Category: Grow a Home Business

    Promoting Memberships with Small Reports

    If you want to promote your own membership or someone else’s membership that you’re an affiliate of, you can do it in a lot of ways. You can write blog posts, reviews, eBooks, and share on social media, and so forth. But, you can also promote memberships using small reports. There are a lot of different ways to create small reports that are good to use in this way.

    * Use PLR – Small reports are wonderful uses for PLR. PLR means private label rights. These are articles or other content that you can rewrite and reuse as if it’s your own. You can purchase PLR from a reputable company like AllPrivateLabelContent.com. You change them a bit, add your affiliate links, and you’re done.

    * Combine New and PLR – Combine several types of PLR plus something new and relevant to your audience to create a report in which you place an affiliate link to the membership you’re trying to promote.

    * Write Something New – Take one problem that people who may join the membership have, and either define it or solve it with the small report. Offer up the group as additional support to help them maintain their solution or solve more problems that they may have.

    * Make Brandable Reports – Create a report that is designed for your affiliates to edit, make their own and brand with their affiliate links. Affiliates like promoting products that are easy to promote, and nothing makes it simpler than providing them with the raw materials to create their own report.

    * Use Pictures, Facts and Stats – A good use for pictures, facts and statistics is to compile them into a small report that has pictures, graphics, and images. The more you can spell out the benefits of a solution, the more likely someone is to want to join a group. What better way than a small report with pie charts?

    * Hire a Writer – If you don’t want to write the reports yourself, you can hire a contractor to write the reports for you. A short report is usually about 4000 to 4500 words long. You can usually hire someone from 12 dollars per page and up. So budget about 120 to 200 dollars for your short reports.

    * Give Them Away – Use the report to give away for free. You don’t even have to collect an email address, since the report has links for the membership. More people are likely to download the report if they don’t have to give any information.

    * Exchange Them for Email Addresses – Another way to do it is to give away the report for an email address. They’ll get the marketing inside the report, plus they’ll be signed up for your email list that is targeted to the people who downloaded the report.

    * Encourage Sharing – When you are using a report to promote something like a membership, you want the people who download it to feel free to share it with everyone they know. If you make it interesting enough, and able to stand on its own enough, they will share it.

    Promoting memberships with small reports is a very effective way to get people to come to your membership. You can give them a discount based on which report they are coming from, for example, whether from an affiliate or from you directly.

    Categories: membership, website Tags: Tags:

    Promote Memberships with Kindle Books

    The way to really catch your membership on fire is to make it one that is mentioned a lot by others, and to make it popular through a published book. Kindle makes it easy to publish books. Anyone can write a book and publish it and have it live within a few days. Plus, your book doesn’t even have to be that long to promote it and publish it via Kindle.

    * Teach Something to Your Audience – If you have a membership program, then that means you also have knowledge about something that other people want to know. You can write a book; it doesn’t have to be long. 30 or 40 pages is enough. Teach them something tangible that is related to your membership.

    * Write a Book of Case Studies – If you have had the membership for a while, you can create an anthology of stories from the members with their permission. People will clamor to include their success story in a book. Just be sure to get a signed statement of permission to print, and you’re golden.

    * Tell Them Multiple Ways to Find Solutions – In the book, don’t just include your membership as a solution. Include a variety of them, but mention your membership too. You don’t want the book to appear overtly promotional.

    * Give Clear Examples of Success  – Using your members as a source, include clear examples of people who have experienced success using the methods explained in the book. Even if they used these methods outside of the group environment, the important thing is that they used the methods.

    * Let Your Book Stand on Its Own – Your book should not be a 40-page sales letter; it should be able to stand on its own as an interesting and informative book. The message should be clear in the book and they should not have to join the membership to get the whole story.

    * Give Away Something Free – In order to get them interested in the membership, give away a free month of membership for purchasing the book. That will help keep an influx of new members so that your membership is active. Plus, if your membership is good, they’ll stick around longer.

