Tag: membership

    Eight Ways to Provide Value to Members

    Getting people to join your membership is only half the battle. Getting them to stay is the other half. The best way to do that is to offer exceptional value to them once they join. Some of the value you explained to them on your sales page where you mentioned the benefits, but some should be left as a surprise for after they’ve joined. Remember, the key to member retention is to under promise and over deliver.

    1. Offer a Knowledge Base – A searchable knowledge base is an excellent way to provide value to your members. You can add to it over time, as questions are asked via email and on forums and in group message boards. Being able to have answers at their fingertips will keep them coming back.

    2. Host Free Educational Videos – Within the knowledge base it will help if some of the more complex information is provided in video form. When you show people how to do something in this manner, they will want to come back and will therefore keep their memberships active. This is especially true if your videos are produced in as close to a professional manner as practical.

    3. Host a Members Only Directory – People like doing business with other members, so if you can provide a members only directory that lists people’s websites, specialties, and offers, they will enjoy that benefit immensely.

    4. Have Members Only Offers – When you have a membership, pushing out a new product to them first, with a huge discount, is another great members only offer that you can do on a regular basis. Not only that – it’s a great way to test out your new products.

    5. Monthly Group Calls – It’s not hard to use a system like Free Conference Call to conduct a live call once a month or even more if you want. It’s amazing how something as simple as spending an hour on a phone call once a month will help with member retention.

    Link to Free Conference Call – https://www.freeconferencecall.com/

    6. Offer Specialty Groups – If you have a larger membership, breaking it down into specialty groups will help people stick around longer too, because they will feel catered to. You want each member of your group to feel special. A good idea is to have small, five-people “mastermind” groups, complete with weekly call and a special forum.

    7. Host Members Only Events – Another great way to provide value to your members is to have members only events such as in-person events, meet-ups, and webinars. You can also use these to allow each member to invite one new person to help expand membership.

    8. Offer Member JV Opportunities – People love working together with like-minded people. Provide them new ways to join together to make new offers, do new things, work together in ways they may not have thought about.

    You can be assured that your members will be happy with their membership if you give them just a bit more than what they thought they would get. Fortunately, you’ll be able to actually interact with and ask your members via the message boards or other groups you form. So, it’ll be easy to give them more than they thought they were getting.

    Categories: Grow a Home Business, membership Tags: Tags:

    Get Others to Promote Your Membership Program

    When you start a membership program you want to have a steady flow of new members entering the program at any given time. The average time someone stays in a membership program is usually 12 weeks or 3 months. Therefore, you need a constant stream of people coming into the membership to keep it full and active.

    Members Only Referrals

    One of the easiest ways to not only encourage people to stick around longer than 12 weeks but also to get new members, is to allow members to refer your group. Require people to stay a member to be able to refer the group and receive commissions. Offer a nice 50 to 60 percent recurring referral percentage to the members who refer others. This will keep them around longer, as well as get more members.

    Affiliate Marketers

    If you don’t want to allow only members to promote your group, you can let affiliate marketers promote it. But, you do want to choose the marketers carefully to ensure that they will use honest methods to promote your group. Provide graphics, blog posts, and other information to help them market your membership.

    Make YouTube Videos

    A good YouTube video can go viral. If you create a regular channel on YouTube that people like to watch, it is another means of promotion for your membership program. You don’t even have to mention the membership program other than at the end of the videos, and in the description bar. Ask people to share – this is a great way to get other people to promote your membership program.

    Create Infographics

    People love sharing infographics that give data that the audience needs to know. They also are more likely to share visual material than the same data in print or a blog post. The best way to start is to put the graphic on your social media networks. Ask your family and friends to share, and you’ll create momentum.

    Provide Excellent Graphics

    Other people are more likely to want to promote your membership group if you offer good material and graphics to help them promote it well. Memes, infographics, videos and more all offer everyone a good way to promote your membership program.

    Personalized Webinars

    A really good way to promote your membership group is to ask movers and shakers within the industry to host a webinar where you’ll be the guest. You will answer questions and then promote your membership at the end of the webinar.

    Ask for Testimonials

    The testimonials of others will help you promote your membership program, but it will also help other people promote your group. The more good things you can show people about your membership program, the better. The more good people see, the more they’ll want to help promote your membership.

    Memberships are a lucrative way to create a new stream of income based on the niche you’re already involved in. You can provide your products and/or services in an entirely new way that guarantees regular and timely income.

    Categories: Grow a Home Business, membership Tags: Tags:

    Ten Reasons Membership Is Lucrative 

    The reasons memberships are lucrative are many and varied. But, the fact is, with the right plan you can make a full-time living online adding membership to your product list. Having a continuity plan can change your business life for the better. You know it works because big business does it too. Think about Netflix, Amazon Prime, and even your local Massage Envy which offers membership programs.

