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iid July.qxd2/8/1117:04Page 4number of members. Secondly, you substantially raisecustomer retention, in other words, people tend to staymembers for a very long time because it isn’t reallyworth cancelling even if they aren’t really using theservice right now. This is because they consider thatthey might need it sometime in the future.record audio interviews (usually over Skype) withestablished experts on topics that will be of interest toyour audience.This approach applies equally well to membershipsites. Why not create content by interviewing experts?It’s quick, you will learn lots, gain the power ofassociation by positioning yourself alongsideestablished experts, and audiences in all niches lovelistening to Q&A sessions.While you will make some money on the “front end”of 5 subscription sales, the real money is made on the“back end”. In other words, by promoting other – higherpriced – products and services (either your own or viaaffiliate marketing) to members further down the line.Alternatively, you can adopt the “guest contributor”method whereby you invite experts to create their ownarticles, audio or video tutorial content for your site. Inreturn they get a link back to their website to increasetheir exposure or – if they make an exceptionally largecontribution – a slice of your profits.For this to work you need to be sure that you a)have a sufficient number of high quality products andservices to promote on the back end, and b) that youactually want a lot of members. This might sound likea no-brainer! We all want more members, right? Well,in general yes, but we need to carefully consider thepotential support burden that goes with this too.Taken to the limit, this can mean you don’t have tocreate any content yourself whatsoever as you’veeffectively outsourced it to other experts! Anabsolutely great example of this ishttps://www.sixminutes2success.com where marketerLanny Morton approached Canadian personaldevelopment expert Bob Proctor to create all thecontent for his membership site. The site was a hugesuccess with 18,000 paid members and has madeliterally millions in revenue.So while nano pricing is an awesome model, in somecases (depending upon the niche in question) you mightactually end up doing less work and making moremoney by having fewer members paying much higheramounts per month. It all depends upon the niche.Mid-range pricingIn US dollars this is from around 20 to 50.Evidence indicates that there is very little difference insales conversion and customer retention across this rangeand for this reason it is probably best to price towards thetop end (at 47, for example) in most niches.How much should I charge formembership?This is a tricky question for all of us who areconsidering creating membership sites.In general there are threeranges of pricing. I’m going touse US dollars here as Americais by far the largest onlineglobal customer base and there’sno reason why you can’t aim tosell your membership site there.Premium pricingThis covers membership sites charging over 50 permonth. For this to work you need not only a fairlyaffluent customer base but also high valued content inyour members’ area.There are many sites that charge 67, 77 and even 97 per month and still manage to retain their membersfor many months. One way of achieving this is to addmore personal interaction with your members. Forexample, you could offer 30-minute one-on-oneconsultation sessions which would vastly increase theperceived value of your offering.Of course, if you wish to focus primarily on the UKthen it’s a trivial matter to convert these figures topounds sterling.Nano pricingThe term “Nano Continuity” was recently coined byUS marketer Ryan Lee and in fact this concept looks tobe getting increasingly popular, especially in the recentdifficult economic conditions.As we alluded to above, one of the biggest factorsin setting your pricing point is to figure out theaffluence level of your audience. For example, if youare considering a gardening tips membership site thennano pricing might be best. On the other hand, if yoursite is about teaching professional women to progressin their careers and achieve a better balance of life thenThe idea is that you charge around 5 per month foraccess to your membership site. The first advantage ofsuch a low pricing point is that it really makes itaffordable to everyone so you vastly increase the4

