To think MN is pitching Premium all wrong?

[StillCoughingandLaughing]

Every time I come onto MN I see ads for MN Premium. The clue is in the name - it’s a premium version of a service we currently get in exchange for being the subject of advertising. To actively start parting with my money for it, they need to offer me something special; something valuable. Yet the ad tells us very little about that. Instead, it tells us ‘Mumsnet needs your help’.

This is the kind of language I’d expect a charity or educational programme to use. It’s an appeal to help those who can’t help themselves. MN is not a charity - it’s a multi-million pound business. If they need more income, fine, start a premium service; but why pitch it as the chance to help some very rich people? Tell me why I should pay the service; what it will do for ME as a customer, not why MN wants/needs the money. It’s the equivalent of me going to my boss and saying ‘My mortgage payments have gone up and I’m planning to start a family, so I need a rise’. That might well be why I need the money, but it’s not why my boss should give it to me. I need to prove that I’m worth the money. MN needs to do the same.

Is it just me, or is this a total marketing failure and a complete misread of the mood of the audience?

I also don't get adds and use the mobile site

And I don't have Premium or have an add blocker

@lyralalala

The timing was appalling as well. A large business that employs 100 people putting out the begging bowl in the middle of a pandemic that hit women (in income and juggling work and home terms) harder than anyone

But the timing was exactly why they needed to ask for money! Because of the pandemic, advertisers have been pulling their money from most media (not just Mumsnet), so the key source of revenue for Mumsnet was significantly decreased. That's why they needed to ask for money.

[quote BIWI]@lyralalala

The timing was appalling as well. A large business that employs 100 people putting out the begging bowl in the middle of a pandemic that hit women (in income and juggling work and home terms) harder than anyone

But the timing was exactly why they needed to ask for money! Because of the pandemic, advertisers have been pulling their money from most media (not just Mumsnet), so the key source of revenue for Mumsnet was significantly decreased. That's why they needed to ask for money.[/quote]
My point was in connection with their insistence they couldn’t do the donation route as it would have created a two tier membership

They were always planning premium; it was in the pipeline and brought forward at a time where women were, generally, being hit hardest

Also the majority of their staff were furloughed and business loan options were available to them. Instead they brought forward their cash option with some heavy sob stories and snipes at people who used ad blockers

If they needed a quick cash injection they could have gone down the donation route (plus a good number actually pointed out they’d have donated a good sum because they could afford it, but wouldn’t trust mnhq with their details after their data breaches so it would have likely generated more money)

I think YABU, OP, though I have a lot of sympathy for your position. I don't think MN could sell Premium on the basis of what it offered because it really just didn't offer anything. At the point they launched it it didn't offer anything at all, just the promise of things to come. They would have had fewer sales and a higher percentage of pissed of members if they'd gone that route.

Instead they relied on the relationship they've built up with (a percentage of!) their regular members and on people's concern about businesses that they value going under during the pandemic. I would guess that got them more sign ups with lower expectations than if they'd gone the route you suggested.

At some point they're going to have to change because even those who would, effectively, donate to keep a big business going during a pandemic aren't going t be happy about doing it for ever.

It's the "fewer ads" thing that gets me. I would pay for something and STILL get ads? Really?

Agree

This site already lags way behind other forums in terms of usability and features, so to ask money for a service which appears to ad virtually nothing and frame it as an appeal for help is bizarre.

Agree. I use the mobile site and I can’t see a better way of quoting than using asterisks to bold the bit I’m replying to. There is a reply to a post option but all it does is send me to the comment text box, nothing quoted.

I did it to help Mumsnet out - as an actual add-on it provides no value whatsoever. So I agree with OP that it's a failure of marketing.

But it’s not a failure if you joined up. It played to your heart strings and you joined up despite you saying it had no other value, sounds successful to me

People do not pay for features, they pay for content. On MN, the content is entirely user-generated so the vast majority of users do not have enough sympathy to sign up for Premium when the emotional reward is talking and interacting with other human beings. This is different to creators using Patreon because fans know that they are paying to support the artist directly and receive exclusive content.

The closest comparison would be those fake rumours of Facebook requiring a paywall. People were outraged because whereas they love the site, they do not care about the company behind it. Even though most people use FB on a daily basis, most will probably not care if it goes under.You'll just switch to consuming social content through Whatsapp, Instagram etc. No platform is irreplaceable.

Another comparison is YouTube Premium which sounds almost like what they based the name off of. I subscribed in order to remove ads in children's videos so DD doesn't have to deal with loud, flashy interruptions every two minutes. That was worth every penny and brings a higher level of value into my life than Netflix and many other pricier paid services. It also allows you to download videos onto a phone/tablet and play those without mobile data outside the house. Again, this brings a huge added value to our lives when we're out and need to keep DD occupied for a short while.

