November Warrior Forum update: ohhh

Yes, nice observation and a crucial question. Surely they would not raise prices and at the same time actually have less WSOs on the front page ???
Quite honestly, I think a lot of people would be exiting real quickly in using this as a Marketplace if that is the case.

I agree 100% as a seller.

At least see if this new stylesheet increases engagement before claiming it is worth 200%. The current stylesheet for example, is worth ~30% of previous one, yet the bump fees do not correlate to that change. Seem to be on a mission to drive sellers away, when in fact, we both want the same thing: more customers for us means more business for you.

Damn Chris you punk, just when I think I have my mind,beliefs, opinions about this new development solidified and unwavering you have to come along with a Post that totally makes sense. And makes me rethink what I just posted lol

Gab , Chris is spot on as the traffic is dismal, to say the least. It's really. really bad.

If it was what it once was say 7 years ago, sure a price increase would be warranted. But it's just NOT really worth it now that I think about it.

Imo, you should at least keep the Bumps at $20. I think that would be fair. This would keep the ones with solid products (that people are continual hungry for) to stay around and keep promoting their evegreen products in a long term manner with these Bumps.

In a sense it would work all the way around.You would potentially weed out the 'quick hit' WSO sellers with half- assed products who do not want to pay the $40 but reward the WSO sellers who have quality products and positive reviews on their Thread who do and want to continue promoting long term with the $20 bump

I agree 100% as a seller too. I like your suggestion about increasing engagement and activity in the wso section first to justify a price hike. I'm not one to make excuses or blame something and not hold myself accountable,

BUT, I have done a WSO in the past where I tweaked tons of different things, the tags, the sales copy, the sales graphics, the title of the WSO, the social proof, valuable free bonuses, tons and tons of tweaks over several months, with not much change to the daily traffic figures at all even when sitting at the top of WSO page 1 for 1-2 hours, so I'm glad you brought that up, nicheblogger75.

It's an interesting point, it does feel like there's less activity in the WSO section for sure.

Either way, it's good to see you guys are actively doing something in an attempt to fix certain issues, thanks Gabriel I appreciate you. But whether that happens by raising the posting fee to $40, I'm not so sure, mostly because whether it's $20, or $40, the engagement on the WSO section just does not seem to be there as nicheblogger75 says

Hey Gab,
In all due respect, we "react" so quickly because it is something that is half way important to some of us.

Hey man, I totally applaud your efforts to take the initiative to make changes to help our Forum.

Absolutely, I really do.

But Iam just raising some concerns and questions.

Whether we "react" 5 minutes right after you post this Thread or 5 days after you do, what's the difference.

Btw, the other stuff you talk about above sounds really great !!

thank you so much, Marcus

Marcus, I hope in this new design people will still be allowed in some form of a thread in the WSO to Post about the Product and giving back unbiased Review from their purchase of the product, ask questions etc... ??

That is a big deal. And weeds out the bad from good. Having a place where people can voice their concerns about the seller and his product and engaging prospects/customers with questions and answers is an excellent tool to have all the way around, for buyers, for lurkers who are looking, for sellers, for Admin. to check on etc..etc..

I'd have to disagree with that.

7 years ago you could post a WSO and make 100 sales just from forum traffic.

Today, if you don't drive outside traffic to your WSO or have affiliates promoting, you'll be lucky to make 10-15 sales.

That's the reality.

As for the new design, whatever.

If it improves traffic, great. My experience tells me that changing a design doesn't really do much of anything. I've seen awesome looking sales pages bomb, and ugly sales pages make thousands of sales.

As for the price, sure, there will always be people who pay it. The question is how many of them will be willing to bump their listing for $40 if the initial traffic isn't there?

The whole point of listing your product in the WSO section is to offer it to Warriors (members of the forum). If you have to drive your own traffic to the offer or rely on affiliates to promote it for you, it kind of defeats the purpose of listing it there in the first place. Isn't it just easier to make your own sales page if you have to generate your own traffic?

