<< Do you offer an incentive to your customer to post in your company forum? Or maybe something for them to get someone to signup? Do you offer an incentive for anything else and if you do, what is it? Do you think they work?Are they worth it? Do you think the return outweights the cost? >>
I don't have company forums now. I find, that if the clients don't post in them - it can put a very bad image on the company. However, if the clients post a lot - then of course it makes the image of the company better. The problem with my company and forums, none of my clients wish to use forums since they are given support via e-mail, helpdesk, aim, msn, icq and yim - meaning of course the options are endless, and they really don't see a point in posting in the forums. This, is actually quite the same with many web hosts and companies unfortunately - and also people interested in becoming a client, if they see an empty forum, then they are put off. However, thankfully this isn't always the case. 🙂
I do offer specials to my clients, if they have one of their friends signup. This can range from a free domain, to free months worth of hosting, to even a full dedicated server if they actively keep referring people. However, unfortunately the most of my clients aren't too bothered on doing this.
Do they work, not all the time. Is it worth it? Certainly. Does the return outweigh the cost? In my case, yes.
I'm pretty sure 99% of companies do something to get more clients, for example if you pay a full year in full, or two years in full. Some clients I even offer a domain name free for the whole time they're with my company. This helps too.
Everything and anything does help, and 99.9% of the time the return does outweight the initial cost.