    * Start an Affiliate Program – If you want other people to promote your group in a book, it’s important to start an affiliate program. Your members will come up with book ideas all on their own, to promote your membership.

    * Encourage Others to Promote in Their Books – Give the idea to your affiliates to write a book to promote the group. Encourage this by actively promoting authors who include your affiliate link and group mention in their book to your group.

    Promoting memberships with books doesn’t have to be just your own memberships. If you are part of any group that has an affiliate program, you can write a book that includes the information about the membership, as long as it’s relevant to the topic of the book.

    Categories: Membership, website Tags: Tags:

    Planning Your Email Marketing

    Your best chance of success with email marketing is to create a plan based on the products that you want to promote. It all starts with your product funnel, which leads to your content marketing plan, which leads to your email marketing calendar. All email marketing should be focused toward promoting your products and/or services and that requires planning. The following steps will help you increase the results of your email marketing.

    Craft a Working Product Funnel – You probably already have various products and services, but you may not have designed a product funnel yet that helps you understand how everything is interconnected and works together. Understanding this can help you keep your different lists and promotions in order.

    Design Sales Pages for Each Product – Each page should tell your audience the benefits of purchasing the product. Remember a sales pages focus is on the audience, not on you. Benefits over features, always – pretend you are the client and answer all the questions and concerns they might have right on the sales page.

    Start Appropriate Email Lists for Each Product– Using your autoresponder, create the lists for each product or service that you will promote. At the minimum you will want a general email list for people who visit the front page of your blog and then two lists for each product you sell. Create one list for people who purchased the product and one list for people who just want more info about the particular product. Name them appropriately so that you know where to put the messages based from where the audience joins your list.

    Develop a New Product Launch Calendar – Knowing when each product is being launched for new upcoming products and or services will help you identify which lists you can include the announcements and information on. Plus, it will remind you to create new sales pages, lists, blog posts and email marketing messages for each new product.

    Create a Blog Post Publication Calendar – Based on the product launch calendar, write blog posts and set deadlines for them to be scheduled. Ensure that some blog posts promote the various sales pages, and other blog posts are designed for those who purchased already. For each message, consider who will see it and where they come from.

    Create a Social Media Content Publication Calendar – Develop social media messages in a series based on your blog posts that will attract your readers to click through to your sales pages and purchase or sign up for your email lists.

    Create an Email Publication Calendar – Based on how everything works together above, create a series of emails that you can edit appropriately for each separate list that you may want to promote the new product to. Load them into the right auto responders, ensuring they link to the right sales pages depending on the audience they are sent out to.

    Craft Follow-Up Messages – Don’t forget to craft all your follow-up messages too for each product that you sell. Once sold, you will want to keep in contact with the customer who bought it so that you can market future products and services to them.

    By creating a plan of action to follow, you can make sure every single time you launch a new product that you can cross-promote other products and services without bombarding your list too much with messages they don’t need, thus increasing your conversion rates exponentially. If all the content you create goes together like a puzzle to promote all of your products and services in a seamless way, it’ll be that much easier each time to set up for each new product.

    Categories: Email Subscribers Tags: Tags:

    Nine Ways to Promote Your Membership Program

    You’ve built an awesome membership program and now you need to get members. Members will bring in regular income on a monthly basis that you can count on. But, first you have to get the attention of your target audience. You do that by promoting your membership program in a variety of ways.

    1. Social Media – Not only should you post information in your updates about your membership, but you should also put information about your membership program in your profile. On LinkedIn, for example, you can even put videos and other information for viewers to see so that they can get more information.

    2. Blog Posts – Create a lot of blog posts leading up to the launch of your membership program. Discuss problems, solutions, and how your group fits in. You can put the posts in different formats like videos to get even more reach.

    3. PPC Ads – Social media like Facebook is a good place to run pay-per-click advertisements about your membership, because you can laser target your audience using the tools provided.

