Offline promotion?

Did the pens actually get you the new members, RockinRobbins? Did members later say to you that they heard of you from a pen somewhere?

 

I would suggest flyers - placed on community boards, even drop them in leter boxes, drop them to local newspapers etc.

I am starting offline adverts for my forum/site and have brought advertising space in a number of magazines, newspapers and have posted flyers on community boards at sport clubs etc.

My flyers have that annoying little pull of thing just to help people remember the address.

 

I have actually never tried offline promotion for my forums. Some of these look like pretty good ideas, and I would be willing to give them a go.

 

I especially like the T-Shirts idea. I brought it up as a promotional tip for AdminAddict. It was not, and probably will not get implemented.

 

t-shirts are good as well - I for my site have a number of caps done with with my sites logo and address on it (and my main sponsors on the side of the cap) I am about to revamp my forums and put them as merchandise people can buy to support the site - but I also go to sporting grounds where the kids are playing on the weekend and give them out.

I also have business shirts, and polo shirts with my sites logo and address on as i attend heaps of press conferences, game days etc so depending on what the weather is determines what shirt i wear!

 

Just because we don't take on an idea just weeks after our forum was launched, and we didn't give a definite response to your suggestion, doesn't mean it will not ever be implemented.

... Just thought I'd clear that up for any passers-by

 

Well, t-shirts for a local forum will probably be more effective than t-shirts for a very specific type of web development. (Unless people were wearing them to web design conferences and such.)

 

I've thought of making tshirts and actually giving them to some of the "key local people" and asking them to wear it occasionally.

 

\o.o/ If only PR had web design conferences.

 

I'm going to advertise my Asperger's Syndrome forum at the meetup with other Asperger's people next time I go.

 

Maybe you should start one FMB: get all the PR web designers together sometime

 

i'd be up for it... haha

But on a serious note t-shirts would be good for something that is local, or something that would actually benefit you but would be more or less useless to a site like this i believe as how many people are you going to see in a day who are into administration websites while you are wearing your shirt and you have to hope that they remember the address.

Which is why for a site like this i would look at getting advertising in web magazines, pc magazines etc.

 

We did this kind of promotion in college for an offline group I was working with. The goal was to drive people to our website for more information on the organization. I never asked specifically if they came in because of the pen, but I did notice some new members were using them!

RR