One other suggestion Jarusa - you could avoid any of the potential problems by the club simply having a big obvious link at the top of the CFC website for people to join up.

You then make a song and dance about it in the media (footy show etc) everytime any CFC representative is interviewed and get people to come on board.

This is pretty much what Essendon* did from memory.

Once you do that if any individuals want to start a campaign alerting people off their own bat then that's their business and the club isn't responsible.

It's a fine line but it's there.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Thanks for the wise counsel GWS.

I had in mind simply putting up a thread on each of the Carlton Forums that basically had a link to the site and said that if you think you have friends/relatives who would be interested please let them know about the site. Hopefully the mods of each forum might make the thread a sticky for a period of a month or so to highlight the campaign.

The point you make about the big obvious link on the CFC site was exactly my initial hope for what might happen. The idea being that once a year the club highlight their NBA campaign to gather more supporter email addresses. It would be much more effective than what I described above.

Come to think of it maybe I did not sell this aspect of the proposal that well in my written submissions to the club.

Actually, if the club will not be involved we really don't even need the NBA site, we can just run a campaign pointing people in the direction of the CFC official signup page.

That way we could just ask CFC's permission to link to their own registration form.

Excuse the ramble just thinking out loud.

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|♥♥♥♥♥♥| http://www.blueseum.org |♥♥♥♥♥♥|

I was just having a look at the Club's Thursday update email and on it they have a little email registration form that reads:

REGISTER A FRIEND
Do you know someone who would like to receive the Carlton Update?

After which you can enter the name and email address of a friend to sign them up to the Thursday update.

So basically a forced registration by a third party (one that would have to be confirmed via the recipients email though I would imagine).

Firstly, what do you think are the issues surrounding the club using this method?

Secondly, if the Carlton forums asked people to sign up their friends via this particular form, what are the issues?

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|♥♥♥♥♥♥| http://www.blueseum.org |♥♥♥♥♥♥|

It doesn't matter anyway because it doesn't frickin work

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Time to go: Smorgon, Pagan

I like this idea better. The NBA site looks great but all it really does is put another wall between the club and the potential member. If there's a link on the CFC site where you can sign up for email updates then let it rip (providing the link works of course ).

I wouldn't even bother with discussing the finer points with the club. There's no reason at all not to send an email to a friend with a link and a suggestion that they sign up to the club's emails.

Using these forums to get people involved is the way to do it - so do it. Get people to build signatures with the link in their email programs, put a link at the top of every TC page and off you go. The club can't be responsible for others linking to their site and they can't be responsible for people sending emails to each other either.

The difference occurs when you have a special site like NBA which is club backed that the club could be drawn into "responsibility" for the email campaign to sign people up.

Is this clear?

Like I said it's a fine line but there's nothing stopping you or anyone else from sending traffic to cfc.com.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

I'm always receiving emails like this. Got one the other day from QANTAS (although it came from a friends email address..."Hi Caz, I've just signed up to XXXXXXXX...If you sign up you can win xxxxxxxx.....just click on the link below")

It worked. I wanted to win the prize

And that's the problem with using surreptitious means to add people to your list - they're then on the list for the wrong reasons.

I learnt early on that the number on the list was far less important than the quality of those who are on it.

The club could easily buy a list of spam targets from any winter olympian but most of those addresses would provide no benefit.

The important thing is to get the people on the list who want to be there.

I won't sign people up unless they've chosen to be on the list themselves. I've had clients offer to give me the email address of a friend but by using that address you simply run the risk of alienating them. People don't like unsolicited email and tend to react negatively towards anyone sending it.

The best thing to do is to get the already converted client/fan to discuss it directly (email/phone whatever) with someone they think will appreciate what you do. They can then sign up themselves if they wish but you haven't risked burning them in the process.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

I agree GWS, but in the case of CFC don't you think that anyone who wants to sign up will be doing so because they are a fan?

I wouldn't send the CFC one to anyone who wasn't already a supporter of the club. It would be useless to send it to Pies or Bomber fan, however misguided they may be.

I certainly wouldn't have signed up for the QANTAS one normally, unless I was planning to take trips in the near future. But if I was looking for fares in the near future, I would have done it without the bribe.

Yep - most likely but no need to turn off potential fans by coming across as a dirty rotten spammer.

If someone goes to the effort of signing themselves up you've got a chance of developing the relationship further. If someone else has signed them up you've got 2/5ths of bugger all.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Great GWS, you going to kill off Blueseum as well???

So are we left with an idea of a public semi-club related email that you can send to Carlton fans providing a link to the weekly email... or is better that we just start to communicate with our own friends?

If its the former perhaps we could create a character whose job it is to find lost Carlton fans all over the globe and get them linked up to the weekly update for the benefit of the Club?

Yep, and that's why the offer to sign up goes out from a friend, but the individual still has to sign up themselves. The friend doesn't actually sign them up.

I think the idea is to first get the club to make the sign up part of the cfc site more prominent (and functional) and then just let the punters/freaks/TCers loose to drum up support along with club announcements about the program.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Okay - gotcha - I missed the bit about it coming from a friend.

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“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus.”
Turkish Proverb

Been doing some research on the other telstra club websites, with nearly all clubs having the plain text newsletter signup, towards the bottom left of the front page. Richmond was similarly placed on the page but was more graphical. But also on the WCE site a found this link for a WA radio station promotion, http://96fm.onlinearmy.com.au/. While some of the features on that site may not be applicable, and the telstra alliance probably limit web site indepenance, there are some good ideas there.