    4. Affiliate Marketers – Let other people market your group by setting up an affiliate program. Offer your affiliates all the tools, graphics, emails, posts and more to help them promote your membership.

    5. Webinars – A popular and effective way to promote your new membership program is to have a webinar that offers some solutions for the problems of the target audience. At the end of and throughout the webinar, promote the membership program as an extra form of help.

    6. Email Marketing – Using these other venues, get people onto your email list. Then send them a series of emails educating them about their problems and how the membership is the solution.

    7. A Great Sales Page – Your sales page for your membership is very important. There are a lot of tools you can use to ensure that you create a good sales page, like LeadPages.net or InstaBuilder.com.

    8. Magazines – You can put advertisements in specific magazines that have to do with your niche. Trade magazines often have cheaper advertising costs than popular general magazines, so look for the right niche magazine.

    9. Personal Networking – Whether in person or online, networking is an important component of helping spread the word about your membership program. Tell everyone you know that you have it when the opportunity comes up.

    Promoting your membership program is imperative if you want to get enough members. You can’t build it and expect them to automatically find you. You have to be proud of what you’ve created, and get your membership program to more people who are in your target audience by promoting it.

    Categories: Membership Tags: Tags:

    Nine Ways to Participate in an Online Community

    One of the ways to make an online community work is to practice a high level of participation. When you get involved in your online community, it will really pay off in a big way by making you closer to the other members. You and the members can become awesome resources to each other throughout your business’s growth.

    1. Introduce Yourself – When you become part of an online community, start out on the right foot by introducing yourself according to the rules of the group. Most online communities have rules that prohibit sharing of URLs or advertising, but most allow you to introduce yourself to get started in the group.

    2. Ask Questions – Once you’ve been properly introduced, start asking questions to get the discussions going in the group. This is a good way to get to know each other as well as to get to know your audience. When people answer your question, be sure to comment back and thank them and add to the discussion.

    3. Answer Questions – When other people ask questions that you have an answer to, be sure that you answer the questions honestly and openly, without any intent to sell them anything. Give of yourself freely and you will end up with a large return on investment.

    4. Comment on Stories – When other people introduce themselves or tell a story, be sure to comment on them. If the community often posts informative articles, be sure to comment on those too and to point them out to others in the group for reading.

    5. Create a Good Signature Line – Most groups allow you to have some type of signature line that has a link back to your website. Be sure to provide a specialized link just for that group that offers specials for group members.

    6. Fill Out Your Profile Completely – Additionally, most online communities have a profile area. Be sure to upload a nice headshot, and to fill out the entire profile. That way when someone wants to learn more about you they can easily do so.

    7. Invite New People – When you know that the group would be a good fit for someone you meet elsewhere, share the group with them. Bringing in new people to the community keeps the community alive and fresh.

    8. Be a Resource to Others – Never be afraid to be an open book resource within your area of expertise. If you want to be known as an expert, show that expertise within your answers to others.

    9. Start a Subgroup – Once you’ve become well known and people start coming to you more, see if you can start a subgroup inside the group. Ask for permission before doing that, but it might be of help to the group owner if you don’t own the group.

    If you make it your goal to do everything on this list over a period of time, you’ll notice something amazing happening. You’ll notice that you’ve built real relationships with the people in the group, and that they are referring you to potential clients and you are potentially referring some of them to clients too. It’s a two-way street when you are part of a community. The fact that it is online doesn’t mean it’s not real.

    Categories: organizations Tags: Tags:

    Networking with Members

    When you join a membership group, the whole point is to network with members, and the whole point of doing that is to build relationships. People like to buy from people that they trust, and the way to build trust is to network with people enough that they can get a good idea of what type of person you are. Even if you’re an introvert, you can network with members successfully.

    * It’s All about Them – Just like your “about me” page is really written with your audience in mind, and all about them, so is networking with members. It’s about them, not you. This can actually take a lot of pressure off your nerves when attending membership meetings.