    Here are ten reasons why membership is lucrative.

    1. You’ll Feel Good – When you can offer something to others that they need, you’re going to feel great about it. This makes a membership more lucrative because you’re going to not only make money, but you are also going to want to keep adding to it. Going to work will feel like a joy.

    2. Inexpensive Start-Up Costs – Relatively speaking, if you choose your software properly and take into consideration your own level of knowledge, the start-up costs are low, which means your profits will be higher.

    3. Steady Income – If you haven’t experienced the consistency of regular income, you will when you start a successful membership site. People start them for a reason, and people also join them for the same reason.

    4. People Love Privacy – Members join a club for privacy. They can go to a membership site and talk about what they want to without worry that it’s searchable on the net.

    5. You Can Do It Alone – You don’t need a huge staff to help you build or run a successful membership website. Once you get the technology set up, you just have to add to it on a regular basis and participate in the forums if you choose. If you do a drip membership, you can set it up and forget it. Less staff equals more profit.

    6. You Have Something to Offer – Anyone who has something to offer, even the smallest niche, can start a membership site that is successful.

    7. Add Value to Your Current Business – If you already have a business online, adding a continuity program will take your business to the next level.

    8. People Want Exclusivity – Membership makes people feel special as if they’re part of a secret group of movers and shakers. Therefore, getting people to join isn’t hard. Getting them to stay is a little more work but if you focus on value, you can do it.

    9. People Expect a ROI – People join membership sites expecting to get huge value out of the membership. And as long as you can provide that to them, then not only will they feel they’re getting a return on their investment, you will too.

    10. People Are Curious – People will join simply out of curiosity to see what’s inside. It’s up to you to hold them there to increase your profits.

    If you market your membership correctly, you will have a successful online membership business – provided that you’ve done your homework on starting it in the right niche. People want to feel as if they belong, and they like having privacy. If you have information to offer, membership is the best way to do it.

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    Getting More Information from Your Subscribers AFTER They Opt In

    The best email subscription forms ask for very little information to start. But, the more personalized the emails you send your subscribers, the more response you’ll get. Therefore, you need to come up with ways to get more information from your subscribers after they’ve already opted in so that you can ensure that you are sending them the right information.

    Welcome Message – Right off the bat, when you send your new subscriber a welcome message to your list, it is a great opportunity to seek more information from them using a web form. Depending on which email marketing program you use will determine which features it has to collect more information.

    Thank You Page – Another great place to get more information from your subscribers. This can be true of an opt-in thank you page, and a product purchase thank you page. Create a form for the page where your subscriber or buyer can click to provide more information about them to help you serve them better.

    Polls and Quizzes – Periodically, it is helpful to send your list subscribers interactive information such as polls and quizzes. This will help engage your list subscribers in a new way and open them up to providing more information about themselves so that you can personalize your interactions with them even more.

    Coupons and Codes – Any time a subscriber takes advantage of a coupon code is a good time to collect more information about them so that you can personalize the information you send them. You may have only collected an email and name when they first opted in but when they redeem the code, ask for just a bit more info.

    Request for Response – Sending out an email to your subscribers requesting a response such as a comment on your blog, or for them to fill out a form, or to ask you a question that you’ll answer on your blog, is a good way to get more information about each subscriber that can be used to create more personalized messages.

    Surprise Gifts – You probably gave your subscriber a freebie when they signed up for your list. You can use the same tactic in your subscriptions to get more information from your subscribers. Offer them a new free gift for some sort of action taken.

    Subscriber Preferences – This is a good way to get more information is to offer your subscribers various preferences they can choose for the type of information they want. If you have more than one type of list, why not give them a chance to get on other lists that you have at this point?

    Behavioral – Moving your subscribers from list to list due to the behavior that they demonstrate is a great way to personalize the information that your subscribers receive. For instance, if they click through to buy something, they should be moved to a new list.

    Don’t just try one time to get more information from your subscribers. Take time to build the trust between you and your subscribers and as time goes on, ask more questions and seek more feedback from them so that you can make the information you send them more personal than ever before. The more personal your messaging is to them, the more response you’re likely to get.

    Categories: Email Subscribers, Grow a Home Business Tags: Tags: ,

    Choosing Member Benefits

    When you create a membership website, you’ll need to determine what you’ll choose for membership benefits. The benefits you choose will vary depending upon your niche, your audience, and the cost of the membership. After all, if the price is higher and the number of members is limited, the member will expect much more than if the price is lower and more people are able to join.

