Patriot
Administrator
Hello earthers!
I am putting up an update just to let people know where we are now with the 4x4earth community, what is going well, what is going not so well and where I want to see the site going. I am looking for your input. What do you want? What is it that you want to see happen? Do you want to help? Would you help?
Firstly about about where we are today -
In the history of the forum we have had 12,038,513 sessions, 6,523,829 users, 50,551,595 pages. The 50 millionth page was in mid December!
So one of our claims to fame is that we have helped well over 1,000,000 people find a good route!
Here is some data from the new site. The exciting thing was that last week was the second best traffic week in the history of the forum, but the first highest was a week when we sent an email out that got 8,000 visits, so this is our highest unsupported week. The site is growing quite nicely!
The Facebook page is growing very nicely as well. One thing that amazes some people is the engagement. Unfortunately some companies out there build their Facebook following with cheap likes from Thailand and the Philippines, but struggle to have meaningful conversations about local topics. 4x4earth's Facebook page is really good at generating engagement, with nearly 400,000 people reached in the last month.
The podcast has been a massive highlight for me. I've got to speak to some amazing people and the number of people I meet all over Australia who listen to the podcast is really amazing.
The Podcast has had over 100,000 podcasts which is huge in the podcast world.
We are in the top 5% of all podcasts by downloads, which is pretty amazing for a podcast with a predominantly Australian audience.
Two of our episodes are in the most popular automotive podcasts.
We are currently the Number 5 Automotive podcast (Dammit, should have got this picture yesterday - we were number 3.) But we are the largest Australian Automotive podcast.
Which brings us to the money.
So the headline figure is that the site has bought in $93,000. There is other much smaller lines of revenue. We have started running a few bespoke ad campaigns, but this is probably 85% of the revenue that we have bought in. The downside is that this is 10 years worth of revenue.
The costs to build and maintain the site are significantly higher. Then there are legal costs, we've stopped going to the Brisbane show because we couldn't justify the number of new members we got for the cost of flying to Brisbane. It is a lot cheaper to run an ad on Facebook and pick up another 200 members that way.
On top of that there are the legal fees (thank you very much 2 camper trailer companies whose name I will not spek in this hallowed forum!) and other sundry costs with running a company.
We have struggled with getting engagement with the big 4 wheel drive companies which is something that I am pretty frustrated with.
This thread has been seen 143,000 times and it is usually from Google that people find this thread and we can see that a lot of people read a large number of the pages about this. When you distill it down, the ARB product isn't too bad, but they have issues getting them fitted - this is an industry wide issue. However, I shudder to think how many people have decided not to purchase an ARB locker. If only 10% of these people didn't buy a locker, that is $20 million in revenue. (They turn over $356,000,000)
I think that lack of meaningful support from corporates is a big issue. Patrol 4x4, which was always the big 4 wheel drive forum when we started was sold to a European company and the peaked in 2013 and have slowly shrunk since then.
There may be a significant opportunity here. One thing that a lot of the 4 wheel drive industry is not doing is worrying about track closures. The work that we have done out at O'Tooles with Grumpy and the Gippy Crew, I think, is a model for the 4 wheel drive community moving forward.
We have reached out to most of them, usually on multiple occassions, but none have really seen any value in the work that we do, or the community that we have - which is something that I really find quite amazing. We are here, educating, organising and inspiring people to go out offroad (which means they need to buy their products, and yet our contribution is viewed as virtually worthless.)
People like Dave Manning and his team run probably Australia's largest free weekend away. This is a massive acheivement and these events are where people learn about the modifications that they should be buying for their car. On top of that, every track closure I think will decrease all of TJM's, ARB's or Ironmans revenue. A major sponsor would make a big difference in the number of events and trips that would be organised.
And of course I got to get out and explore some of our amazing country and have some awesome times!
Some not so awesome times!
It has been great to get outdoors with the family and camping is one of the thing that our two kids really love.
And along the way we have met some of the most interesting, friendly and skilled 4 wheel drivers in the country - you!
It is becoming increasingly difficult to run a forum these days. We are lucky, given that I run an online marketing business and have access to some awesome web developers. Without the ability to draw on those guys, we would never have survived, but it needs to be done on a economic basis. It is very hard to find great developers, we never have enough of them and there is always a lot of work on, so it is difficult to get time to build major features, like the tracks database or other new and exciting features, when there is no very little money coming in.
Which leaves us with want do you as the users of 4x4earth want and what are you prepared to pay for?
We have had multiple offers to buy the site. I don't know for how much because we have never really been interested in selling it. The site needs to stay in the hands of people committed to helping people to enjoy the great Australian outback and more important to ensuring that the next generation of 4 wheel drivers is taught how to drive responsibly. If we don't get more 4 wheel drivers, we will never be able to keep the tracks open, and never be able to start talking about track openings.
I would like to make some money, so a) I didn't have to work so hard
, so that I could get more time to go 4 wheel driving and b) that we can add some of the features that we need to speed up the growth of the site.
What are your thoughts? I am strongly against paid membership, because it is most important that the people heading out for their first trip have all the information, knowledge and people they need to go out and have a great first time so that they come back for a second time.
Should we run a donations month like Wikipedia does?
Would you buy a T-Shirt or other 4earth gear to support the forum?
Would you buy other products if we created stores for them, eg recovery gear, lights, or radios?
Does anyone know peopel at the major companies who would be interested in being promoted as a copany supporting the 4WD community and track openings? There are podcasts, tracks maps, trip organisers, all many of promotions that we could do. This in itself would be a huge difference.
What have you seen work on other forums?
I am really keen to make a bit of money to be able to push on with what we have all created here. The mods, trip leaders, popdcast guest, people who answer questions, have all helped so many people find a great route over the years, but there is still a lot of work to be done. I think some money to hire someone part time to do things like organise sponsorships, trips, events and the like would make a huge difference to.