YT Premium features are worth paying for because they effectively prevent far more unpleasant situations, e.g. tantrum in a restaurant, having a fight with your spouse, exposing a child to intrusive adverts etc. I cannot figure out what added value MN Premium will provide aside from an editing feature, which is borderline taking the piss considering every internet forum since 2002 has had one of those for free.

The main value of MN is being able to discuss real life situations with other people, and the community here is pleasantly articulate and informed on many topics. Giving the platform money is not going to elevate that level of discourse or change the people who come to the forum. It's unfortunate that they are no able to monetise the community as well as they could however that's common across all anonymous platforms. A lot of the pinned/sponsored posts have very little engagement because that's not the reason people come here.

It's not that I don't value Mumsnet, I do value it.
But what makes it valuable, is it the contribution of the owners or is it the contribution of the user's who provide all of the content?
It's like asking the cows to pay for the shelter that they receive whilst they are in the milking shed, the farmer already makes a profit from selling the milk, now he wants the cows to pay for the 'pleasure' of providing the milk

The main value of MN is being able to discuss real life situations with other people, and the community here is pleasantly articulate and informed on many topics. Giving the platform money is not going to elevate that level of discourse or change the people who come to the forum. It's unfortunate that they are no able to monetise the community as well as they could however that's common across all anonymous platforms. A lot of the pinned/sponsored posts have very little engagement because that's not the reason people come here
@User33019385
Great post which describes the situation very well!
Do you think Mumsnet are unaware of this 'contradiction' in their business model?

Also, it is a product that you can be banned from using for very little. Say something on here that men don't like and you will get a strike against your name.

That's precisely the reason I haven't signed up. The FWR board in particular is very rigorously policed - as is the language used on it -and has lost many valuable members. That, plus there is no way I would want my membership to be in any way traceable to me. There are certain political views which get women fired, doxxed, threatened and 'cancelled' these days.

What I don't think they've thought of is that if you are paying for Premium services vs giving a donation like Wikipedia asks for, you are expecting to be able to control or influence the content. This is why many user generated content sites don't offer premium services. Once someone pays for a product they want control over it.

Frankly this site is already a little too right wing for my tastes, I can't imagine if Premium customers pushed it further in that direction.

It feels as if Mumsnet don't really take the forum seriously.... not seriously enough to really understand what's going on?

The only decent advert is Green Acres selling decently priced overseas properties. Love what's currently on sale in France atm.

@MarieIVanArkleStinks

Also, it is a product that you can be banned from using for very little. Say something on here that men don't like and you will get a strike against your name.

That's precisely the reason I haven't signed up. The FWR board in particular is very rigorously policed - as is the language used on it -and has lost many valuable members. That, plus there is no way I would want my membership to be in any way traceable to me. There are certain political views which get women fired, doxxed, threatened and 'cancelled' these days.

Yeah, same here.

There's an odd sort of censorship on certain threads in regard to men.

So no premium for me

Although I seem to recall that their salary bill alone was around £360k a month,

What? I thought it was a small operation as the moderating is so amateur! And the site uses ancient functionality, so presumably they don't have loads of IT people. What on earth do they all DO?

Maybe they fund university degrees so that the moderators can develop their skills and go from amateur moderators to professional moderators? 🤔

@cologne4711

Although I seem to recall that their salary bill alone was around £360k a month,

What? I thought it was a small operation as the moderating is so amateur! And the site uses ancient functionality, so presumably they don't have loads of IT people. What on earth do they all DO?

They have a staff off 100 apparently.

@User33019385 Your post is fantastic and I really can’t add anything to what you’ve already said because you said it all, especially the point about monetising basic features (like an edit function) that most other forums have had since the dawn of time.

The FWR board in particular is very rigorously policed - as is the language used on it -and has lost many valuable members.

Yep, I’ve basically given up on FWR due to having my (rather innocuous and more importantly FACTUAL) posts zapped breathtakingly fast, over and over.

I find it sinister that MN would rather kowtow to a silent army of misogynist lurkers whose sole purpose is to report posts on FWR. Rather than, say, support actual MNers.

While Justine Roberts takes £25k a month and the staff bill is £350k a month, you'll have to forgive me for not feeling sorry if MN's ad revenue has temporarily gone down.

I subscribed in order to remove ads in children's videos so DD doesn't have to deal with loud, flashy interruptions every two minutes. That was worth every penny and brings a higher level of value into my life than Netflix and many other pricier paid services

AdBlock or similar browser add-ons can do this for free, it takes 2 seconds. No-one needs to pay to remove ads, unless the site has found a way to block you from using it, like Daily Mail.

i run an adblocker on the Daily Mail. not that i go on the Mail website, it’s for a friend. honest.

I am here mainly for the FWR board and aibu but read that one of the actual employees used information gained at mumsnet towers (the office) to dox Mumsnet users on twitter. It sounds awful, and so malicious so I couldn't trust them with my personal and financial details - although I do appreciate the board as a wealth of information and feel it is much needed.

There have also been too many data breaches for my comfort.