    Some examples of member benefits might be:

    More Access to You

    You are probably the most important part of the membership website. People want to feel as if they can get direct help and advice from you. If you can promote more access to you as a benefit, then the members will appreciate that enormously – especially if you offer more expensive coaching to clients.

    Private Message Boards

    Feeling part of a close-knit community is a wonderful thing and a wonderful way to keep members wanting to pay their monthly membership fee. If you can keep the message boards busy, you can keep your members a lot happier. Promote a busy message board as a huge benefit.

    Learning

    People love consuming information products that teach them about a small aspect of their business, and you can provide continuous monthly products that help your members become more successful or happier (depending upon your niche). Information products can provide this benefit.

    Accountability

    You can offer your members the benefit of accountability by setting up goal-setting groups and forums. This is such a great aspect of membership websites that even the members themselves jump in to offer this to each other.

    Special Offers

    You don’t have to stop selling to your members just because they’re members; you can use the membership as a way to offer the members first chances at special offers, new programs, and more. They’ll appreciate being an insider, and you’ll get to test out new products on them first.

    Connections

    One of the many benefits of membership is the ability to find great connections that can become joint venture partners. Your members will benefit from being introduced to wonderful people with whom they can form partnerships and take their goal setting to the next level.

    And More

    There are so many benefits that you can promote that should be based on the niche, your audience and their needs. Always put the needs of your audience first. And remember, you can start with a few benefits and then add to them as you go. Nothing has to be perfect from the get-go.

    Membership websites are full of benefits for their members. Which benefits you choose to put into place is completely dependent on your knowledge of the niche, as well as what the audience needs and feels are important.

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    How to Build an Online Community

    Building an online community is an important way to build your business online. Online communities usually consist of an information area, members’ area with a message board, perhaps a chat room, and then some members only resources like a membership directory, checklists, white papers, eBooks and more.

    * Determine What Technology You Will Use – One of the most important aspects of starting an online community is choosing which technology you will use to build it. There are many options to choose from. Base your choice on your technical knowledge, your budget, and what features you want the community to offer.

    * Choose the Niche You’ll Focus On – It’s best if the online community you build is based on one target audience and not too widespread. Just like you focus on a niche with your business, focus on the same niche with the community.

    * Create Content Specifically for the Community – Once you have a community it’s important that you create content specifically for that community on a regular basis. Consistency is the key to ensuring that you attract new members and keep the old members satisfied and interested.

    * Invite New People on a Regular Basis – You want to have regular new members showing up because it keeps the group fresh and brings in new questions, thoughts, and conversation.

    * Connect Your Community to Social Media – Social media is the best way to market your online community. You can even start with an online community first on Facebook with Facebook Groups.

    * Be Engaging and Caring to Your Members – Your personality will show through if you participate on a regular basis in discussions with the community. Let them see how caring you are.

    * Make It Easy for Others to Promote the Community – Start a referral club or an affiliate program that enables your community members to promote the group to others. Reward them for bringing in new members.

    * Interview Members on a Regular Basis – A great way to add content to the community is to choose a special member each month to highlight and interview. You can do these interviews in podcast form and put them on iTunes as well, for another way to promote your community.

    * Interview Experts in Your Niche – A great benefit for your community is to be able to learn from movers, shakers and other experts within your niche.

    * Promote Members of the Community – Once in a while allow the members of the group to promote their offers by having a something like a yearly fire sale that enables them to benefit from the entire community sharing.

    * Keep the Conversation Going – Don’t let the community die down. Keep the conversation going; ask for volunteers to monitor the group and to contribute to the content and discussion.

    Building an online community can help you create an entire community of raving fans that are not only ready to purchase your current products but who will also stand in line to purchase your new products. They’ll also promote you to their friends, family and associates. It’s a wonderful way to get to know your audience better and to improve product development.

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    Content for Your Membership Program

    One of the most important things you need to make your membership program successful is an enormous amount of content. The content cannot just be any old content either; it must be relevant, focused, and high quality to meet the standards of a membership website. However, there are simple ways to find all this content and make it work.

    * PLR – Private label rights content is a great way to find plenty of content to use in your membership website. You can find all kinds of PLR, from eCourses to full-fledged packages that cover all aspects of a particular niche. The key with using PLR is to rewrite it and change it up to make it your own. A great place to get PLR is All Private Label Content.

    Link – http://allprivatelabelcontent.com/

    * Videos – Making videos doesn’t have to be that hard; you don’t even have to appear in the video if you don’t want to. Record your desktop doing something that you want to teach your members to do. Record an interview, or post videos members made. You can also hire people on Fiverr.com to make explainer videos for you, or use a service like YumYumVideos.com.

