Volume Two
Copyright Š 2015 – Amin Motin membershipsitesolutions.com Usage Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Disclaimer
All the material contained in this book is provided for educational and informational purposes only. No responsibility can be taken for any results or outcomes resulting from the use of this material. While every attempt has been made to provide information that is both accurate and effective, the author does not assume any responsibility for the accuracy or use/misuse of this information.
Table of Contents INTRODUCTION DO YOU NEED A MEMBERSHIP SITE? TYPES OF MEMBERSHIP SITES DO YOU SOLVE A SPECIFIC PROBLEM? HOW MUCH CONTENT DO YOU NEED? PRICE AND VALUE PERCEPTION PROTECTING YOUR CONTENT
3 4 5 6 8 9 11
WORDPRESS
12
BEST TACTICS
13
TREAT YOUR CUSTOMERS LIKE PEOPLE KEEP 'EM SWEET, KEEP 'EM PAYING BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD (MEMBERSHIP LEVELS) AFFILIATES YOUR SITE CONTENT
13 14 15 16 17
CONCLUSION
20
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Introduction In volume one I covered the simple realization that a membership site is just a regular website that provides products, services, or both to members of the site in exchange for a fee. The fee is usually recurring, very often monthly or possibly charged quarterly or annually. It can also be a one-time fee. Membership sites, quite frankly, are what give some of the big names (all those "gurus" we all know and love) a solid base of income to run their businesses. The idea of having money flow in, month in, month out may sound impossible if you've never achieve that yourself. But the very fact every big name out there offers you some kind of product with a recurring price tag – well that says it all, doesn't it? Whether your aims are modest and you just want $1,000 a month to change your life, or you want to aim for six and seven figure income, recurring income/continuity/memberships can allow you to hit your target. Hey, there are even membership sites for buying wine. The one I belong to sells millions of dollars worth of wine every year. And they take payment every month into what they call a wine "club". Think about that. They call it a club and they have many thousands of members who feel special. They're part of the "club". How you position your membership site and what you call it can make a big difference to your customers' perceptions. You may not want to get that big, but with volume one and this report you'll learn how to plan, build and develop your own membership site using WordPress. PAGE 3 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
Do You Need a Membership Site? If you've had some success selling individual products, you might be a little nervous about the technical side of member sites. You might not see the big picture as to why *you* need one. I'm going to assume that you already know that they are a good way to deliver content to members, or maintain private forums. You can even build a strong following if you offer value. The why and how of a member site is way less important than the what. The what always needs to be content or services of value to your customers. And in a world with 7 billion people (and rising) there is room for almost every kind of product or service you can think of. I've mentioned wine clubs. There are chocolate membership sites, cheese sites, healthy eating "grazing" box sites, organic vegetable membership sites. The thing they have in common is the customer's commitment to keep paying. When I took music lessons some years back, I paid for a block of them. That was a membership product. We just don't think of such things that way, but they are continuity programs – that's the more accurate term for a membership site. Some people have membership programs to provide digital downloads. Others offer training videos. Others use membership sites to handle their support tickets and customer service. There are membership sites for e-commerce, collaboration and more. As you can see, there is a range of reasons to employ a membership site and many people use all of these functions. They might use the membership site to offer digital downloads, send members an e-mail regularly, and offer different PAGE 4 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
levels of support and offer training. The mix and match of what you offer depends on your needs and your goals.
Types of Membership Sites We've covered this briefly in volume one, so you may want to refer to that. But there are as many types as you want. • Magazine/content – regular content, like newsletters, or even rumors of new products! • Digital Content Delivery - deliver your downloadable digital products. • Training sites – we all look to the web to learn things and millions of people every year pay for that learning. Every nice under the sun is out there. Training sites are one of my favorite types of membership. All you have to do is learn a few things more than the average person and then teach them what you know. There are new beginners in every topic every day, all looking for help. • Mentoring/Coaching –one-on-one or group coaching can be solid revenue. This is kind of an extension of the training site. Many people want more direct help and are willing to pay for it. In some cases the price of membership can be unbelievable. I've seen memberships like this starting at $1,000 and going up to $30,000. Yes, you need to have the value in your coaching to offer it. If you have that kind of skill you can name your own price. • Fixed Term – this is a nice one to start out with. You offer a set amount of content for a specific period. Whether you charge people for a month, 3 months or 6 months, fixed term means you know your work commitment and customers know their payment commitment. • Freebie – This can seem an easy way to start. If done right you can make money with ongoing offers, upgrade offers, mailing the members with affiliate links and so on. You just have to be careful not to attract only the PAGE 5 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
freebie seekers. They demand everything and pay nothing. At some point you have to earn a living! • Subscriber list – that's a membership of sorts. It might be free, but your subscribers are members in your newsletter "site". You don't even need an actual website for this. • Premium members – do you like feeling like a VIP? So do your members. If you offer them a higher level (more access to you, more content, that kind of thing) some of them will want it. They'll pay to get into the inner circle. As we saw in volume one, you can mix these models anyway you please. Just know that you have to be very clear about what you intend to offer, before you start. If you keep asking yourself what value you are offering your customers, you will be customer focused. It's as simple as that to keep your customers happy. Focus on them, their needs and how you can meet them. If you focus on how you can extract the maximum money, it's going to be obvious. If you deliver and overdeliver, your customers are not stupid. They can tell when they're getting good value. Don't you love it when you get good value? So will your customers. Our aim is to keep people paying us, so we have to keep delivering.
