Upgrade Packages...Your Thoughts?

Saddlerrad

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Been thinking this through in the last few days with TB and a few other forum members..these are the 'basic' outline packages we've been looking at. Obviously, people may or may not be interested but it's these 'packages' that are going to help ensure we never end up in a position similar to TFF, where we basically struggle financially to pay for sufficient upgrades and run out of ideas to keep the site fresh.

3 packages -

Normal everyday posting on the forum, use of prediction league etc - 100% absolutely FREE.

Yearly costs!
1) Cost - £5 - General Support - Use of the shoutbox.

2) Cost - £10 - Silver Member - Use of the shoutbox, the ability to use the 'media' as much as you want too, no adverts on the site.

3) Cost - £20 - Gold Member - Use of the shoutbox, the ability to use the 'media' section as you want, your own 'blogging permissions' to write whatever you please (on topic or certainly within reason).

Think the pricing is fair in comparison to other forums and the TFF legends package.

What are people's thoughts on this please? Any other suggestions?
Thanks!
 
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BigDaveCUFC

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Your ok as long as you always offer a free option and let people post.

what murdered the first forum i was on was when it tried to charge everyone and 80% of the forum left 2 days later.

i know its not nice to sort've rely on afew paying more, but you'll find will be afew chip in where they can, some others just cannot or won't be interested in doing so.
 

Jockney

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All sounds perfectly reasonable. What do you mean by use of the 'media'?
 

JonBCFC

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Sounds good mate. What does the 'ability to post as freely as you want' mean?
 

Saddlerrad

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Your ok as long as you always offer a free option and let people post.

what murdered the first forum i was on was when it tried to charge everyone and 80% of the forum left 2 days later.

i know its not nice to sort've rely on afew paying more, but you'll find will be afew chip in where they can, some others just cannot or won't be interested in doing so.

Oh yeah - just to clarify - this is 100% a free website. To post, use the Prediction league, do anything as you please - just like on TFF it will be totally, 100% free. I'm just on about those that are interested - some will be, some won't mate.
 

Bobbin'

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Assume these are yearly costs?
 

Saddlerrad

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Sorry I just re-read what I posted and got mixed up on the first one. This site is 100% free to absolutely anyone and everyone - just like TFF. I meant to post freely in the Shoutbox etc, not literally. lol
 

Saddlerrad

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All sounds perfectly reasonable. What do you mean by use of the 'media'?

Use of the media is the tab at the top. Can add videos, highlights, pictures, links to your pictures that are in threads, videos to promote a game etc.
 

Jockney

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Use of the media is the tab at the top. Can add videos, highlights, pictures, links to your pictures that are in threads, videos to promote a game etc.

Does that encompass ability to embed media from youtube, imgur, etc, or will that be available to all members? Forgive my ignorance on the subject, I'm not tech savvy at all.
 

Saddlerrad

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Does that encompass ability to embed media from youtube, imgur, etc, or will that be available to all members? Forgive my ignorance on the subject, I'm not tech savvy at all.

Me either to be honest, but one of the reasons I originally chose this software was because of the ability to use things like this. You would simply 'add media' and then either add/copy an image from a URL or your PC and then it uploads. You can copy URL's from videos on youtube etc...like my Walsall highlights at the moment.
 

Bobbin'

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Will those that are not silver or above be able to see the media posted by others?
 

Saddlerrad

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Will those that are not silver or above be able to see the media posted by others?

Everyone on the site will be able to 'see' the media..just like mine now. However, they won't be able to add their own unless they are a Silver member. It eats bandwith so you can imagine having 600 people adding media twice a day would be like server wise...hence having it as a 'perk'.
 

Bobbin'

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I can't see your video anymore?

Cheers for answering the questions.
 

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I'm leaving this side of things in the capable of hands of Saddlerrad but just thought I'd chime in and say all contributions received prior to this being setup will count- I've made a note of the donations and who made what so you'll all get what your entitled too based on whatever structure he decides. There'll be no worries about missing out on that front, I still can't believe the response we've had in the last 72 hours, great group.
 

Saddlerrad

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I can't see your video anymore?

Cheers for answering the questions.

That's because we are still playing around with things to see how they configure if we move them to X position etc.

No worries.
 

mnb089mnb

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(Just an opinion but...) Having blogs that send people to the site will benefit the site. I'm not sure that's something that should be charged for.
But I think it'd be fine to charge people to use the Shoutbox, as well as charge people to use a Member's Area. I think that worked well on the old TFF.
Also you could charge Rammy 1p per message. You'd pay off the yearly bills by this time next month.

