New members joining (response to invitations mailed)

Our mailing effort has started - 3000 invitations will be sent to each area in the list below, in five sets.

I will try to greet a few of our new members, but others in our group are welcome to say hello too!

Thanks, Peter

1. UK/W. Europe (exc. Spain) - sent out 9th Feb (3000 invitations)

First we see a peak in overall visitor numbers (max 500/day):

Then new members joining (within a 10 day window from left to right).

9th 10th 11th February

Very approximately, and extrapolating from these results, we can say that from 3000 direct mail invitations (to willing, promotional mail subscribers) we can expect approx. extra 400 visitors, and about 15 new members extra, compared to our usual visitor rate of around 100 per day, and new members of 1 per day. In percentage terms, we can say that about 1% of our spontaneous visitors like to join, while about 3.8 % of targeted visitors like to join.

We can also say that the result of targeted invitations to 3000 people produces a result in one day (15 extra members) equivalent to about 15 days of spontaneous visiting. A mailing campaign reaching approx. 30,000 people would thus be equivalent to 150 days of our usual online exposure. Paying for two mailing campaigns might be equivalent to almost a year of organic growth.

Results will naturally differ for other regions of the world. As we will see in the coming weeks.

2. Africa, Rest of S. America

Invitations went out on the 14th and gave a strong peak with approx 1000 new visitors over two days (a 10 x increase over usual numbers, approx.).

We immediately had about 80 new members join, or about 20 x our usual daily rate of new members joining. Thus about 8 % of targeted visitors liked to join from this region. The response from Africa compared to Europe is about twice as enthusiastic, in percentage terms, and much more enthusiastic in absolute numerical terms.

3. USA/Canada, Hong Kong (3000 invitations sent out 21st Feb., 2012)

First we see the visitors, with just a low peak (max 350/day approx.):

Then a low rise in new members (max about 14/day):

This is typical for North America, as people there are more generally saturated with online advertising of all sorts, and respond less to invitations. It looks like about 300 extra visits were received, and about 15 extra new members, or about 5% of targeted visitors.

4. Australia/NZ, Rest of Asia (3000 invitations sent on 29th Feb., 2012)

A big peak of visitors was seen on the 30th (max 795/day), and then.....

... a good peak of new members joining (mostly from India), and reaching almost 40/day (about 5% of visitors) (see below).

This is better in absolute terms than the response from North America, but similar in percentage terms. This means people who are interested in the invitation respond equally favourably in different regions (similar percentages join after seeing our network website), but more people show initial interest in regions where English is not a universal first language (Africa and India for example).

5. Middle East, E. Europe,