Marketing Tips Volume #3 by Jeremy Gislason - HTML preview

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Membership Millionaire Marketing

Tips Covered in this Report

1. Is your membership site sticky enough?

 

2. Which Membership Model Makes the Most Sense?

 

3. What Is Your Lifetime Member Value?

 

4. Solutions To Overcome the Headaches of Membership Site Payment Processing

 

5. Tips For Keeping Your Website On The Up And Up

 

6. 3 Vital Membership Site Legal Questions Answered

 

7. Make Tons Of Money By Using Your Existing Membership Site To Launch Another

 

8. Automating Your Site For A Stress Free, and more profitable, Life

 

9. Sell Your Site?

10. 10 Membership Site Must Haves Is Your Membership Site Sticky Enough? 10 Tips to keep members glued to your site...

The more times your customers visit your site, the more time they will have invested in your relationship and the more they will come to trust and rely on you. By building up their loyalty in this way, there is more chance that they will buy from you, follow your advice and buy your affiliate products, or click on ads that you recommend.

Put simply, a sticky site equals customer loyalty. Customer loyalty equals revenue.

 

1. Content - We can't stress the importance of content enough. Keep the content up to date, and 'time sensitive'. Remove out of date content so that it doesn't affect the credibility of your site.

2. Give your site a personality - There is a huge amount of information on the internet, and you can be sure your members could find what you are providing elsewhere. What your members are really paying for is the way you present that information.

3. Remain focused on your niche - Don't forget that your members joined your site because they had an interest in your niche. While it is fine to include content on a slightly different subject if you are sure it will be relevant and interesting. Never lose sight of your original subject. Wander too far off the subject and your may find your customers wandering off your member list.

4. Make information easy to find - Ensure the content on your membership site is organized in such a way that your members will find what they want easily. If your members view your site as a valuable information resource rather than just another website, they will want to us it again and again.

5. Provide what your customers want - Encourage your customers to ask for an article or information on a certain subject if they can't find it. Writing an article specifically for one customer may seem like a lot of work, but if you think long term, that customer may then stay with you for the lifetime of your membership site.

6. Keep in touch with your members - Contacting your members via e-mail is essential to keep them engaged with your site. Send your members updates, informative newsletters, and reminders, and ask them for their feedback.

7. Ask them to take part in surveys - Ask your members to complete a survey about your membership site and then make sure you act on their feedback and let them know you have done so. Send out a special edition of your newsletter showing some of the results of your survey and detailing how you have responded and any changes you have made. Feeling that they have had a hand in shaping your site will really make your members feel engaged in your online community.

8. Allow customization of your homepage - Having some functions that your members personalize on your site will really make them feel involved. Even a simple message at the top of the home page saying 'Welcome back [member name]' will have a huge impact on making your members feel valued.

9. Build a sense of community - Being part of an online community is one of the main reasons your members will renew their membership. Here are a few additional tips on creating that sense of community.

10. Promote an active forum - This provides a place for your members to get to know each other and begin to care about each other. Stopping their membership once they have become involved in your forum would be like losing a whole group of friends. Provide a function that allows your members to send private messages between each other.

If you run competitions, or encourage your members to submit content, make sure you acknowledge the winners or contributors. Nothing makes a member feel a part of your site like seeing their name in the latest newsletter.

 

Which Membership Model Makes the Most Sense?

The membership model you choose makes a huge difference on the profits that you will see today and in the future. Of course, which membership pricing model is right for you depends largely on the type of site you have. Here are a few guidelines and tips to help you keep your subscription list growing.

Pricing model, which one is right for you...

 

Weekly subscriptions?

Weekly subscription models are not used very frequently for membership sites. They require a rapid turnover of content, as members need a reason to renew their subscription each week. They tend to rely quite heavily on forums and blogs to keep members engaged.

If you are using a weekly subscription model you can make more revenue than with other models. Your members will feel that they are paying small amounts, but because they are paying so regularly, the revenue soon mounts up. However, you will have to work hard for the extra revenue with frequent updates.

One of the main problems with weekly subscription sites is members that just join for one week, download all the available content, and then cancel their membership.

 

Monthly subscriptions?

This is the most popular pricing model for membership sites. It still requires a lot of effort to provide fresh content each month, but the pressure is a little less than with the weekly subscription model. Again, these sites tend to rely quite heavily on forums and blogs to keep their members engaged.

Quarterly subscriptions?

