Bearing that in mind, I thought I'd volunteer a bit of my professional experience in marketing towards developing methods to increase our paid membership base. Would anyone within LJ's administrative community be interested in exploring some ideas in this area?
Just to get the ball rolling, I outlined the following small initiative that could test our waters. Please comment at will.
- outline benefits to upgrading to paid service
- obtain testimonials from paid users about the value-added services they received upon signup
- post testimonials in prominent places throughout LJ (e.g. talkpost.bml, etc.) with a link visible only to unpaid members for "how to upgrade your membership"
- measure difference in rate of uptake between pre- and post-testimonial period to assess the campaign's effectiveness