Premium Member Benefits, what's yours?

[xIsabel38]

Excellent ideas so far, I have got to check into that Add-on to "Shoot holes into a user Avatar" as I think for my site an interesting concept would be to "Throw Trolls at a user Avatar". Of course I'd have to see how this would work and perhaps I can speak with the Author for advice on how to do this.

Other ideas of T-Shirts and Mouse Pads are good, though I'd have to check into the pricing of those. I believe to do such a thing you need to order them in bulk.

Uploading or changing general site limitations (such as the edit timer, attachment size, etc...) can easily be done with permissions.

I'll need to look into what Digital Spy is.

The ideas are awesome, keep them coming please. I'm sure many people can benefit from what everyone has done in the past.

 

[Andrej]

I'll need to look into what Digital Spy is.

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/digital-point-spy.85/

 

[xIsabel38]

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/digital-point-spy.85/

Isn't that just an auto updating "What's New?"

I updated my first post with a list of ideas everyone has given in the event it can help others. Excellent ideas so far, keep em coming!

Sheldon has a add-on which allows shooting holes in other people's avatar which I might add soon.

I couldn't seem to find this Add-on.

 

[digitalpoint]

If you want premium membership to be popular, you should offer something unique. Something that the users would want to buy because they WANT it. Otherwise you are left with just begging people to give you hand outs for nothing (of any real value) in return.

For example, a large chunk of our premium members are premium because they want unique products we give them:

• Sphinx Search for vBulletin for that more or less is used by all large vBulletin 4 sites... https://marketplace.digitalpoint.com/sphinx-search-for-vbulletin-4.870/item
• Master/slave database support for XenForo... https://marketplace.digitalpoint.com/master-slave-database.890/item

Some of our tools work "better" for premium members (for example Keyword Tracker lets them search 200 places deep instead of 20 for non-premium): https://tools.digitalpoint.com/tracker

Here's the bulk of what we offer our premium members broken down: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/help/premium

 

[xIsabel38]

If you want premium membership to be popular, you should offer something unique. Something that the users would want to buy because they WANT it. Otherwise you are left with just begging people to give you hand outs for nothing (of any real value) in return.

For example, a large chunk of our premium members are premium because they want unique products we give them:

• Sphinx Search for vBulletin for that more or less is used by all large vBulletin 4 sites... https://marketplace.digitalpoint.com/sphinx-search-for-vbulletin-4.870/item
• Master/slave database support for XenForo... https://marketplace.digitalpoint.com/master-slave-database.890/item

Some of our tools work "better" for premium members (for example Keyword Tracker lets them search 200 places deep instead of 20 for non-premium): https://tools.digitalpoint.com/tracker

Here's the bulk of what we offer our premium members broken down: https://forums.digitalpoint.com/help/premium

The problem with a lot of your Add-ons, and this isn't meant to be offensive or anything as I'm sure it's all great work, but the basic problem is that I have no idea what 99% of them are about. Like all those you linked above. I just don't speak that language and I can't offer something I don't understand or isn't easily understandable.

 

[Moshe1010]

The problem with a lot of your Add-ons, and this isn't meant to be offensive or anything as I'm sure it's all great work, but the basic problem is that I have no idea what 99% of them are about. Like all those you linked above. I just don't speak that language and I can't offer something I don't understand or isn't easily understandable.

Because it's aimed for web developers and for regular users.

 

[digitalpoint]

The problem with a lot of your Add-ons, and this isn't meant to be offensive or anything as I'm sure it's all great work, but the basic problem is that I have no idea what 99% of them are about. Like all those you linked above. I just don't speak that language and I can't offer something I don't understand or isn't easily understandable.

Right... that's what I meant by you need to find something unique that YOUR users would want.

 

[xIsabel38]

I don't fall under the "Web Developers" status but I would think I fall under the "Regular users" status. So I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

 

[James]

I don't fall under the "Web Developers" status but I would think I fall under the "Regular users" status. So I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

Digitalpoint is merely explaining what he offers his users to persuade them to buy his premium membership. In his case, he offers functional tools for existing forum software (XF/vB) that are in high demand and are proven to help speed up and/or optimize their forum. In addition, he has some general tools at http://tools.digitalpoint.com that webmasters can use.

Not everyone will have these tools to offer their users (these are downloadable/usable things that DP has created), so most people opt for added benefits to their existing membership on the current forum.

 

[Shelley]

I don't fall under the "Web Developers" status but I would think I fall under the "Regular users" status. So I'm not sure what you're trying to say.

Offer your members something unique that nobody else offers that's within your capabilities of offering.