AND - I think it's worthwhile to be transparent about how much the site costs to run a year and to give a total as to how close we are to covering it. That may focus people's minds a bit.
 

Saddlerrad

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I'm leaving this side of things in the capable of hands of Saddlerrad but just thought I'd chime in and say all contributions received prior to this being setup will count- I've made a note of the donations and who made what so you'll all get what your entitled too based on whatever structure he decides There'll be no worries about missing out on that front, I still can't believe the response we've had in the last 72 hours, great group.

Ah yes, one other thing I wanted to add. Anyone who has donated so far all covers themselves in bracket 1.
 

TractorBoys

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(Just an opinion but...) Having blogs that send people to the site will benefit the site. I'm not sure that's something that should be charged for.
But I think it'd be fine to charge people to use the Shoutbox, as well as charge people to use a Member's Area. I think that worked well on the old TFF.
Also you could charge Rammy 1p per message. You'd pay off the yearly bills by this time next month.

AND - I think it's worthwhile to be transparent about how much the site costs to run a year and to give a total as to how close we are to covering it. That may focus people's minds a bit.

Bolded is a very valid point. Good SEO benefits if the quality is high enough.
 

mnb089mnb

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I'd also suggest that you need to be careful with yearly payments. If we're all paying now then our subscriptions will ALL run out next January. Have to make sure people renew all at the same time. I'm not sure how you get around that, but it may be worth signing people up to a small monthly fee, or a rolling yearly payment via paypal.
 

Saddlerrad

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(Just an opinion but...) Having blogs that send people to the site will benefit the site. I'm not sure that's something that should be charged for.
But I think it'd be fine to charge people to use the Shoutbox, as well as charge people to use a Member's Area. I think that worked well on the old TFF.
Also you could charge Rammy 1p per message. You'd pay off the yearly bills by this time next month.

AND - I think it's worthwhile to be transparent about how much the site costs to run a year and to give a total as to how close we are to covering it. That may focus people's minds a bit.

This is a tough one. Because the idea is that we'd have a couple of fans per team or league previewing or writing match reports on games or competitions etc. But then other people may want the 'ability' to blog as they please, but not in the form of match previews/reports - which is where the 'paying to have that perk' kind of thing comes together.

Just to clarify - the entire Idea about the blogs is to promote us to Social media. Once people start seeing blogs, they want to read them again, or read the following weeks (something I felt TFF lacked, massively - it had no connect to social media) and that is going to be vital in terms of ranking this website in google (so when people type 'football forum' in on google, they see this website as a number 1 option - this drives traffic to the site and new sign ups)... and also provides a bit of fun for people. I shall be blogging about my football manager career for sure!

I'll leave that with the community - but the blogging is going to help us greatly achieve better things and entice new members in...happy either way :)
 

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Yeah things like Gulliball's Life In Levice would have looked fantastic in blog format, and perhaps brought people to the site (initially)
 

Rammy

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What TFF Legends Package? We didn't pay to be legends! :dk:
 

Rammy

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I thought there was a more expensive verions of it where you paid a one off fee, above the supporters level etc.

Lifetime Member. That was £30 or £35 which meant you stayed premium for the lifetime of the forum i.e. no annual renewal.

Legends were just rewarded in the TFF Awards or to former Admin. You got absolutely no benefit from it, other than you changed orange.
 

Saddlerrad

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Ahhh that's the one I mean! Fair enough.

As I said, these are only suggestions.
 
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AND - I think it's worthwhile to be transparent about how much the site costs to run a year and to give a total as to how close we are to covering it. That may focus people's minds a bit.

Very good advice, IMO.
 

TractorBoys

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Current server costs are £70/month and then we'll be looking at investment in advertising to try and keep the growth on an upwards curve. Prizes for prediction league and hopefully competitions for match tickets will all follow suit. On that note, your donations have been fantastic and all but covered our hosting costs for over 3 months so my personal funds are free to focus upon putting money into furthering the site, with new features (like the blog software), advertising campaigns etc.
 

Saddlerrad

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Just to add that - we also have the betting affiliate plan that people will naturally sign up to through both links and then 'ads' around the site as time goes on which is something else. Your contributions have been excellent and every single spare penny will go on things like prizes, games, ticket draws etc.

PS - The forum software needs and it's plug-ins need licensing either every 6 or 12 months, but that's around £100 in total.
 
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