 

Quarterly subscription membership sites make a little less subscription revenue overall, but you have the advantage that you have more capital upfront from your members to invest in your site.

You also have a guaranteed member for three months to sell additional products to. You do need to keep in regular contact with your members, however, as they don't have a regular monthly or weekly payment going off their credit card to remind them about the site.

This model is better suited to a site that has time consuming content. One example of this type of content would be training courses that take place over a period of several weeks.

 

Annual subscriptions?

The annual subscription model is ideal for sites with very high content value. To convince your members to pay a full year's membership fees up front, you will have to prove that your site is worth the investment. You might consider a short trial period with limited access, or a money back guarantee within the first month if they are not satisfied.

This model will usually generate less subscription income overall than the previous models, but again you will have the capital sooner to invest in your site. You will have guaranteed members for a year, but you will need to remind them to visit the site regularly with targeted marketing and newsletters.

One-off subscription?

 

The one-off subscription model, also known as lifetime membership, is ideal for membership sites that are designed to gain more revenue from selling products, affiliate programs, and advertising, than from membership subscriptions.
Although you will need to update your site regularly to retain your members' interest, and keep them buying from you, there is less pressure to provide fresh content to hold onto regular subscriptions.
When you are deciding on a price for your one-off subscription, you will want to determine your lifetime membership value.
Here are a few ideas to consider.

 

• Offer a free or reduced fee trial period. You could invite your members to join your site for a trial period of between a week and a month, to get them involved in the site.

 

• Some of the membership site software packages available enable you to upgrade your members to fully paid membership automatically when the trial period is over.

 

• Most membership sites that offer this trial period take the credit card details of their members up front, and then charge for the continued membership automatically, unless the member cancels.

• Have different access levels. Have various categories of member who have access to different content and parts of the site, depending on which subscription level they choose. Tantalize your members with limited access with the premium content they could find in the more expensive member areas.

• Many membership software packages allow up to five subscription levels, including one free level.

• Change your subscription model. You could offer your members monthly subscriptions when they initially join your site. After three months you could ask them if they would like to change to a quarterly subscription for a slightly reduced rate. You could even offer to take the amount that they would have saved if they had taken quarterly subscription from the start, away from their next quarter's subscription.

• While this does mean that the subscription revenue you get from that customer decreases, it also means you keep that customer for a longer period, during which you can sell them other products. You also have more capital up front to spend on advertising and optimizing your site, so your revenue will increase in other ways.

What Is Your Lifetime Member Value?
And how does it affect your business decisions?

The concept of lifetime customer value is an important factor in determining what your subscription prices are. You will not be able to accurately determine your lifetime member value until your site has been up and running for some time, but using educated assumptions to work out a potential lifetime customer value can be a very beneficial part of your business plan.

What is lifetime value?

 

In simple terms each member's lifetime value is the average profit they will generate for you during the time they are a member of your site.
Each of your members can create revenue for you in a number of ways:

• Initial subscription fee
• Repeat subscription fees
• Product purchases
• Affiliate purchases
• AdSense links

The more complex your site, the more factors there are to take into account.

To calculate the lifetime value of a member you need to take the average initial subscription, plus the average revenue from further purchases (these include repeat subscriptions, purchases, click-throughs etc.), multiplied by the average number of repeat purchases in one time period (a month, a year etc.), multiplied by the average number of time periods a customer remains a member.

Here is a simple example:

• Your members pay $50 for their one time subscription.
• They spend on average $20 twice a month on purchasing further products etc.
• Your average customer remains a member for 6 months.
• Your lifetime member value = 50 + 20 x 2 x 6 = $290

Knowing your lifetime member value will steer your business decisions

 

Knowing how much your average customer is worth enables you to determine how much resource you can afford to put into attracting new members.
You can use the lifetime member value to create a budget for promoting and developing your site that ensures you aren't spending more than you are making.
Keeping a database with detailed records of your members' purchases will allow you to determine a more accurate lifetime member value over time.
This can help you to adjust your prices and strategies to maximize your profit without losing your customers. You can monitor the effect that changes to your site have on your lifetime member value.

As subscription businesses, membership sites rely on recurring business. Once your membership site is fully functioning, about 75% of your sales will come from your current subscriber base, so you will want to give a great deal of thought to your rebilling strategies.

There are two main models to consider when determining your rebilling strategy:

 

1. Optional renewal

 

If you use optional renewal, your members will be notified that their membership is due to expire, and will be given the option to renew it.
If you use this method, you will want to make it as easy as possible for your members to renew, and send them at least two reminders.

