TAG City Survey Results
Here's some TAG City info for you. Much of it is the result of the survey of TAG City members we conducted.
Response
At the time of publishing this page, 469 members had read the survey and 159 of them had responded to the questions.
Membership Fee
97% of members who responded indicated that they were frequently on the site. Many were on the site several times each day.
On the payment question, 53 members said they would pay and 106 said they wouldn't. Many of the 106 who said they wouldn't pay also stated that in their opinions TAG was great fun and one of the best sites they had come across. For their own reasons though they would not pay.
Working With The Results
I'm sorry if the TAG City responses to some of the general comments below appear blunt, but we are standing on a different side of the fence to the members. At the end of this post you will be asked to stand on our side also and make a decision based on facts.
Member Comment: TAG needs more cash prizes and they need to be bigger.
TAG Response: The irony surrounding this comment was that these very same members, and it was about 1 in every 7 who responded to the survey who told us we needed more cash prizes, said that they would not pay a membership fee at all. It apparently didn't matter where the money for extra cash prizes was to come from but it wasn't coming from fees paid by these members.
Member Comment: TAG will lose many loyal members if they charge a membership fee.
TAG Response: What is TAG losing if these loyal members leave? They are a drain on resources and a cost to the site. They have no intention of paying to support the site. They are an expense to the TAG site, and an expense that they feel TAG should bear simply because they call themselves loyal. The bottom line is that TAG can't afford their loyalty. As the old saying goes... with friends like these, who need enemies.
Member Comment: Sites like xxxx only charge $5 membership for a few months and they have cash prizes of $5,000.
TAG Response: And what have you won from xxxx for your $5 membership fee? When you play for a cash prize at xxxx you can be playing against MILLIONS of other players. When you are playing for up to a $100 first prize in a TAG City tournament, you can be playing against as few as 100 other players. TAG City in fact offers closer to TRUE odds against winning than any other gaming site. TAG City offers closer to TRUE odds at this time even though we don't collect a membership fee. The reality is, and in our opinion, sites like xxxx should be paying out individual cash prizes of $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000 and not just $5,000 for the amount of members they have.
Member Comment: If you charged less than $17.95 per Gold member per month, TAG would find that it would get more players paying and TAG would earn more money.
TAG Response: What facts is the above statement based on? Just thinking it would work better doesn't mean it would. Let's look at it based on some hard information that we do have. And remember, this is from a business point of view and TAG City has to be profitable if it is going to stay up and running.
Fact: Of the 7,000 TAG City members we have at this time, it has cost TAG approximately $8 per person in advertising and promotional fees just to get them signed up as members. This means TAG has invested $56,000 to get the membership numbers to what they now stand at.
Fact: Of the 7,000 TAG City members we have at this time, only 800 are active on the site. This brings the cost of acquiring a new member who is ACTIVE up from $8 to $70. Just getting members signed up doesn't mean a thing unless they become active.
Fact: Of the 800 active members, only around 400 are very active and on the site several times each week. This means the other 400 are not truly excited about the site and one would assume would not see benefit at all in paying a membership fee.
Fact: Our recent survey indicated that only 39% would pay a membership fee regardless of how much the fee was. 39% of 400 very active members is 156 members.
Fact: Without further promotion to gain new members, TAG City needs $10,000 per month to keep building games, pay wages and cash prizes. Approximately $1,500 of the $10,000 would cover cash prizes as they now stand.
Fact: Until we have at least 5,000 active members, no reasonable sized business will pay for advertising at TAG City. The survival of the site can not rely on advertising revenue.
Now that we have the above facts to base some figures on, let's do so.
Gold membership fees required to gain an income of $10,000 per month:
$50 per month: 200 members.
$25 per month: 400 members.
$17.95 per month: 557 members.
$10 per month: 1,000 members.
$5 per month: 2,000 members.
Let's take this a step further and see what the advantages and disadvantages are for the TAG City site and the members themselves. All that glitters is not Gold!
$50 per month: 200 members.
TAG: Gaining 200 paying members is far easier for TAG than trying to gain a greater number, regardless of the amount of the membership fee. If put to the test, we probably already have up to 50 members who would jump at this opportunity to be so exclusive. Even if they only did so in an effort to support TAG and give it a chance of survival. TAG would have less processing fees and less members to deal with. TAG would have more time to better provide individual customer support with such a small membership base. It would cut the site back to a one man part time operation which would save $1,000 or more in support wages per month. Such a small number of members would not be a good move for sponsors of the site. However, they would at least be members who have money to spend. The $1,000 saved in wages could be used to support the top five prize giving sponsors.
