How to monetize forums

[scottmccloud]

I bought a domain recently with a view to putting a forum on it. What I wanted to know was how to monetize a forum. I've thought of Adsense, and related affiliate banners etc, just wondering if there was anything else I was missing?

 

[nick-harper]

Skimlinks can be quite good

 

[scottmccloud]

If skimlinks are what I think they are, I've always found them a bit annoying on forums that have them. Thanks for the suggestion though, I will have a look at them.

 

[JMOT]

Scott you might be thinking of http://www.kontera.com/products/

 

[scottmccloud]

Thanks JMOT, you're right that's what I was thinking of. Cheers for pointing it out.

 

[Blossom]

Upgraded accounts/premium membership, though I guess that depends on the type of forum and would probably occur further down the line.

Linking membership to a mailing list might be a good idea too.

 

[scottmccloud]

Cheers Blossom,

I like the mailing list idea, that's going to be a definite I think.

 

[nick-harper]

The hard part is having the ads there without annoying people and getting them in the right place to convert. I have them showing for guests and people not logged in but don't show them for members.

I keep thinking about finding a way to show related items to the niche that people might buy but it is quite a hard thing to do as if people use a forum all day every day they become blind to the adds.

When was the last time you took notice of them on here?

 

[woopwoop]

depending on the forum type/style, you can have subscription levels. VB and IPB ech have mods for this. It allows you to offer more value/privileges to people who pay a fee. I have the following subscriptions running on a forum:
1 week £1
3 weeks £5
1 year £10

Or something like that. I have regular and repeat subscribers.

 

[Banana]

....

 

[scottmccloud]

Thanks for all the replies, I'm going to have to have a good think as to whether developing this is a good idea. The more I think about it, it seems a lot of work for what could be relatively low reward, when comparing it to putting up some normal affiliate sites.

 

[iamrofe]

you could try automatically adding an affiliate link everytime someone uses a merchants name or links out to a merchant site?

So if someone were to mention amazon in a thread it would automatically form a hyperlink with your affiliate link to amazon.

I could try give you some more ideas if you mentioned the niche.