 

[xIsabel38]

Right... that's what I meant by you need to find something unique that YOUR users would want.

Right... which is why this thread is about people giving ideas as there are a lot of good ideas that most users could like.

We all know that at the end of the day a website is owned and operated the way the Administrator(s) want it to be and that each person needs to decide what their site content is about and what to offer in regards to that, it's a given.

 

[MattW]

I give a 10% discount on certain physical products I sell in our online shop. Members can get their "Premium Membership" fee back on a single purchase with the saving if they buy certain products.

 

[xIsabel38]

Reduced pricing for products is a good one. Do you use the built in XenForo User Upgrade thing or do you simply have a standalone donation button or something to that effect?

 

[MattW]

Reduced pricing for products is a good one. Do you use the built in XenForo User Upgrade thing or do you simply have a standalone donation button or something to that effect?

Built in upgrade. It's a 12 month subscription @ £10

 

[Jethro]

While I normally really don't give a toss over premier membership etc, a word of warning to those thinking about adopting this one. Have been a regular poster at a very active movie forum for about eight years now, last week they introduced premier membership to no doubt make a few dollars. Has pretty much lead to the collapse of the site with a lot of people being banned over questioning the decision to implement premier membership and posting rates dropping off dramatically to pretty much only a dozen or so a day.

The warning here I reckon is isolating your long term members who can find a dozen or more forums covering the same subject matter with the same forum options without the requirement to pay to get anything additional.

You need additional benefits that are seen as worth the price, rather than what people can get for free at your competitor sites. MattW would seem to be across the value added concept, well done that man.

 

[Flexin]

While I normally really don't give a toss over premier membership etc, a word of warning to those thinking about adopting this one. Have been a regular poster at a very active movie forum for about eight years now, last week they introduced premier membership to no doubt make a few dollars. Has pretty much lead to the collapse of the site with a lot of people being banned over questioning the decision to implement premier membership and posting rates dropping off dramatically to pretty much only a dozen or so a day.

The warning here I reckon is isolating your long term members who can find a dozen or more forums covering the same subject matter with the same forum options without the requirement to pay to get anything additional.

You need additional benefits that are seen as worth the price, rather than what people can get for free at your competitor sites. MattW would seem to be across the value added concept, well done that man.

Why were so many people upset? Did they remove anything that was free before? If they don't take anything away then it shouldn't be an issue. I'm apart of one site that had a paid membership. It offered things like the ability to have an avatar and a list of other things. It was a very large forum and didn't have an issue with it.

James

 

[dutchbb]

Why were so many people upset? Did they remove anything that was free before? If they don't take anything away then it shouldn't be an issue.

It is if your site's subject has a lot of competitive forums who offer a free alternative. Small forums need to be careful with paid membership. Personally I've only adopted it after becoming a big board and plan to do the same for any new projects. Free stuff is really one of the important assets a small or medium size site can compete with so it's best to keep as many things free as possible. I'm not saying paid membership is always a bad idea for them but would definitely not take away once free features or charge for things a competitor offers free. The problem with a small to medium size forum is that you only have a relatively small group of core members, you simply can not afford to discourage them.

 

[Liam W]

On very busy forum. And by busy, I mean a few thousand users online and posting daily...

We allowed you to ban a member for a single day. But you could only do it to 1 member and not repeatedly to the same member. It would cost them $25 to do it in addition to already being a subscriber (had to be subscriber to do it)

This surprisingly actually did bring in more people to subscribe than anything else we offered.

And before anyone thinks that sound stupid....

Who hasn't wanted the authority to ban someone outright on any given community?!

(be honest)

I've wanted to do it several times on some communities/forums I may have to steal this idea

 

[ProCom]

Great thread, I'd love to see more discussion on what people are offering.

Now that I'm on xF I'm working on creating membership upgrades on all my other forums. The problem is that now that I'm allowing all members to create polls, have unlimited uploads, and unlimited PM's, I'm running out of good incentives to offer for paid membership upgrades.

For me, it's:

• Listed on the donor page (which has a tab)
• A little helmet under their avatar

@Jeff Fuqua , how are you doing those two things? It's not default on xF, right?

A few of you mentioned giving members the ability to help with spam? How are you doing that exactly? I'd love to have this feature!!!

Any other ideas for premium member benefits?

 

[Jeff Fuqua]

@Jeff Fuqua , how are you doing those two things? It's not default on xF, right?

I tried to link to the actual resources but had no luck finding them. Maybe this will help you track them down.

One is "Staff Groups Display" which allows you to list any group you wish (I list donors).
The helmet one is by Sheldon and a template modification which I also couldn't find searching the resources.