I shared this over on the other board, but am also posting it here for anyone who maybe in this situation. A lot of members of forums like "Closed" or forums that aren't opened up to guests viewing and/or posting. With my community what we did was created what we call "Open Houses." During the open house we advertise our forums in a lot of places... during the open house, it gives people (guests) a chance to look around and see if they like what they see in your community. If so then they usually join. This is good when your not quite sure whether you want a "open" or "closed" community... it works out great!

That's a really cool idea!!

Have you noticed any trends in membership related to your open houses? Like, do you see an increase in registrations for a few days afterwards?

Oh, sorry for not replying earlier! I lost this topic!

Usually during an open house, we do gain quite a few new members. However, the larger numbers come after its been put back to members only... once you have peoples attention they want more

At our last one I do believe we achieved over 100 new members in a weeks period