    * Reports – A report is really a small eBook that talks about one specific problem or issue and how to solve it, or it can be an overview of many problems with links to solutions for each problem. It’s up to you how you might want to do reports. But you’ll need to have them for your membership website.

    * Infographics – An infographic is a pictorial depiction of data that is hard to explain with words. Usually infographics are quite in depth and long. You can use a service like Piktochart.com to help you create awesome infographics. All you need is the data.

    * Podcasts – A podcast is an audio recording for the net. It is a lot like a radio show that is just not live. You can record interviews using software like Audacity or Pamela for Skype to create your podcast. You can hire someone in Fiverr to make a wonderful promo opening for your podcast and sell advertising spots too.

    Links:
    Audacity – http://web.audacityteam.org/
    Pamela for Skype – http://www.pamela.biz/en/

    * Webinars – You might not think of webinars as content right off the bat, but it is. Plus it’s an easy way to get more content for your use on your membership website. Spend an hour a month having a Google Hangout that you record. Transcribe it, repurpose it, and use it multiple times.

    * Teleseminars – A really great way to produce more content is a teleseminar. You can do teleseminars simply with software like Instantteleseminars.com and what’s more is that they can play again as “live” anytime you want.

    * Event Information – Whenever you have a podcast, webinar, teleseminar or other event, you can promote information about the event to your membership. This event is a great way to use the words that get attention from your audience, as well as to get new members. When you say members go to the event free and non-members have to pay, you’ll get attention.

    * Memes – A great type of content to use on social media are images with quotes or data that you find interesting and that your audience will find useful. Add a compelling graphic with the quote and you have a winning meme that might go viral. Be sure to watermark it. You can create memes easily using Canva.com.

    * Research Data – To develop enough content for your membership website, you’ll need to continuously research data about your niche. You can report on that data in a straightforward way, and then you can use bits and pieces of the data to create even more content.

    * Presentations – Using PowerPoint and SlideShare.net you can create slide shows about any topic with research to back it up. Don’t forget that you can repurpose a slide show or presentation into a podcast or a report.

    All of this is content that will improve your membership website. Having a mixture of content types is going to make your membership website a lot more interesting to members, and make members more likely to stay connected and renew their membership each month.

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    How to Charge for Your Membership

    Once you’ve decided to create a membership, one of the things you’ll need to determine is the price. How you price your membership is very important. You can turn away or bring in the right market based on the price. Price in and of itself doesn’t always indicate value, though; that’s for the members to determine. What you need to do is figure out what you want to charge based on the type of value and the number of members you want to attract.

    Limited Memberships Mean Higher Fees

    If you have a limited membership where you only let a certain number of people in the group at any given time, then your fee structure will be based on that. Figure out the time and effort the membership will take from you, how much you want to earn each month, and then use that information to determine the monthly fee.

    For example, let’s say you’ve created a membership that you’re only going to allow ten people to join. In this membership you allow open office hours, a one-hour personal call each week, unlimited email interaction, a weekly teleseminar, and a monthly webinar on a topic of interest to the group. Plus, you have a private Facebook group for members current and past only.

    You can go by the time it takes you to conduct all this work, or you can instead just determine how much you need and want to make. Let’s say you’ve decided you want to earn $100K a year with the membership. With only ten paying members allowed at any given time, you’ll need to charge about 833 dollars a month to each paying member to earn $100K a year.

    Here’s the math: Desired earnings 100K a year / 10 Members = 10,000K /12 Months = $833 per month, per member.

    Unlimited Members Means Lower Fees

    With unlimited members allowed, you won’t have time for the one-on-one work, so it’ll be hands off other than interaction in a private forum. So, let’s say your membership offers a learning center, with a new course added each month that relates to the niche, plus a group coaching forum. Through the membership you’ll offer other opportunities, but they’ll all be group format and no one-on-one activity. For example, you may offer a teleseminar monthly on a topic, as well as early intro to new products and services.

    In this case, you need to find out how many potential customers you can attract to meet your goal of $100K a year. If the market has one million people in it, how many of those can you convert to paying subscribers? At $27.97 a month you’ll need about 298 members to meet the $100K a year goal.

    You’ll need to study whether it’s a possibility or not. If not, you may have to raise or lower the price to ensure that you attract the right amount of regular members to the membership. Here are some examples of how it might break down.

    Goal $100K a year:

    * 418 Members @ $19.97 a Month
    * 298 Members @ $27.97 a Month
    * 174 Members @ $47.97 a Month

    You’ll need to also keep in mind the payout to affiliates, marketing, advertising and so forth, but this gives you a general idea of what to consider when pricing your membership for best results. It always starts with your goal, big or small group, and your audience. How many of them are there, and how many can you attract and keep happy?