Do you solve a specific problem? I've heard the question many times. I don't know w topic or niche I should get involved in. Wow. Let me tell you a harsh reality. You have to do some thinking and a little bit of work. If you are really so unmotivated that you can't find a niche – there are millions – how will you sustain the work to run a membership site? Look, if there were a single answer to which niche you should get into, everyone would already be in it, wouldn't they? PAGE 6 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
Don't be part of the crowd. Do some thinking for ways that you can offer value, stand out from the crowd and most of all, be yourself. Your site exists to solve some kind of problem for a person. Think about that person and how you can help him/her. It might be weight loss advice, or selfconfidence training. It might be how to install a blog easily. It might be how to knit a cardigan. Whatever it is, ask yourself some questions about how you can add value to it. Don't tell yourself "you don't know". That leads to stagnation. Ask yourself "how can I add value to this site? What can I add that increases the value to my customers?" You may also want to try to keep to your personal passions, because it's really hard work to do things you just don't like. You're going to have enough work to do anyway. Why make it harder by doing what you hate? Your own personal interests and passions should guide you. If you're interested in a topic, so are others. And others may not know as much as you. You don't have to be an expert to teach others! Don't believe me? Let me illustrate it for you. Teachers who teach little kids teach the very basics of reading and mathematics, right? And they teach the same stuff, year in, year out, to a new group of kids. The old saying is true. There really is one born every minute. But I don't mean a sucker is born every minute! No, I mean that a new beginner is born every minute. You could teach the basics for the rest of your life and still help people. Of course there's no rule that you have to make your member a site related to your interests. Truth is though, they are going to need regular and constant updating – that takes work! Over time, if you don't have a personal interest in the topic, it can get to be a grind. On the other hand, if you get excited talking about PAGE 7 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
the topic and sharing information in the niche, you will find more energy to keep it going.
How Much Content Do You Need? The idea of producing a huge amount of content for the rest of your life is probably a bit intimidating. One of the questions you'll need to address is how often you will add content to the site. Some membership sites add content every day, others weekly or monthly. The important thing is to make your choice and then stick to it. Tell your customers what to expect and they won't mind if it's daily updates, weekly or even monthly. If you're really intimidated by the thought of creating a full member site – it can seem like an impossible amount of work – you could just try selling an individual product and build up your portfolio of content that way. Later, you can assemble it all into a member site. It's almost like using Lego bricks at that point. Get some customers with your early products and chances are good that some of them will stick with you for a long time. They will probably be your first members. Once they know you and like what you produce, they'll often buy more from you. You know it's true, because you have your favorite marketers, don't you? The niche doesn't really matter in that sense. Every niche has multiple sub-niches, so you can create lots of individual products in each of the sub-niches. Once you have that portfolio developed, you can add them to a member site and charge a discounted overall rate for access. There are lots of sites that have that kind of service offering, adding a new product each month on the niche. I'm thinking mainly of digital products here, but if you think about the wine club example I gave you, every month they add a new product for sale. PAGE 8 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
A customer who likes what you do will very often want to buy more from you. Just think how many diet books the average overweight person buys. They don't buy a single diet book. They buy new ones regularly. There's a hunger for information. Offer access to your library of products at a discount and some of your customers will see the financial sense in being members. Think of it as being like pay as you go mobile phones, compared to a monthly contract plan. The better value is usually the contract plan. There is another aspect to the work. You have to keep doing it. If you produce something for 2 months, then have a year's time out people will forget you. Once you get on this merry-go-round you tend to have to keep going. That's why I said earlier that going with your interests makes it easier
Price and Value Perception There's a simple reality. How much you can charge depends on what people *think* your membership is worth. They work out the value in their head and if your price is lower than that, you're giving great value. If your price is higher, they might still join, but it gives them pause for thought. Remember this mantra: "The price you charge is based on the PERCEIVED VALUE of your membership site." That is why it is so important to offer great products and services. You want the perceived value of what they are getting to far outweigh the price. That said, I would say most new membership site owners under-price their offer. Do this: Find out what similar sites are charging in your niche. Then charge a little more, and challenge yourself to provide a better product than your competitors. Keep in mind that to a large extent the price you charge is how a prospect measures its quality. If you price too low, you are telegraphing that the quality is not there, and you want the opposite reaction—you want them to feel they will receive massive value. PAGE 9 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