I applaud your efforts. I really do. And I'm not trying to be negative, but your only concentration right now should be to grow forum membership and engagement.

You guys are always talking about the "1.3 million members." Well, where are they all? Maybe you've got that many people registered, but let's face it, I don't even think you've got 1% actively engaging.

Why not launch an email campaign and try to bring the inactive members into the fold?

You're focusing on fancy graphics and enhancing your revenue model way before you should be.

You're trying to fly your airplane without enough fuel. Sure, you'll get off the ground, but how long can you stay airborne?

My advice - Sink that design money into advertising.

Hire some mods with it to go through the massive amounts of redundant threads that get started every day.

You've got some loyal members here who really want to see you succeed (including myself). I think you need to start listening more to the members instead of the execs who are obviously only concerned about turning a profit right now.

You've got to examine the reasons why so many people left. I know you keep talking about how the past is the past, etc. Sometimes, though, you need to look back before you look ahead, especially if you've wandered off of your path.

I used to hang out in the forum every day, sometimes for an hour or more at a shot.

Why? It was exciting. Threads were getting responses in seconds. TONS of high quality info from all the big names in IM.

Nowadays, I might visit for 15-20 minutes every 2-3 days, most times never even making a post. Why? Something is missing. Even when a thread that I'm interested in gets started, I open it to find the same 4-5 awesome members making decent responses, followed by dozens of one line responses like "This is a very interesting subject," etc.

Guys, bring back the awesome sauce. There is a core group of about 15-20 people here pulling for you.

I'll support you no matter what. I'm just telling you how it looks from where I sit.

Thats the thing - we are marketers . Its ALL about the traffic. Design can and often does improve conversion but seasoned marketers will take 10% on 500 visits all day 7 days a week over 25% On 50 visits.

The reality is running a WSO is going to tip close to $100 as anyone who has done a WSO knows the bump can end up being better than the initial listing (so you have to commit to 1- 2 bumps even on an offer that doesn't quite take in the end).

So I have to decide whether the $100 is better spent somewhere I can drive qualified targeted visits from for the same cash (and straight to my site no less with branding and returning traffic benefits). Right now the confidence is not that high on the traffic at WF (that goes for quantity and quality). We all appreciate marketing and it is just good marketing to cite that WF has 1+ million users but as to whether thats active members much less buying members - I don't think I have to get into that as most of the regulars here have their answer already.

So if this were a rebrand - WF is now going to be about higher quality and we are going to advertise it on that basis. I think everyone would be great with it including the price increase. However without any indication of what marketing will be done and with the full obvious knowledge that a $20 increase is not going to magically cut off the low quality stuff - questions remain

because - permission to speak freely - if you want to increase quality thats easily and more effectively done though moderating the offers without any price increase (which to be fair I think is near inconsequential ).

So at the end of the day if you want to attract back old members running WSO and new ones it still comes back to traffic, traffic and traffic (on both quantity and quality).

Its ALL about traffic over design - which is why craigslist is still humming along.

What you said around 2:40 in about the first experience of a WSO buyer tarring their perception of the entire forum for life because of the purchase of a lousy $2 product...passionately expressed and totally explained where you're coming from. Appreciated.

We are still figuring it out. No new marketplace has been launched just yet. We are just designing.

Thanks mate

This made my day

Thx man

To be honest, no idea. I wasn't aware it was $5 ... I need to check and get back to you guys

So, you guys are going to double the fees, but then post your own multiple offers which ends up pushing the paying customers posts off of the first page a lot faster.

I just saw around 8 offers from WFBlackFriday on the first page.

You guys really don't think these things through or you just don't care about your paying customers.

My apologies if WFBlackFriday is not a Wafo account.

Where is the signup form for you to get our delivery address? Will this be a premium beer or some down under swag?

you would have already gotten beer money unless a beer cost more than the $20 difference on listing and bump fees. How much is enough? We would have done our part

Don't drink and moderate.

A resounding yes, yes, yes !!