Marketing_Guy - 6:32 pm on Jan 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

> Honestly, I think this place has helped more small to medium web based companies to start out, stay afloat or flourish than any other institution I know of.

Those who are starting out may not be able to afford subscriptions.

To all who commented on the value of WW and that we should contribute to supporting the site:

That isnt in question. We all agree with that.

The point is why should anyone upgrade from a free service to paid one?

Why pay for the forum software when the freeware version meets you needs? What added features does the paid version have?

Why pay for Opera when it can downloaded for free? What additional benefits does it hold?

Any service that is offered for free has a huge amount of detail "selling" the benefits and features of the paid version of the service.

The WW subscription lacks that. I would have to agree with webdevsf - more marketing is needed.

>ad free environment - yes indeed unique for the web and a good selling point for some, but most people really aren't that bothered.

>25% Discount for PubCon - a much better example of tangiable benefit from subscribing.

>More relaxed atmosphere....eh? Thats very vague. Not a good selling point im afraid. Too ambiguous. May as well try to sell a sense of well being. ;)

Personally, I would be inclined to subscribe (when I can afford it) if i had more information available to me.

Content is King! :)

I think the main selling point just now is the mysteriousness surrounding the supporters forum which is being encouraged by exisiting susbscribers and long term members.

It could be that the aim is not to generate a huge amount of income from subscriptions, but to stem the amount of people subscribing to a sustainable level (therefore reducing forum spam, etc on the new forum).

Yes, more marketing is required. But only if WW is targetting the mass market.

Im sure Brett et all are more than capable of generating custom for the service and presumeably are happy with the levels of uptake - therefore no more marketing is required.

>You should spend some time on marketing.

Why? You're doing it for them! ;)

>>>>Courtesy of Marketing Guy<<<<<<