    * Don’t Sell Anything – Networking meetings are about building relationships, not about selling. Yes, your ultimate goal is to get more clients and referrals. But to do that, focus on just making connections and getting to know people.

    * Make a Good Impression – Don’t show up at meetings in your jammies even if you work from home in them. Instead, dress in a professional way depending on the type of membership you joined. If the typical dress at the meeting is a business suit then you need to wear one. If it’s more dressed down, that’s great; but always present a clean, professional appearance that will please your ideal customer.

    * Have Business Cards Ready – It might seem old-fashioned, but the business card is still available and a popular way to share information when networking. You need to have cards with you at all times because you never know when you’ll meet someone who needs the information you have. Don’t fling your card at people, but when an opening comes up – such as they ask, or you ask for theirs – then you can trade cards.

    * Practice Your Elevator Speech – Some people claim the elevator speech is too old-fashioned and “canned.” However, if you don’t practice talking about what it is that you do, framed in the language of benefit to your audience, you will be lost and so will your audience.

    * Be Ready to Answer Questions – Not only should you know your niche well, but you should know how your audience likes to hear about your niche. In this way, when they ask questions you can always frame the answers in terms of benefits for them. Remember, you don’t “do data entry” – you save time for your customer by doing those tasks that they don’t want to do.

    * Make Out of Meeting Dates – This means that you want to continue building the relationship outside of the meetings. This is a great way to take the networking to the next level. Arrange luncheons to learn more about the person and their business, and move forward. You are going to want to refer others too, so getting to know them is imperative.

    * Go to Meetings Regularly – Once you join, it’s important to be an active member. Joining and getting on a list isn’t going to help. Participating, showing up, and being an active member will do wonders for you.

    It’s important to remember that networking with members is all about building relationships. It’s not just about going to a meeting, sitting there while everyone else talks, and “doing your time” then going home. You need to get out of your comfort zone and truly network. But, simply by making it more about them than you, you’ll be able to do it well.

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    Membership Software That Works

    When you are deciding on technology for your membership site, it’s important to consider not only technology that works, but also technology that works for you in the way that you want it to work. What features do you want the membership software to have? What is your skill level with troubleshooting technology? Who will you hire if you don’t have the skills? There is a lot to think about when choosing membership software.

    1. NewRainmaker – This software is software as service (SAS), meaning it’s running from the cloud. You don’t do anything but set it up, kind of like you would WordPress. All the plugins and functionality that works best with membership sites are included, such as affiliate management, drip technology, and forums. This software includes a monthly fee for hosting, tech support and use of the software.

    Link – http://newrainmaker.com/

    2. aMember – This is an add-on to your current website. If you use WordPress it works very well with it. It also works with other types of website builders. It includes affiliate management, drip technology and more. You will need to purchase separate software to have a forum. They will install it for you for a fee and provide great support. It’s a one-time fee and upgrade fees yearly. You’ll have to pay extra for tech support if things go wrong.

    Link – http://www.amember.com/

    3. iGrOOps – This is another hosted solution where you pay a monthly fee for using the system. They provide all the upgrades, updates, and hosting. You simply use their template system to create your membership site. It has all the bells and whistles but it cannot be made to look like your current site.

    Link – http://www.igroops.com/

    4. EasyMemberPRO – They promise anyone can set up a membership site, and connect it with your current software quickly and easily. It also has a lot of what you need with a profitable membership site, including affiliate management. There’s a one-time fee with one year of free upgrades.

    Link – http://www.easymemberpro.com/

    5. WishList Member – This is a plugin that works with self-hosted WordPress websites, turning your current site into a membership site with all the bells and whistles except that if you want a forum you have to purchase software for the forum.

    Link – http://member.wishlistproducts.com/

    6. MemberGate – Another hosted solution with a monthly fee but one that offers every bell and whistle you can imagine from forums, to video hosting, to drip technology and more. The look is slightly dated for the choices of templates, but you can use your own coder working with them to change that if you want to spend the time and money.