 

2. Automatic renewal

 

Automatic renewal is also known as continuous service. If you choose to use this method, your members will receive a notification that a subscription payment has been debited from their account.
This has the obvious advantage over optional renewal in that your members do not have to make any effort to renew their membership. On the contrary, they have to make an effort not to renew it.

 

Don't forget the power of loyalty.

A loyalty scheme will encourage your customers to maintain their membership. Recognizing and rewarding your members' loyalty is a great way to keep them subscribing to your site. If you choose to follow a loyalty scheme, you can publish details on your site, and you can enable your members to track their progress through your scheme in the same way as they can access their personal details.

Simple Solutions To Overcome the Headaches of Membership Site Payment Processing

Payment processing for membership sites can be a headache. Every member has a different renewal date, there products to pay for, subscriptions to upgrade, security to consider and of course you want it to be easy for your customers. Here are a few simple solutions to make your life easier, and more profitable too!

Practical Payment Processing

 

Credit Cards

 

By far the most common method of paying a membership site subscription is by credit card. To accept and process credit card payments, you need open a particular type of account known as a merchant account.
The advantages of having your own merchant account include quick payment processing so you receive funds without delay, and not having to pay any processing fees.
However, you may not be able to open your own merchant account for the following reasons;

• Having a poor credit history
• Living in a area where merchant accounts are not issued
• Not having enough transactions initially to justify the account

In any of the above cases you could consider using a third party merchant account processor. These take two forms.

 

1. Using online billing solutions such as Click Bank and the PayPal shopping cart can be one alternative to opening your own merchant account.

 

2. A number of hosting services such as BizHosting and Hostway offer free merchant accounts.

 

PayPal

Many online businesses now feel the need to offer the option of paying through PayPal. It is thought to increase sales as customers see it as more secure than paying by credit card and it is a quick and easy way to subscribe for the millions of internet users who already have a PayPal account set up.

Checks

You might think that anybody considering joining a membership site would be comfortable with using online payment methods. However, there will always be a number of people who are worried about the security of paying over the internet, and with high profile cases of credit card fraud recently in the news.

For this reason, it may be worth it to offer an alternative method of payment, such as paying by check. You could provide an address for potential members to send a check to, and ask them to include their personal details and an e-mail address. Once their check has cleared you can activate their account and e-mail them with their log in
details.
This does create more work and it's not the right option for everyone, but for some membership sites it's a good option to offer.
Make your payment process as simple as possible. If your customer has to jump through hurdles to pay you, they may very likely change their mind.

 

Tips For Keeping Your Website On The Up And up

The last thing you want to think about are the legal ramifications of owning and operating a membership site. A quick and easy way to make sure that everyone knows what to expect is to craft a 'Terms and Conditions statement for your site. Here's how...

Creating your terms and conditions

Before your start to write your membership site's terms and conditions, think about what you really want to achieve with them. There are a few items that you really want to cover, but otherwise what you include in your terms and conditions is up to you.

1. Disclaimer of liability

The disclaimer of liability is perhaps the most important part of your terms and conditions. It is advisable to state that the use of the site is entirely at the member's own risk, and that you are not responsible for any damages to the member whether they be directly or indirectly linked to the use of your site.

You may also want to state that you will not take responsibility for the content of other sites that your membership site is linked to, and your are not liable for damages caused by the use of those sites, for example any viruses that are transmitted via downloads on those sites.

2. Membership term

 

You could use your terms and conditions to state the initial term of your membership, and the process for renewing membership. You might also outline the method for canceling membership.
If you have a trial membership period, you could state what the members will have access to during that trial period, and the process for subscribing to full membership at the end of the trial period.

 

3. Membership access

 

You could detail what your members will have access to as part of their membership. If you have different levels of membership with varying subscription levels, you can include information about these in your terms and conditions.

You could also include your rules about sharing membership accounts. If sharing is prohibited and the site can only be accessed from one computer at a time with a particular membership account, you want to state this in your terms and conditions.

4. Pricing and payment

You could state whether price changes will apply to existing or returning members, or whether they will always be entitled to the same subscription price as when they joined. You might indicate how any changes in pricing will be communicated to your members.

You will probably want to tell your members which payment processing company or software you are using, and outline the measures you are taking to ensure payment security.

 

5. Site etiquette

 

This can include the tone and language of forum postings and blog comments, and the advertising or promotion of members' businesses on the site.
State that you reserve the right to cancel the membership of any member who does not comply with your site etiquette policy at your own discretion.