Keen to hear your ideas.
Thanks
James
I am putting up an update just to let people know where we are now with the 4x4earth community, what is going well, what is going not so well and where I want to see the site going. I am looking for your input. What do you want? What is it that you want to see happen? Do you want to help? Would you help?
Firstly about about where we are today -
In the history of the forum we have had 12,038,513 sessions, 6,523,829 users, 50,551,595 pages. The 50 millionth page was in mid December!
So one of our claims to fame is that we have helped well over 1,000,000 people find a good route!
Here is some data from the new site. The exciting thing was that last week was the second best traffic week in the history of the forum, but the first highest was a week when we sent an email out that got 8,000 visits, so this is our highest unsupported week. The site is growing quite nicely!
The Facebook page is growing very nicely as well. One thing that amazes some people is the engagement. Unfortunately some companies out there build their Facebook following with cheap likes from Thailand and the Philippines, but struggle to have meaningful conversations about local topics. 4x4earth's Facebook page is really good at generating engagement, with nearly 400,000 people reached in the last month.
The podcast has been a massive highlight for me. I've got to speak to some amazing people and the number of people I meet all over Australia who listen to the podcast is really amazing.
The Podcast has had over 100,000 podcasts which is huge in the podcast world.
We are in the top 5% of all podcasts by downloads, which is pretty amazing for a podcast with a predominantly Australian audience.
Two of our episodes are in the most popular automotive podcasts.
We are currently the Number 5 Automotive podcast (Dammit, should have got this picture yesterday - we were number 3.) But we are the largest Australian Automotive podcast.
Which brings us to the money.
So the headline figure is that the site has bought in $93,000. There is other much smaller lines of revenue. We have started running a few bespoke ad campaigns, but this is probably 85% of the revenue that we have bought in. The downside is that this is 10 years worth of revenue.
The costs to build and maintain the site are significantly higher. Then there are legal costs, we've stopped going to the Brisbane show because we couldn't justify the number of new members we got for the cost of flying to Brisbane. It is a lot cheaper to run an ad on Facebook and pick up another 200 members that way.
On top of that there are the legal fees (thank you very much 2 camper trailer companies whose name I will not spek in this hallowed forum!) and other sundry costs with running a company.
We have struggled with getting engagement with the big 4 wheel drive companies which is something that I am pretty frustrated with.
This thread has been seen 143,000 times and it is usually from Google that people find this thread and we can see that a lot of people read a large number of the pages about this. When you distill it down, the ARB product isn't too bad, but they have issues getting them fitted - this is an industry wide issue. However, I shudder to think how many people have decided not to purchase an ARB locker. If only 10% of these people didn't buy a locker, that is $20 million in revenue. (They turn over $356,000,000)
I think that lack of meaningful support from corporates is a big issue. Patrol 4x4, which was always the big 4 wheel drive forum when we started was sold to a European company and the peaked in 2013 and have slowly shrunk since then.
There may be a significant opportunity here. One thing that a lot of the 4 wheel drive industry is not doing is worrying about track closures. The work that we have done out at O'Tooles with Grumpy and the Gippy Crew, I think, is a model for the 4 wheel drive community moving forward.
We have reached out to most of them, usually on multiple occassions, but none have really seen any value in the work that we do, or the community that we have - which is something that I really find quite amazing. We are here, educating, organising and inspiring people to go out offroad (which means they need to buy their products, and yet our contribution is viewed as virtually worthless.)
And of course I got to get out and explore some of our amazing country and have some awesome times!
It has been great to get outdoors with the family and camping is one of the thing that our two kids really love.
And along the way we have met some of the most interesting, friendly and skilled 4 wheel drivers in the country - you!
It is becoming increasingly difficult to run a forum these days. We are lucky, given that I run an online marketing business and have access to some awesome web developers. Without the ability to draw on those guys, we would never have survived, but it needs to be done on a economic basis. It is very hard to find great developers, we never have enough of them and there is always a lot of work on, so it is difficult to get time to build major features, like the tracks database or other new and exciting features, when there is no very little money coming in.
Which leaves us with want do you as the users of 4x4earth want and what are you prepared to pay for?
We have had multiple offers to buy the site. I don't know for how much because we have never really been interested in selling it. The site needs to stay in the hands of people committed to helping people to enjoy the great Australian outback and more important to ensuring that the next generation of 4 wheel drivers is taught how to drive responsibly. If we don't get more 4 wheel drivers, we will never be able to keep the tracks open, and never be able to start talking about track openings.
I would like to make some money, so a) I didn't have to work so hard
, so that I could get more time to go 4 wheel driving and b) that we can add some of the features that we need to speed up the growth of the site.What are your thoughts? I am strongly against paid membership, because it is most important that the people heading out for their first trip have all the information, knowledge and people they need to go out and have a great first time so that they come back for a second time.
Should we run a donations month like Wikipedia does?
Would you buy a T-Shirt or other 4earth gear to support the forum?
Would you buy other products if we created stores for them, eg recovery gear, lights, or radios?
Does anyone know peopel at the major companies who would be interested in being promoted as a copany supporting the 4WD community and track openings? There are podcasts, tracks maps, trip organisers, all many of promotions that we could do. This in itself would be a huge difference.
What have you seen work on other forums?
I am really keen to make a bit of money to be able to push on with what we have all created here. The mods, trip leaders, popdcast guest, people who answer questions, have all helped so many people find a great route over the years, but there is still a lot of work to be done. I think some money to hire someone part time to do things like organise sponsorships, trips, events and the like would make a huge difference to.
Keen to hear your ideas.
Thanks
James
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