Promoting paid subscriptions

[arossphoto]

This isn't really a question about mods, but it could possibly involve some.

I was just setting up my first vBulletin forum and a paid subscription, but I was really surprised to see the subscription option buried in the User CP where most people will never even notice it.

So I was just wondering if anybody had any creative ideas, or mod suggestions, for promoting paid subscriptions and getting them in front of people's faces?

Cheers,

Andrew

I've been playing around with user group permissions and I think some kind of mod or customization would be a good idea here. For example when you turn off a group's ability to use things like avatars, search and signatures they are removed from the board completely. I think they should be left visible, but when someone clicks on the option they get a message saying that option is only available if they upgrade with a subscription.

The way it is now I can just imagine all the emails I'd get asking "how do I setup my signature?", "how do I search?", "where can I upload an avatar?", etc, etc.

[peterska2]

When I've used paid subscriptions in the past, I added a link to the subscriptions page to the navbar using conditionals to ensure it was only shown to members and those who were not already subscribers.

[arossphoto]

I just came up with this idea to put a message at the top of the control panel based on usergroup. So members who do not have a subscription will see this info, but it will go away if they purchase a subscription.

I just added the following code to the very top of the USERCP template.

<!-- start message based on usergroup -->
<if condition="(in_array($vbulletin->userinfo['usergroupid'], array(2)))">
<table width="100%" align="center" style="background: #FFFAF0; border: solid 1px #660000;">
<tr>
<td>
Insert message about subscriptions here
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br/>
</if>

<!-- end message based on usergroup -->