    Link – http://www.membergate.com/

    7. ONTRAPORT – This is a very high-end solution (with a high-end price). But, if you plan to run a six-figure business, this is a great solution that offers managed membership without having to ever worry about technology. It will also work with your current WordPress website.

    Link – https://ontraport.com/features/

    8. SiteManPro – This is a great solution if you want to sell digital items and run a membership solution. You can use this to automate the entire thing. It can work with your current WordPress site. You will need to get separate forum software if you feel you need one. It integrates easily and works as it states.

    Link – http://www.sitemanpro.com/

    9. Smember

    Remember to write down the features you want your membership site to offer, as well as to take into consideration your level of technological skill as you pick a membership software solution. It might cost a few dollars, but you can’t make any money if you don’t make a choice and get started.

    Categories: Membership Tags: Tags:

    Making the Most of Your ECourse

    Creating an eCourse is a great way to get subscribers to your list. An eCourse is also a great way to give information to your subscribers that they need, as well as a way to market other information to them. It’s important to build trust with your subscribers and you can do that with a well written and planned out eCourse.

    But, there are some best practices for your eCourse that you should be aware of when using an eCourse as subscription bait, either free or paid.

    1. Craft Well Written Opt-In Messages – Tell your subscribers what to expect in the opt-in information. That way they will know that they’re going to get more than just the eCourse. Letting them know this will do two things. One, it will prepare your subscriber to get more than just the course; and two, it will give them the opportunity to say no or yes. The best subscribers know what they’re getting into when they opt in.

    2. Make the Most of Your Thank You Message – Once they opt in, send them a thank you message. This is a great place to include extra information about what they’re going to receive, again, and other opportunities that you have for them. If every single message you send out is packed with information, you’ll be more likely to get a positive response.

    3. Craft Your Course Series Carefully – If you’ve promised your subscribers a ten-day email course, each day of the course should be very well defined and stand on its own but also make them excited for the next course delivery. Remember a ten-day course doesn’t have to be delivered one each day; it can be one each week with other information in between.

    4. Create Offers within Course Messages – Each course message is a great time to include offers to the subscribers for other products and services or information that you promote. You can send them to affiliate products and services that coincide with what you’re teaching them in the course.

    5. Add Extras within the Course Series – A ten-day eCourse can turn into a month of emails with extra days and courses. You can even ask for homework from your course subscribers, sending them to a private Facebook group or forum where they can turn in their assignments to give them extra -all within the same “10 day” course.

    6. Give Bonus Course Information – If you want to, you can offer your subscribers the opportunity to sign up for another eCourse series within the current course that you’re providing. Many people are happy to find out about more advanced information about a particular subtopic within the original eCourse.

    7. Offer Opportunities to Join Other Lists – If you have more than one email list that might be of interest, the eCourse is an excellent way to let your subscribers know about them. Keeping your subscribers moving through your product funnel by making new offers is a great way to make the most of your eCourse.

    8. Periodically Update the Course Information – Even when the course is over, if updates happen, or changes in technology occur, it’s a good time to contact your course members to give them the scoop on the update.

    Making the most of an eCourse is essential to making the course worth your time and effort. Thankfully most, if not all, of the email course can be automated using your autoresponder service – whether it’s a free eCourse or a paid course.

    Categories: Email Subscribers Tags: Tags:

    Increase Conversion by Keeping Emails Simple

    Email marketing is an effective way to market your products, services and information to your audience. But, it can be easy to confuse your readers to the point that they do not take action. If you want to improve conversions, consider the following.

    Know Your Audience – The best thing you can do for your business is to understand your audience backwards and forwards. The more you know who you’re crafting emails for, the better you can word everything to get the response you want.

    Craft Subject Lines That Create Curiosity – Your first line of defense is the subject line of your email. If your subject line doesn’t make the reader curious enough to open the email to read the rest, nothing else matters.