It will take some experimentation and testing to find the right balance of price, bonuses (if any), and the products and services you offer. It's better to be a little aggressive, mostly because of the tendency of site owners to price too low as mentioned. Focus on making sure that your customers know what they are getting. If they see value right off the bat, well that's a compelling incentive to join. By the way, don't worry too much about the people who can't afford your product. It doesn't matter whether the product is $97 or $997 – there will always be people who can't afford it. Your job is to offer value to those people who can afford your product. Your job is not to price it so that everyone can afford it. If you want to help the needy, you can donate to charity, do good works, help out at soup kitchens. But underpricing your membership helps nobody. Seriously. If you earn good revenue by pricing it as high as the market will bear, your membership site will allow you the luxury of helping the needy if you want to. So don't stress out if somebody can't afford your product. They probably can't afford a first class air ticket either – but they're not likely to get one of those for $7 just because they can't afford it! That said, you might consider offering a trial period at low-cost, or even no-cost. That's a common method. It allows people to sample your membership and see whether it suits them. You could offer a trial of $7 for 7 days, then full rate after that. Because some people are scared that they will get ripped off be clear on your sales page about the charges. They're going to find out what you've charged them at some point. If there's going to be a shock, better shock them now before they pay! That way they can't level false accusations against you after they've paid. Be upfront about the costs. I'm sure you hate it when you can't find out what the price will be, so don't hide it from your customers. Talking of hiding things from your customers, you should make sure you protect your content! PAGE 10 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
Protecting Your Content As we mentioned, WordPress is your best solution for locking and releasing content on set schedules. There are several membership plugins that can handle this task including: • • • •
Digital Access Pass WishList Member Fast Member reMemberMe (this is what I use and it's my product)
In addition to protected content, offer a selection of unprotected content that provides value to your website visitors. This allows you to show nonmembers what you have available and what value you offer. It is also a good way to drive traffic because Google loves valuable content. People search Google for various topics related to your niche, and Google will drive them to your site. In other words, they are entering the very top of your marketing funnel. Yes, free content can be the top of your funnel – even if you don't think you have a funnel, you do. Whether you have a streamlined funnel is a different issue, but everything that leads someone to your sales pages is a part of your funnel. You could even think about a free option. A free option with an upsell to a paid membership is sometimes called the "Freemium" model. You will usually get more people signing up to freebies than will pay you. The hope is that enough of them will go on to pay you so you make some money. It's not for everyone and you do have to have some skills in selling the freebie seekers onto the paid level. A disadvantage of a free option is that that's the value of it, in the minds of some people. Free can equal "low quality". You could always offer access free for a PAGE 11 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
short period, like a week. That gives people time to have a look around and see if they like what you offer. Just don't give them everything in that week! That's where "dripped" content is important. Dripped content just means that members get new content every so often. They don't get it all at one time.
WordPress You may already have some ideas about what your member site could be about. Well as I said in volume one, WordPress is by far and away the easiest way to get started. It has everything you need to run a successful membership site. There are sites running on WordPress with tens of thousands of members. Personally I have only gone up to about 2,500 members on a single site. But it runs well, does exactly what I need it to and it's pretty solid. You will need a membership site plugin, but there are lots of them to choose from. Just be sure to choose an easy to use plugin. You're going to be using it a lot and there's enough work to do without fighting your plugin! If you've heard that you can run a membership site in WordPress just using the basic WordPress password system, you can. It's not very secure and it doesn't allow for releasing content on a schedule (not properly anyway). But it works, it's free and it's simple. It's not just very secure and scalable.
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Best Tactics Let's be honest, membership sites take a bit of getting used to. If you've never created one, they can seem scary. But the technical side is usually easily solved just by buying a really simple to use system. The technical side is actually the easiest part to solve – trust me, it really is. What is definitely harder are what I call the intangibles. These are things you're going to have to do all the time. Long after you learn how to set up a membership plugin, you still have to do all these things I'm about to discuss.
