It’s tough to follow up Lee’s last blog entry, but I’ll give it a shot. Oh who am I kidding, I can’t follow up $222,718! I may however be able to help you get a little piece of that pie.

Last week Juan and Lee talked about giving users a reason to register at your community. An incentive if you will. Private messaging, posting, searching, and chatting just aren’t enough. You’ve gotta have more! You’ve got to give members access to something exclusive. Something they won’t find at your competitors site. Laura talked last week about giving out free email addresses, this is a wonderful idea. But take it a step further. Megan from http://www.webmaster-forums.net offers 3 free months of hosting for new members. You may be able to work out some sort of deal with a company in your industry to offer free magazine subscriptions, coupons, an eBook, entry in to a giveaway. Depending on the topic of your community, you may be able to turn these incentives in to another revenue stream. Finding a company that will give free trials to your members and give you a percentage of the resulting sale. After you find an incentive remember to include a call to action. Just telling them about the incentive isn’t enough, get them to follow through. You want them to REGISTER right?! Nice big red letters “Register today and get 3 months of free hosting! Click Here”, “Join Our Community Now and Get Our Exclusive eBook!”.

No matter what you do, keep trying new things. You can’t maximize your monetization unless you are constantly trying new things! Don’t ever stop trying.

by Chris Kenworthy @ Ackfoo.com