One of the most powerful aspects of this software is its ability to handle the User Group and Price Plan relationship. The most important reason for having User Groups is that it provides you a means to charge different groups of users, different pricing fees. This is because you can have as many Price Plans (Pricing Schemes) in the system as you want and each user within a User Group is assigned a Price Plan during the registration process. This is an extremely important concept to grasp if you want to take full advantage of what this software has to offer. We will first explain what each function is and then how they work together to help you emplace your sales and marketing schemes.

Note that not all editions of the software have the ability to add multiple user groups and multiple price plans to the system. Check the features of your edition to make sure this is a feature of that edition if you need this feature in your pricing/user group model.

Every user who registers on your site is placed in what we call a "User Group". This will happen at the time of their registration process, based upon what they enter on the Registration Code (explained later) page. On this page the user will either enter a Registration Code, or no code at all. Either way, they will be placed into a User Group. The user who enters a registration code will be placed into the User Group linked to that code. The user who enters "no code" will be placed into the "default" User Group. You will select which User Group will be set to "default" on the User Group Management page of the admin. As the administrator of the site you can create as many User Groups as you want.

So, what is the value of having more than one User Group? The answer is really quite simple. Each User Group that you create can have its own distinct Price Plan (explained later) attached to it. This functionality allows you to run any number of marketing campaigns all with different perks for those who sign up through that campaign. Also, through the Users / User Groups menu of the software’s admin, you can search and send messages on a User Group basis. That way if you make any changes associated to that User Group’s settings or Price Plan, you can easily send out a blanket email to everyone that is in that particular User Group.

Through the admin, you also have the ability to call up each user that is in the database, either through the "list users" or "search users" menus. After doing so, you can access and edit each user’s data, including the User Group that they are in.

<tip c n>Note: If you only have one User Group entered into the system (usually there is only one by default), then the Registration Code page will not appear at all. Instead, the user will be taken directly to the Main Registration page, and they will automatically be entered into the default User Group. If you enter another User Group at a later time, you can manually move current registrants to your new User Group as described above.</tip>

For a more in depth explanation of how User Groups work, please visit the Users / User Groups section of this manual.

A "Registration Code" (or Promotional Code) is essentially the key that ties each user to their respective User Group. You will assign each User Group that you create its own unique Registration Code so that when the user enters it on the Registration Code page, they will be placed in that corresponding User Group. You can distribute Registration Codes to friends, family, and/or during various marketing campaigns that you run. You can also display the Registration Codes themselves on the Registration page, so that the user can select which User Group (really which Price Plan) they want to fall under.

You generate your own Registration Code every time you create a new User Group in the User Group Management pages of the admin.

<tip c n>Note: We recommend that you DO NOT use any spaces and only use letters and numbers (no special characters) when setting up your Registration Codes. You can also go back later and assign a Registration Code to an existing User Group.</tip>

A "Price Plan" is the tool that the admin uses to charge users certain prices for certain features, such as "featured listing status", "listing bolding", "price per picture", "price per category", etc. These Listing Extras must first be turned on site-wide in order to use them on your site and assign a price to each within the Price Plan. The software offers you a variety of ways to charge users, or not charge users. See the Price Plans section of this User Manual for a more in depth explanation of your Price Plan configuration choices.

Something worth noting, is that your site visitors never really know that they are being placed into a "User Group". Instead, they are signing up based upon the "Price Plan" that you have advertised to them. So, although you know that they are associated with a User Group, they only care that the Price Plan they fall under gives them everything that it was advertised to. So, you need to pay particular attention to the Price Plan that you associate to each User Group.

Another important feature of Price Plans is that you can set them to either "never expire", or when they do expire, they will automatically expire into another Price Plan that you have already set up. What this means is that any User Group that has the expiring Price Plan associated with it, will automatically default to the new Price Plan without your intervention. This is extremely valuable if you want to set certain promotions to be available for a designated period of time. It is a "hands off" approach in that the system will keep track of your Price Plan Promotional periods and expirations for you.

<tip c n>Note: You have the capability to assign the same Price Plan to every User Group if you so desire.</tip>

We hope that this explanation has helped you better understand the valuable tools located in the User Groups / Price Plans section of this software. A firm grasp of these concepts will help to better assure you of setting up of a successful Listings website.