Making money off of big boards... without advertising...
 

I would love to hear success/failure stories from you guys that have attempted to do subscription based forums or premium memberships. I'm in a spot where I have a great community full of great folks and I want to make a living out of keeping these people happy.

Advice? Suggestions? Ideas?

You really have to have some premium features and content to charge for access or even "premium" membership for it to work out. People have gotten used to getting things (especially forums) for free on the internet. All someone would have to do is create a forum similar to yours that is completely free to really hurt your model.

Once you have an established and active community you can hold fund raisers or raffles (if legal in your state) to help generate income.

I have seen very few subscription only based forums succeed.

My approach is to not take anything away from current members, My approach is to offer value added services for my premium memberships. Ability to upload and view videos, discounts on products from vendors (I seek out vendors to offer this discount in exchange for banner ads)

Basically, ask yourself what you can ADD to your current forum to benefit your premium members.

community activities in the real world...that's how we do it.

We pool our most talented folks together and have a big art party conference workshop life changing event and charge 400-600 bucks a pop.

My premium members get a few extra forum features, and I hold monthly contests for cash/tee's and other prizes.

I sell memberships.

Works pretty awesome too

I have personally paid for a subscription to only one forum, but there are a few others that I've considered contributing to. It all depends on the site and the poster.

If you don't want to advertise, consider merchandising... I've been doing pretty well selling custom printed t-shirts that have been personalized with the board member's name and our logo.

Feel free to PM me for more details.