iid July.qxd2/8/1117:04Page 5to set up squeeze and sales pages too (which is actuallywhat a lot of people use it for). For more informationtake a look at their promotional video:http://www.optimisepress.comthe premium pricing would no doubt be moreappropriate.How do I actually do the “techie” set upstuff?So there you have it: WordPress, WishList Memberand Optimize Press. If you’re brand new to Internetmarketing then yes, there are some new skills to learnbut with these options you won’t need to worry aboutprogramming or other technical nightmares – 99% ofthe time it really is a case of point and click.After starting out in Internet marketing in April2010 I think overcoming technical challenges in myonline business has been – alongside traffic generation– one of the biggest hurdles I’ve faced.When it comes to membership sites there are manydifferent options to choose from in terms of theplatform which will handle your content delivery,membership names and passwords.How do I launch and market amembership site?It is often said that people who fail in marketing failat exactly that: marketing!Some of the more common services are aMember,MemberGate, Nanacast and CustomerHub (whichintegrates with InfusionSoft). These are all greatsolutions but some of them are pretty expensive –several hundred even thousands of dollars!For this reason it is crucial that you have a real planto promote your membership site. You can have thebest site in the world but if it’s on the Internet and youdon’t promote it then it’s extremely unlikely you’ll geteven one member!After looking at various options for the membershipsite I’m currently setting up I have focused in onWordPress-based solutions. This means that yourmembership site will take the form of a WordPress site.If you’ve used WordPress before you might instantlystart to like this idea if you haven’t used WordPressbefore then suffice it to say that it is extremely flexibleand intuitive. In short, it ROCKS!Let’s break the marketing down into two steps:Traffic and The Offer:TrafficThere are a number of options here.1. The blog/newsletter launchOf the different WordPress-based membershipplatforms out there I intend to use WishList Member(http://member.wishlistproducts.com).This method assumes you have either a blog, anewsletter or both. If you do then you can promote themembership site to your audience.At 97 for a singlesite licence it isextremely affordablecompared to the otheravailable options.If you don’t have a blog then I highly recommendthat you start one. It’s a great way to communicatewith your niche audience, it will naturally build anSEO franchise with Google over time and blogs are alot easier to drive traffic to using free methods such asguest posting, targeted blog commenting andinterviews than a single squeeze or sales page.(Plus I just found out that Tim Ferriss, author of thefamous ‘4-Hour Workweek’, is using this exact sameproduct for his own membership site!)You can build a list by putting an opt-in form on thehomepage of your blog. Your newsletter can simply be ashort email that you mail out to your list every time youpublish a new blog post. At the bottom of eachnewsletter or blog post you can gently remind peoplehow they can benefit from joining your membership site.There are basically three components you need fora WordPress membership site: WishList Member –which handles the restricted access to the membersarea – WordPress itself (which is free), and a suitable“Theme” which determines the look, feel and overalldesign of your site.2. The joint venture launchFor the theme there is a no-brainer solution:Optimize Press by James Dyson costing 97.This is where you recruit other marketers topromote your site in return for a commission. Expectto give 50% of each month’s membership fees to theother marketer.please turn overThe features of this product are simply amazing: it’squick to create incredible looking pages with built-inlogos and icons, and it also has settings that allow you5

iid July.qxd2/8/1117:04Page 6If you don’t know any other marketers who mightbe willing to promote your site then you can beginnetworking to find them. At the first point of contactdo not ask for promotion but instead ask what you cando for them.The OfferIf you want to keep things extremely simple thenyou could simply present your offer as, “Join my siteto get benefits X, Y, Z for 47 per month”. If peopleare already familiar with you via your newsletter orblog then this is absolutely fine. In fact manymarketers out there do exactly this to great effect.Could you write a guest post for their blog, providecontent for one of their products (perhaps amembership site!) or interview them over Skype foryour own blog? These three suggestions will not onlydrive traffic to your blog and help to build your list,but will also establish a relationship that you can laterleverage by offering the opportunity to earn somerecurring income from promoting your membershipsite.However, if you’re brand new to the scene or othermarketers have agreed to promote you then the chancesare that you’ll sell a lot more subscriptions if you takesome time to introduce yourself first.There are a few ways of doing this but one thingthat is becoming increasingly common and worksincredibly well is a webinar (which is basically anonline seminar).An alternative, which I haven’t tried personally butmany other marketers have had huge success

basis – to paying subscribers using an autoresponder service such as AWeber (which you have to pay for) or MailChimp (which is free up to 2,000 subscribers). So basically, it’s a bit like a paid newsletter but with higher valu