    Create Attention-Grabbing Headlines – When someone opens an email, the headline is the first thing they will see after the subject line that enticed them to open the email in the first place. If this doesn’t grab their attention, they probably won’t continue reading.

    Use Bulleted Information – Inside the email message, be sure to make the information easy to absorb. One way to do this is to use bulleted information and lists. People read online differently than they read a book. They read vertically instead of horizontally; therefore, make the information match where the eye goes.

    Have One Focus per Email – Instead of giving too much information and many options for purchasing something, make your email focused on one item and one offer. You can always upsell and cross-sell at the point of checkout but for the purposes of the email, make the focus on one thing only.

    Provide One Link per Email – Don’t overwhelm your audience with ten links to different items in your emails. Instead, provide one link for the focused information that you want to get across to your audience. One link gives them one thing to do.

    Know Your Specific Call to Action – If you can identify the one thing you want your audience to do after reading your email then it will be easier for you to design the subject line, headline and email to match.

    Keep It Short and Simple – Super long emails don’t translate well because most people just want to know what the point is and move on from the email. Take out extraneous words and get to the point in your emails for faster action.

    Understanding that you can increase conversions by being more focused in each email that you send doesn’t mean you can’t promote more than one item in your email messages. However, focusing each message on one promotion will get you further than too many promotions in one email. The reason is that you avoid confusion and increase conversions by telling your audience about one offer at a time.

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    How to Turn an Unsubscribe Back into a Subscribe

    Once in a while you’ll have someone unsubscribe from your email list. In reality, you want to get some unsubscribes because that means your list is super focused and it might not be right for that particular person. However, the unsubscribe process is also another opportunity to refocus that person and better target your audience.

    Follow the Law – By law you must offer an easy to use unsubscribe button. Don’t force them to re-enter their email addresses to unsubscribe. Just give them the button, and let them go without doing so grudgingly. However, you can remind them of why they joined your list at the same time by sending them to a special offer sales page when they click unsubscribe.

    Keep It Simple – Don’t make it tricky to unsubscribe. Prepopulate the unsubscribe buttons but also offer the alternatives to the reader to choose different lists or information they may want that might be more accurate for them.

    Ask Them Why They’re Leaving – Using the unsubscribe page as a way to find out why they want to unsubscribe can help you better focus your email messages and opt-in offers in the future. Plus, it can give the person unsubbing new insight into what you offer your lists and they may change their mind.

    Offer Alternatives – On the unsubscribe page, don’t make them jump through hoops but do offer them some options such as lower frequency of email (such as a monthly option) and/or different newsletters they can sign up for, or other offers that you have that they may not know about.

    Take It in Your Stride – It’s really not personal. If you can take the unsubscribe for what it is, a simple request not to get more email from the list they’ve subscribed to and not a personal attack on you, then you’ll be able to handle the unsubs better. Honestly, a clean list is better than a list full of inactive users, so some people are doing you a favor by unsubscribing.

    Send High Quality Information – Stop unsubscribes before they start by providing high quality information that is very targeted toward your audience from the start. When someone subscribes to your list, let them know what to expect up front, then be sure to deliver what you promised.

    Send a Free Parting Gift – When someone unsubcribes from your list, your autoresponder email will send them an unsubscribe confirmation email which is your chance to say goodbye. Within that you can offer them a parting gift which will then put them on a different list that might be more appropriate for them.

    Ask Them to Reconsider – On the unsubscribe page you can also simply ask them straight out to reconsider unsubscribing. Offer them a gift if they stick around a little longer such as one more week or a month. Some people are only unsubscribing because they forgot why they signed up for your list. This is a chance to remind them.

    You have to tread lightly when it comes to unsubscribing because you don’t want to make it really difficult and make them jump through hoops to finally get off your list. But, you do want to ensure that you remind your audience why they signed up for your list. Make it clear that you’re sorry they’re leaving, and finally ask them for another chance at pleasing them.

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