Members: Would receive more individual support and hand holding. Regardless of which tournament they were playing in, the worst odds they would have of being the major prize winner would be as little as 200/1. They would each have a better chance of winning bids for auction items because less members would be interested in each item. Each member would receive the benefits that the Platinum members now get. That means they can promote a business at TAG City for no additional fee other than the $50 they pay for Gold membership. Members would belong to an exclusive site and feel very good about it. It would be more like a Club.
$25 per month: 400 members.
TAG: The benefits to TAG would not be near as good as listed above for the $50 fee, but still very attractive. It would be twice as difficult for TAG to gain 400 paying members but it is doable.
Members: Would have twice the competition in auctions and tournaments. The customer service would not be as individual as that provided for a $50 membership. There would be more members to chat with on the site though, and more activity. It's always nice to see activity. It makes members feel part of something alive instead of visiting a graveyard.
$17.95 per month: 557 members.
This was the original choice and plan of TAG City management. $17.95 is no more than a pizza and coke in some parts of the world. It's merely 60 cents per day for access to a site with unique games, cash prizes, great sponsored prizes, a FREE auction, and great membership. 557 paying members, although not easy, is an achievable number for TAG City to gain over a few months. It would take two people to man support between them, so no saving's in wages would be made. It would give sponsors a lot more members to present their products and services to.
Members: Would see the level of support on the site remain at the standard it now is. Would certainly see more games placed on the site because TAG would have money to work with. Would not feel too much of a strain by paying under $20 per month for a membership.
$10 per month: 1,000 members.
TAG: Who are we kidding? TAG City needs an income NOW! As per the facts above, we don't even have 800 active members on the site right now, and membership is FREE at this time. How the blazes are we going to get 1,000 PAYING members? Lets say 400 (half) of those 800 members did pay their $10 membership fee. That still leaves us short of 600 paying members. To get 600 paying members, based on our history of promotional costs, TAG has to pay $70 per person. 600 x $70 = $42,000.
Just to recover what it costs TAG to get each of those 600 new active members, each new member has to remain a $10 paying member for 7 months. We are sure to have a drop off along the way.
We may be able to do $10 as an introductory first month fee, but that would be the limits to it. It would at least show how many members were prepared to pay something.
Members: Would find that winning auctions and prizes would be almost twice as hard as if membership was $17.95 per month. The site would last a couple of months and then be sold for scrap because the total of 1,000 paying members would not be reached.
$5 per month: 2,000 members.
TAG: This is just not an option. We have to cut our losses at some time and this membership fee would simply add to our losses.
Members: Would have the joy of searching for other games sites because TAG would return a "Page Cannot Be Found" message.
To sum up, and purely from a business point of view, TAG City management prefers the $50 per month option. We didn't, until we looked at the comments in response to the survey and added the figures up.
The more membership costs, the more special each individual member will feel. A $50 per month fee would set TAG City aside from other sites like xxxx. This is perhaps the problem we face with charging a fee of between $10 and $20. It's so close to the fee that xxxx charges, that members keep comparing TAG City with that other site. The truth is, with the points auction and the odds of winning cash at TAG City being many millions of times more in the players favor, the sites are not comparable at all in anything but cost of membership. And because TAG City is looking at charging more, members use xxxx as a tool to try and argue that the proposed TAG City membership fee should be less. To stop them doing that, there needs to be a huge difference in the membership fees. A difference that makes people actually stop and think about what TAG City offers them as a stand alone site, instead of comparing it with other cheap sites just to get their way on the membership fee.
I personally am liking the idea of a $50 per month membership more and more (much less work). I'm not saying that's the way we will go, because I did want TAG City to be a site for everyone. But faced with facts, no cash left, and cold hard reality, it is certainly the better option.
I would like to see members arguments for and against the suggested fees above. You need to respond talking through your head and not your pocket. Emotion and your personal financial situation frankly don't matter. For this particular exercise, this is not all about you. It's about TAG City and making it viable and keeping it running. You have all the facts you need. If you owned TAG City, had ran out of money, was deeply in debt as a result of building the site, and had the choices described above. What decision would you make?
Post your thoughts at GoneGambling in our Forum post.
Regards,
John Abbott
Manager - TAG City