Treat Your Customers Like People Your customers are real people, just like you. Whether you like it or not you will have a relationship with them. That takes time and effort to nuture. You have to stay in touch. You have to update them. You get to choose how often you do that. I can tell you that sometimes it can be hard to think of something interesting to say. But you have to find a way to do it! Just as in the real world, there are people you interact with in different ways, let that guide you for your member site. A monthly member site might only need one email or update a month. Other sites might need weekly or daily updates. If you work in an office you might speak to your co-workers every day. If you're out on the road all day you might only see them once a month. Your relationship with your members will determine how often you need a "water cooler" moment with them. Too much and you waste their time and yours. Too little and your lose touch.
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The difference between doing this online and doing it with real people in real life is this: NOTHING Seriously. People are people, whether in an office or behind a computer. One great thing to do, which members love, is to ask them how you can deliver better value for them. Some of your members will make amazing suggestions. You may even be handed an idea that will make you a lot of money! Don't underestimate the power of asking your members questions. Ask them what they need and if you can, deliver it. Whether you charge extra or add it as a bonus, your call. But the ideas that can come pouring out of your members can be truly astonishing.
Keep 'em Sweet, Keep 'em Paying We want people to be ongoing members. We want them to keep paying us. Efven if they choose not to login, we want to retain them as members for as long as we can. When you start to make some money, reinvest it back into the site. Add bonuses, add extra content. Increase the value of what you offer. The more new content you have, the more reason you have to email your members and ask them to check out the new content. Every time you make contact with them you remind them of who you are. If they liked you enough to join originally, you will remind them of that as you add value. If you offer content exclusive to your membership site, they will have to login to access it. Keep some of your best stuff for your best customers – your members. It seems only fair, right? If they truly are your best customers, they should get the PAGE 14 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
best of you. Not rocket science, right? Some people even offer direct access for extra support to members. Always create perceived value that is well above the purchase price. Your members will love it. If that sounds like it would be expensive in terms of time, or content generation costs, let me point something out. When you create content, or add value, the cost of doing it is shared across every member you have had in the past, every current member and every future member. The actual cost per member of adding superb extras might come in at less than a dollar. It might work out to a few cents. Aren't your members worth a few cents each to keep them happy, paying every month and recommending you? I think so. I hope you do too. Every time you add content, don't think about the actual cost to you. Think about the cost per member. That's your real cost. I'll come back to this point several times in the rest of this report. It's a really critical point to get set in your mind. Paying $100 for a piece of content is no big deal, if it's shared across 1,000 members paying $27 a month.
Bronze, Silver, Gold (Membership Levels) Lots of beginners like the thought of tons of levels. It sounds good, right? Bronze, Silver and Gold levels. Members might start at the Bronze level, while Silver offers more value, and Gold level provides complete access. It works fine and there are lots of sites that operate this way. My experience is that if you've never run a member site before, you'll get confused. Good for you if you can handle the complications that come with multiple levels. The rest of us, just average people, we need something a bit simpler. So I would always say start with a single level. Learn how it works. Get some members. PAGE 15 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
Then you can branch out if you want to. When you have solid experience under your belt, another level or two is not a big deal. But please don't run before you can walk. I'm not saying don't have multiple levels. I'm saying learn how to operate your site properly, before you make it harder on yourself.
Affiliates – Why Pay Them? Generally speaking, if you get a group of affiliates promoting you they might make more sales in total than you can on your own. So offering commission to affiliates is a way to drive traffic. But competition for affiliates is actually fierce. That's because affiliates want to promote the best converting, highest commission products they can. The work required to make a sale on a $697 product is not massively different from the work needed to make a $197 sale. That may sound surprising, yet it's basically true. But the commission is vastly different! There are people who even offer 100% commission to affiliates. Sounds crazy, right? But with a digital product in your member site, there's no inventory cost. Whether you have 1 member, or 10,000 your costs don't change. But your subscriber list definitely changes. Your opportunity to make money by marketing to your list changes. You might consider offering 100% commission (at least in the early days) to persuade affiliates to promote you. In effect they would be growing your list for you. Sure, they keep the money, but chances are high you would not have PAGE 16 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
reached the same people as the affiliate did. Chances are higher that person would never have bought from you anyway. In other words there is no real monetary loss. There is a growth opportunity. I want to be very clear on this. It's not suitable for everyone and you need a good funnel and backend sales process in place to make money this way. It may work for you if you're careful. At the very least, it's something to consider.
