TDR website

CSnyder · May 29, 2005

I was wondering why non members have so much access to the site? For example right now I looked and I see we have 106 members online and 556 guests. Why can't the TDR staff limit more of what guests can see on the site and thus generate more revenue from new members in order for the staff to be able to lower a members costs for membership. I am however not complaining how much my annual membership is but however I think TDR would be "huge" in aspects of generating more members by limiting access to free info from the knowledge of those of us members who share info on TDR. I also believe it would help sales at Geno's garage by also getting out more catalogs to new members and thus creating more sales. Then as stated in another forum about why can't Geno's give a discount to TDR members, they could justify giving discounts to TDR members since their sales would go up from new TDR members and those who feel TDR members should get a discount would be able to get a better deal when Geno's is able to buy in larger volume and pass on the savings to members.

This is just a thought I had and maybe I am way out of the scope on the whole deal but I think we could easily go from nearly 25,000 members to upwards of 100,000 with limited access. Perhaps offering a limited guest access for 30 days for "x" amount of money. Could we start a poll and let the paying members vote?

Thank you for your time staff, Chris Snyder

CSnyder · May 29, 2005

One other thing I would like to add is that in the last few monthes I have been a member I have suggested to several people I know who own Dodge diesels that they should become a member. Of the ones who already know about TDR they said why should they pay a membership fee when they can learn all they need to know and find out what works best without paying dues to TDR. I think there needs to be more of an incentive to paying the dues besides being able to post and see the forums that are member only right now and the magazine plus all the small things we get for being members. All this comes right down to the membership drives motto " for less than an hours worth of shop labor you can learn more than you need to know on the TDR to do your own repairs"

Thank you, Chris Snyder

Gary - K7GLD · May 29, 2005

You may have a valid point - lots of sites display "tease" material to generate interest in coughing up the $$$ to gain full access - perhaps posting only thread topics, with a few small exerpts of popular current topics, past and present, could clearly display the sites aim and content, and stimulate the interest to actually join to gain more inside info...

But yeah, why JOIN, when you can already get so much for free...

The "why buy the cow, when milk's so cheap" line of reasoning...

Steve St.Laurent · May 29, 2005

We have that coming very soon. We are rolling out in the very near future a "TDR test drive" where people can get 1 free copy of the magazine. We will also highlight the features they can get to as members that they can't as non-members when we do that. Non-members do not have the ability to use the search feature for example - which with over 1,000,000 posts it would be pretty difficult to dig out some of the material without using the search. At the same time that we do that we are going to be limiting the amount of posts that non-members can read. We are deciding right now exactly how we are going to limit that. We need to have enough out there for people to see what they could get. Two of our options we are considering implementing (one or both will be implemented) is limited the number of threads they can read in a day (like 30 per day) and limiting how far back they can view (say the last 30 days). Robin & Robert are finalizing the mailing of the sample issues and once that's finished it'll be online - should be within the next couple weeks. Here's the text they will see when they sign up for that issue which highlights the benefits of membership. If I've missed something let me know so I can add it:

<center>#ad
</center> 

Thank you for signing up for the TDR Test Drive! We will process your request ASAP and you can

expect your free issue to arrive in 4-6 weeks. In the meantime we'd like to inform you of some of

the benefits of TDR Membership. 

<ul><li>4 issues of the TDR magazine per year including these columns:

<UL><LI>Tailgating - A Letter From The Editor</LI><LI>Letter Exchange - Responses From The Readers</LI><LI>Member2Member - Members' Solutions To Members' Questions</LI><LI>Technical Topics - Service/Parts Update</LI><LI>First Generation - Owner-Specific Articles On The '89 - '93 Dodge Diesel Trucks</LI><LI>12-Valve Engines - Owner-Specific Articles On The '94 - '98. 5 12-Valve Dodge Diesel Trucks</LI><LI>24-Valve Engines - Owner-Specific Articles On The '98. 5 - '02 24-Valve Dodge Diesel Trucks </LI><LI>Third Generation - Owner-Specific Articles On The '03 And Newer Dodge Diesel Trucks </LI><LI>Blowin' In The Wind - Industry News</LI><LI>Shadetree - Back To The Basics</LI><LI>Celebrity Corner - The Shadetree Mechanic - Sam Memmolo</LI><LI>From The Shop Floor - Tips From Turbo Diesel Repair Shops</LI><LI>Products Showcase - Featured Products</LI><LI>TDRelease - Vendor Press Releases</LI></UL></li><li>in many areas of the country a local chapter with events</li><li>a yearly printed copy of the TDR Travel companion listing approximately 700 TDR members across the country willing to help you if you have trouble on the road</li> <li>Complete access to the TDR website including:<ul><li>Ability to do advanced searches over 1. 1 million posts</li><li>access to members only forums (Truck 911, FAQ Forums, Discontinued parts support, Rigs spotted, Pay it forward, Other, and Political)</li><li>posting ability to the forums</li><li>ability to read an unlimited number of posts from the forums</li><li>can customize your forum list to your interests</li><li>limit searches to forums your interested in</li><li>view posts since you last logged on</li><li>private message ability to other members</li><li>chat room access</li><li>Diesel truck specific TSB listing by model year</li><li>online access to the Travel Companion database (with most current information)</li></ul></li></ul> 

We look forward to possibly having you as a subscriber in the near future and hope that you enjoy your free issue!</center>

bmoeller · May 29, 2005

I understand what you are saying Chris (I've noticed that too. ), but I wonder if these changes will make much of difference at all, in new memberships. I am also a member of the DTR, just as active as this site is too, and it is free. Lots of good info over there, too. However, I prefer this site over any of the others I've been a part of. Even if we didn't have the magazine, the $35/yr membership has been MORE than worth it. Have saved LOTS of money on needed parts, and saved about $1-1500 on my engine mods, vs. buying a Banks Power Pack that I originally was planning to purchase, prior to joining the TDR. I'm making as much, or maybe more power than what that kit is good for, for the money. Can't shake a stick at that.

Just my 2 cents.

Joseph Donnelly · May 29, 2005

I can't complain about the cost of membership. It was the same $35 back in 1996. However, we now get a website with forum and classifieds, and a quarterly magazine that is literally three times as big, for the same $35. Also, the quality of the articles has increased steadily over the years.

FourBarR · Jun 6, 2005

Joseph Donnelly said:
I can't complain about the cost of membership. It was the same $35 back in 1996. However, we now get a website with forum and classifieds, and a quarterly magazine that is literally three times as big, for the same $35. Also, the quality of the articles has increased steadily over the years.

I agree with all of this ,Ithink we give too much away for free. now if I could only get someone to explain why I can pay my membership on line. been try for 2 weeks to figure it out. did it last year without any problem. guess I will have to do it the long way by snale mail. cheers.

Steve St.Laurent · Sep 7, 2005

We just implemented some of this today. It took longer than expected with other things taking priority (both work on the site and in my personal life with our new daughter just arriving 3 weeks ago) - so we're a couple months behind. The TDR Test Drive is now on the front page (and in the banner rotation). We have also restricted non-members from viewing threads with the latest reply more than 5 days old. If they try to view a thread that hasn't had a reply in 5 days they'll see the very first post and then a note about why they aren't seeing the other replies, how many replies are there, a link to the TDR Test Drive, and then a list of the benefits of membership. We're hoping this will accomplish a couple items - convert some of the lurkers that we have on the site into users since they won't have access to the vast majority of the information here (but will have access to the most recent information so they can see what's here) and it will also reduce the amount of bandwidth that is being eaten up by people not supporting the site. We have other options that we could implement to restrict the number of threads they can see per day etc but we are going to see how this goes first. Thanks for the input.

FourBarR - I had missed your post back in June. Hopefully you got it taken care of. The subscription renewal page is not tied to the forums in any way shape or form (not even on the same server) for security purposes. 99% of the time when someone is having trouble renewing there it's because they are trying to use their forum username and password which won't work. If you forgot the username and password you used to sign up there you can just sign up again and the TDR staff will match up your subscription based on your name and address.

CSnyder · Sep 8, 2005

You Rock Steve!!!

akshadow · Sep 8, 2005

Does a "member" show up as a "guest" if they don't sign in or have computer set to auto sign in? I would think so so maybe some "guests" are really members?

but I agree limiting access to some of the forums or threads would make sense for people to want to join

Steve St.Laurent · Sep 8, 2005

Yes they do. They need to sign in to have everything available to them - there's no other way for the system to know whether they are a member or not.

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CSnyder

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CSnyder

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