuria first showed me the GFL forums when I first started here and that's partially what has kept me here.

There is an option to send bulk mail.

 

I would like to have something set up automatically to send bulk mail every week. Perhaps we can code it so it uses a template and each event and so on is automatically implemented into the template.

 

Thanks.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Moved to public suggestions forum to get feedback from public.

 

Thank you.

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,927]

Be careful with this.

 

I would imagine you guys are going to do your stupid cannibalism stuff again (ie. conceptually similar to Shout box advertising) and spam committed members.  Yes: They can opt out, but it's still annoying.  Your goal is to drive people in who aren't very active, merely signed up for a few member benefits or thought of GFL, and so really think about how advertising to them is going to benefit you.  Really think about your goals before sending out mass e-mails instead of spamming people who are already in; you risk losing their commitment if you're too annoying, and so you need to make sure that your e-mail is rewarding you and truly driving those visiting members back in.  Decoy's mass e-mailing numbers look great given their parameters, but this is likely because these organizations market to fresh blood and draw them in from the outside.

 

A great way to combat the problem I described is offering your committed members something with it too, and so they have something to look forward to when they receive these e-mails too.  You could probably use forum activity or post count as a measure of how committed they are to the community.  There would certainly be concerns about people spamming on the forums and driving their post count up much like they would do for the admin applications, but just like idling on a dead server even if you're not playing (You're not aiming to have a server of people idling, right?)...  sometimes the benefits from it outweigh the negatives, and you'll be making the forums look a bit more active.

 

Anyhow...  not much of a new suggestion.  This is what I had intended when I said to advertise to the external.  I'm game for it.  You guys should just do it.  I was told at work the other day that it costs them more for me to analyze or think about things to do down to its finest detail than to just simply do it and mess up (ie. circuit explodes or catches on fire with $1000 parts and expensive instruments).  A lot of the suggestions are high-level and sometimes planning it to the perfect detail isn't worth your time when you can do it and just mess up a little bit until you get it right.  Remember: "Perfect is the enemy of good."  My feedback above is something to consider from lessons learned elsewhere, and so you don't have to make the mistake yourself to learn it.

Edited March 3, 2018 by Joshy

[Decoy 119 / 2,421]

45 minutes ago, Joshy said:

Really think about your goals before sending out mass e-mails instead of spamming people who are already in; you risk losing their commitment if you're too annoying, and so you need to make sure that your e-mail is rewarding you and truly driving those visiting members back in.  Decoy's mass e-mailing numbers look great given their parameters, but this is likely because these organizations market to fresh blood and draw them in from the outside.

 

A great way to combat the problem I described is offering your committed members something with it too, and so they have something to look forward to when they receive these e-mails too.

I agree, this is exactly what I am proposing. Hence the suggestion to use a service like MailChimp to create automated campaigns to advertise to new forum registrants. Current members would only receive 1 or 2 emails a week when there is an event or something worthwhile to engage all members. Businesses are very successful with this volume of email marketing, only increasing if they can offer something extra enticing (like a product discount).

 

The most effective way to increase sales is maintaining and re-engaging previous customers, period. A community is no different than a business if you look at sales as activity and customers as members.

 

@Joshy: Please don't think your thoughts and ideas are not being taken seriously. You're genuinely passionate and clearly a very smart person; I already recognize this and know the community and people in charge are well aware of that fact.

 

Oh, and let me quote you from the post you linked:

On 12/19/2017 at 10:23 AM, Joshy said:

Accept members with other skills such as in writing, communication, advertising and social media, or experience or knowledge of businesses.

You're describing me.

[Joshy 4,364 / 44,927]

31 minutes ago, Decoy said:

The most effective way to increase sales is maintaining and re-engaging previous customers, period. A community is no different than a business if you look at sales as activity and customers as members.

 

I agree and I constantly preach this (the similarities between online communities, the real world and organizations [example/reference, example/reference 2], and how it all connects or is translatable), but maintaining and reengaging needs to be effective meaning to dampen the cost of spam.  If you've seen how these guys function, then you'd be able to make a better guess as to how this suggestion will move forward should it even get that far.  You're assuming some ideal conditions when it comes to these guys.

 

 

Quote

@Joshy: Please don't think your thoughts and ideas are not being taken seriously. You're genuinely passionate and clearly a very smart person; I already recognize this and know the community and people in charge are well aware of that fact.

 

LOL!!  I'm sorry.  This is probably not the best topic to bring up.  The events surrounding me are sometimes a bit mysterious, but I think there is enough talk or old threads to see what happened.

 

I think you're doing great and I'm really happy they are happy with your suggestions.  I'm honestly not happy with the community and a lot of the people, but I have a lot of invested time here and I enjoy giving feedback and ideas anyways.

 

Another relevant topic that may be of interest to you.

 

 

 

Edited March 3, 2018 by Joshy