How to best promote my soon-to-be-launched-community to my opt-in-list

[I Will Make It]

Hello all! It has to be over a year since I've made a post here.. Good to be back :)

Here's what I have:

I have made a new wedding-community. It absolutely ROCKS! It has a really beautiful design, lots of interactivity functions like blog, forums, gallery (both pictures and videos from Youtube), PM's, Profiles, "Our friends" and so on..

- It's made upon the idea that the members are inexperienced with the internet, so it's VERY easy to use.

It also has a "paid" section, where members who pay will get their hands on some very useful functions, like making fantastic and professional weddingsites on their own.. Using on my premade designs, and writing using an opensource texteditor. They can make and manage guest-lists, wedding budgets and so on...

Really useful, really a great and unique design, and I've spent almost a year on making things perfect.

NOW, This is my question:

I already own one of my contry's biggest weddingfavor shops online, and I have an opt-in list with around 3000 subscribers. Some of them are old (already married) but I guess about 1500 of them are fresh.

How can I best build a momentum to get things started off in the best possible way? My goal is to get at least 500 members in the first month, and then continue to grow, and the goal for 2008 is to have 750 registered members by the end of the year, with at least 200 of them beeing paying members.

I would appreciate every single idea that helps me grow this thing into a success, and I hope some of you could share YOUR BEST tips with me!

Thank you in advance!
- IWMI

edit: typo's

[edited by: I_Will_Make_It at 8:30 pm (utc) on April 10, 2008]

[rogerd]

Building paid communities can be a challenge. I'd focus on building free membership. Your opt-in list is a good start, but I'd also think about adding viral features like "email a friend", stickiness features like forum subscriptions, post notifications, etc.

Welcome back to posting!

[boplicity]

I suggest turning the 'launch' of all your new work into an EVENT. Get your subscribers involved. Tell them about your plans, ask for feedback, show them how cool everything will be...before they even have a chance to see it.

Set a specific launch date/time....every marketing thing you do should build up to that date. When it launches, give people an irresistible reason to become a paying member. Add urgency by making that irresistible reason limited. Maybe only offer a severely discounted membership for the first 24 hours, or 36 hours.

Anyways...

Think about it as a LAUNCH. An event. Build up to it. Create excitement. Do press releases, joint ventures, multimedia presentations...all leading up to the launch.

[I Will Make It]

Great tips! I will go for something like that :)
Guess I'll concentrate on building the free section first, cause I think that will be the most easy part.

When I have my members, I will open the payd section, and promote it like %¤#¤

Thanks again - to both rogerd and boplicity!