You might also state that you reserve the right to remove any comments or posts from the site that you do not believe to be appropriate. In addition, you may want to write that the views and opinions expressed in your member forums do not necessarily represent your own views and opinions.

6. Data protection and privacy

 

You can refer your members to the data notice we discussed earlier, or you can incorporate the data notice itself into your terms and conditions.
Let your members know what information is being stored about them and what it is being used for. Also let them know what security measures, such as encryption, you are using to keep that information safe.
You might also tell your members what will happen to their personal details if they cancel their membership.

 

7. Copyright

 

Let your members know that the content on the membership site is your property and that it is protected by copyright where relevant.
Make it clear to your members what they are allowed to do with the content of your site. If there are articles that they are permitted to reprint on their own sites as long as they include a link back to your site, state this.

 

8. Customer service

You could use your terms and conditions to state how you will deal with customer queries; whether this will be via e-mail or over the telephone. You might also state the timeframe within which they can expect a response to their query.

9. Local laws

 

Finally you might state which country or state's laws your membership site is subject to.

 

3 Vital Membership Site Legal Questions Answered
Question #1 Is my membership site protected by copyright?

In theory web pages are protected by copyright as soon as they are created. However, in the U.S. your website will need to be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within three months of publication for you to bring a case against someone that copies it.

Once you have registered your web pages, you are legally protected if someone should decide to copy your page word for word.

It is a good idea to post a copyright notification on each of your web pages. This is not necessary to bring a copyright law suit, but it will help your case if you show the person that copied your work was aware it was protected by copyright. It may also scare some people into not using your working.

There are some limits to web page copyright

 

Copyright only protects the exact expression of your web pages. It does not protect the facts or ideas you use. If someone copies your ideas, but expresses them in a different way, they are not breaking copyright law.

If a piece of work is created independently, but by coincidence happens to be similar to or the same as another previously created piece of work, it is not seen to be breaking copyright law. This can be difficult to prove for the author accused of copyright infringement, but equally difficult to disprove for the copyright owner.

Two concepts that make content exempt from copyright law are 'fair use' and 'implied permission'. It is useful to be aware of these exemptions.

 

Fair use

 

The concept of 'fair use' is a rather unclear limit to copyright protection. If you use another person's work, but acknowledge that it is their work, this is allowed under 'fair use'.

If you use another person's work but do not make any commercial gain from it you may not be breaking copyright law under 'fair use'. Also, if your use of their work does not negatively impact their income, this may be covered by 'fair use'.

Implied Permission

This is a particularly relevant concept for membership site owners. When one of your members posts a thread on your forum, or a comment on your blog, they are the author of the work, but they are giving you 'implied permission' to use it as you wish.

This also applies to any e-mail that your customers send to you. Unless they specify otherwise, their words are not protected by copyright law.

 

Question #2 What is covered by data protection policies?
Privacy and Data Protection

Any information you store about your customers comes under data protection. If you store information about your customers or members, you are legally obliged to tell them what you are using it for. Your site must include a data notice, which explains which data you store and how you use it. Make your data notice easily accessible on your site, preferably with a link from the page where your members input personal details.

Use a method of encrypting your members' personal details, especially their payment details. It is reassuring for your members to know that you do this, so you could either mention it on the page where they input their details, or have it as one of the questions on your FAQs page.

When your customers enter their personal details, you must give them the option of stating if they do not want you to pass these onto third parties, or use them for marketing purposes. The standard format for this is an 'opt in' or 'opt out' tick box underneath the form the customer has to fill out. Many sites try to hide these tick boxes in an area of small print, so they are complying with data protection law, but their customers do not opt out.

Data protection policies state that you should store your customer's details for the shortest possible time. This means that you do not want to store information about customers that you don't need at the current time. For membership sites, this should mean deleting personal information when your members cancel their subscription.

Privacy and data protection laws give your customers the right to know what information is being stored about them and how you are using it. This means that if they request that information, you have to provide it, but you can charge for this. If the customer believes you do not have a good reason for storing the data you have about them, they can request that it is deleted.

Question #3 How do I deal with the issue of spam?

The flood of unsolicited e-mail arriving in inboxes worldwide has led to the introduction of harsh measures to combat spam. Even newsletters that your customers have requested are likely to be treated as spam unless you take preventative action. Ask your members to whitelist you and follow the guidelines as