Your Site Content It's very exciting in the beginning to launch a member site. Then, months later, the work can turn into a drudge. Long after you get used to the money pouring in, you stop getting used to creating the content. It's hard work. Don't let anyone fool you. It's not complex work – you don't have to be a genius to do it. But it is work. You may not have the time to do that work yourself. You may simply not enjoy doing that work. So for avoiding that burn out, you could consider some simple tactics: • Outsource – These days you can pay to have almost anything done/made. If you want something written, pay a writer to do it for you. If you want software made, pay a coder. But…. It ain't cheap! If you want to offer value to your members, don't look for a $1 an hour writer. You're kidding yourself if you think you'll get quality content at bargain basement prices. It just DOES NOT HAPPEN. Remember what I said earlier about spreading the cost across all your members? Good content pays for itself that way. It keeps them coming back. Poor content just shows them you don't care. PAGE 17 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
• Private Label Rights content –PLR. Private Label Rights content is a huge area. Frankly, a lot of it is junk. Sorry, but that's just the truth. Top quality PLR is great. That's worth seeking out. The top quality stuff is written by pro level writers. The reason it's affordable is simple. It gets sold to more than one buyer. So the cost of creation is spread across all the buyers, thus offering savings (does that sound familiar?) So each person who buys the PLR gets the rights to edit it and call it their own. Nobody needs to know that you didn't write it yourself. You think the editor of your favorite newspaper writes all the articles? No, they have staff to do it. They may be permanent staff in many cases, but the business owner doesn't have to create all the content himself. This is really no different. You have to watch out for low quality PLR. That will hurt you in the long run. If you take the time to find the right quality of PLR you will save time. You can use that saved time to add more value for your members. Win-Win. Some more suggestions: • Don't wait. I can't tell you how many stories I read about marketers waiting until "everything is just right." The funny thing is they keep saying this for months, and even years, on end. Everything will never be exactly right. Get it started with a simple set-up and tweak it from there. I've heard all the excuses that people come up with. Can I be totally blunt with you? They're excuses. Stop making them. I don't care if you stubbed your left toe this morning. That does not stop you starting right now, today. • Welcome new members to their site. The first time a new member logs on to your membership site full of content, it can feel daunting. Make them feel at home, and make it easy to find things so they don't feel overwhelmed. Add a welcome video if you have a camera that takes video. PAGE 18 COPYRIGHT AMIN MOTIN | VOLUME TWO MEMBERSHIPSITESOLUTIONS.COM
Remember that they will see it as their membership site. Not yours. Make them feel at home. Let them take pride of ownership of their membership. • Grow and change. A membership site is not a static entity. Let it grow and change as member's needs evolve. Maybe no one is checking out the longer training material--break it up into smaller segments. Ask your members what they want. When they tell you, listen! There is always more to learn about running a membership site. This has been the second volume covering the basics. In the training course I offer at membershipsitesolutions.com I go into these topics in depth. If you're interested, check out what you get at http://membershipsitesolutions.com/jl/ Even if you only get a grip on the things I've covered for you in this report and volume one, you're likely to be well ahead of 90% of your possible competition. Most people will take NO action on the things they learn in this report. Most people will leave it gathering dust on their hard drives. There are two main reasons that many people fail to making money online. The first is lack of simple training to follow. The second reason is lack of action. 95% of people will never take consistent action and then they wonder why their results are poor. Are you different? I dare you to take the first step towards your own future. Imagine where you could be in just 1 year from now.
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Conclusion In the two volumes of this report series we've seen that membership sites represent a fantastic opportunity for generating recurring income. But you have to offer good content. That part is down to you. You can create the content yourself, or buy it in. There's no right or wrong way on that, as long as your content is good. I encourage you to start your first membership site as soon as you can. The longer you wait, the more potential revenue you allow to disappear. You can do what most people do and give yourself one excuse after another why you can't start "right now". The most common excuse is waiting for everything to be perfect. Yes, that is just an excuse. It's not holding yourself to a higher standard – it's an excuse. If you don't like that brutal honesty, that's just too bad. I can sugar coat it for you, but that won't help you. Once you have a working membership site you can make as many changes as you want. Take the information in these two volumes and put it into action. Then adjust, tweak, modify and fine-tune your effort as you go. You'll be surprised how fast you can build a powerful membership site that your members love and generates income you can count on! Amin Motin MembershipSiteSolutions.com TrainingVideosWebinars.com Easywpplugins.com
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