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    Software to Help Deliver Your Course

    When it comes to eCourses there are many ways to deliver the course. You can do it yourself on your own website using a password protected page, through email autoresponder like AWeber, or through other methods. Let’s go over a few of those methods to familiarize you with the multitude of ways that you can deliver your course.

    * Udemy – You can build a course, and then earn a percentage of sales, through using a third party system like Udemy. Your course has to be approved, and they have high standards of what is included and how you do it. For example, using the method requires a certain percentage of your course to be in video format.

    Link – https://www.udemy.com/

    * AWeber – You can deliver your course through email using an autoresponder like AWeber. Simply use a password to protect each page that has the download on it, and use a payment gateway like PayPal first.

    Link – http://www.aweber.com/

    * aMember – This is a great way to deliver your course. You can have them pay using the system, then sign up for a list. You use the list to remind them about the pages to allow them to download your course.

    Link – https://www.amember.com/

    * InstaMember – This membership site software helps you build a page that is members only so that they can get courses delivered to them. This is a WordPress plugin; the biggest drawback is you cannot drip the content.

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

    * MindFlash – This is an LMS system that allows you to accept payments, teach courses via mobile, social media, and more. You don’t need a website or a system to use this. It’s an all-in-one course delivery service.

    Link – https://www.mindflash.com/

    * LearnDash – This is an LMS plugin for WordPress that you can use to host your own learning management system easily to drip feed your courses to your audience. This is one of the easier options if you have a WordPress website.

    Link – http://www.learndash.com/

    * CouseCraft.net – This is a hosted system that will allow you to create and deliver your course without having to set up a system yourself. It’s simple to use, the price is fair, and it’s free to get started. Try it out.

    Link – https://coursecraft.net/

    * Academy of Mine – This is a cloud-based system that allows you to upload your course. You can even start an entire school and conduct live streaming courses if desired. This software has features you may not need that are very advanced, including affiliate program, multiple teachers and more.

    Link – https://www.academyofmine.com/

    However you decide to set up your course, it’s important to ensure that you have the right payment gateways that your audience wants to use. In most cases, most people who buy courses on line like to pay via credit card or PayPal. So, you’ll need a professional account in order to accept payment.

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    How to Get Volunteers to Help

    A really exciting aspect of memberships is that you can actually get free help. This is super important when first starting out, because you don’t want your membership website to seem barren and void of conversation and connection – especially in the discussion group.

    * Look to Your Audience – If you already have an audience that you’re creating the membership for, why not put out a call to them asking if anyone wants to volunteer. List the types of things you need done and make it like a job application. In this way you can be assured that they’re right for the membership but also have the right talents that can benefit the membership.

    * A Particularly Prolific Paid Member – Once you’ve started your membership website, you’ll notice some especially prolific members who always jump in to help, make suggestions, and have a lot of knowledge. You can ask them to keep doing what they’re doing in exchange for either free membership or something else of value.

    * Offer Volunteer Incentives – You can immediately incentivize all your members to volunteer to start discussions, contribute content and even recruit new members by giving incentives such as a higher affiliate payout or points to get free stuff.

    * Open the Blog for Guests – If you have a blog on your membership site, you can ask for volunteers to put content in it. You can set it up so that it’s mostly automatic with the exception of someone needing to approve the blog post for publication. You can choose to make the blog private for members only, or public to help encourage new members to join.

    * Implement a Point System – The point system has been mentioned, and it works well for encouraging activity on the forum, attendance at calls and so forth. Encouraging people to participate is volunteering in the respect that the more people who participate, the more people who will want to participate.

    * Reward Volunteers Publiclly – When someone has done something extraordinary, it’s important to recognize them. Member of the month and other freebies given to the most active members will automatically encourage more members to volunteer their time to keeping things moving.

    * Ask People – It doesn’t hurt to simply ask a member to volunteer a certain number of hours in a more formal arrangement in exchange for free membership (or ask those who aren’t members but whom you feel will benefit from a free membership). The number of volunteers you can get will coincide with the value of your membership.

    * Get Interns – Another way to get volunteers, if you have a popular and active membership already, is to get inters. There are laws and regulations you must follow when it comes to internships, but the main thing is that the intern needs to get more out of it than you do. So, it’s important to offer the interns some form of education.

    You’ll be surprised at how many people will want to volunteer if you put out a call for a popular and valuable membership website. You have a lot to offer so giving people free membership, or points and coupons for your products and services based on what they offer, is a great way to encourage more interaction on the membership.

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