Tag: membership site

How Do I Know If I Have Too Much Membership Content?

Most marketers don’t realize it’s very easy and very dangerous to have too much stuff in your membership site, especially when it is dripped out too fast.  If you drip out your content too fast, people will be overwhelmed and they will always be behind in your content, they will never get caught up because you’re simply giving them information at such a fast rate.  And the big problem with this is that the people who actually want to consume your content will drop out, but those people who like to collect and never watch your content will stay in forever.  You want to have the people who are fans of you, who consume your content, and to do that, you need to drip your content out at a much slower rate than you would probably like.

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How do you find out if you have too much?  Well, the first give-away sign is if people are dropping out.  If you seriously have good content that is helpful, that is easy to understand, that is exactly what they need, but people are still dropping out, then the problem might be that there’s too much content.  Ask them.  If they say that they’re overwhelmed, if they don’t know where to start, if there’s too much stuff, that means you need to deliver your content at a slower pace.  Good content but low retention rate is a dead give-away of having too much content.

The next thing I would do is join yourself.  Add a new member as yourself and see what somebody who just came in has access to.  If you just joined and there’s access to pages and pages and pages of content, it might be too much.  If there is too much stuff, then that could be a sign that you have too much content.  And a way that I like to tell this is if somebody came on the site and they only had one to two hours per week, could they reasonably go through all of your videos, all of your articles, all of your content, or would it take them more like five or more hours per week.  I mean the average person really works 20 to 40 hours but in reality, they really only 5 to 10 hours of real work time and then when they join your site, they’re only in it for a fraction of that as well.  One to two hours per week of consumption is about what you should be aiming for.

And above all, just use common sense.  So, be aware that it is possible to have too much membership site content, it is possible to overload your members, so you’re not necessarily doing people a favor by giving them tons of information upfront, but you can be doing them a favor by dripping out or scheduling out much of your content and splitting up the payment.  So, that is one more reason to create a membership site.

Duplicate my success.  I want to show you exactly how I set up a membership site of my very own and how you can too in a very short amount of time.  Go to www.membershipcube.com to claim your 100% free details right now.

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How Do I Create A Membership Site out of Private Label Rights or PLR Materials?

PLR materials are a great way to populate a membership site of your very own because the work has already been done for you.  Somebody else has already gone out and figured out what questions need to be answered, how to answer them, and they have also gone into trouble of writing it all down.  It’s a fantastic way of filling up a membership site, but the problem many people face is why would people want to join my site when they can find this information elsewhere, and the key to this is to make the information your own, which you can do by finding it from the right source, niching it down, dripping it, and using the WordPress blog to your advantage.

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The first thing you need to do is try to get rights that are high-priced or limited in quantity.  I’m sure you’ve all seen things where you could pay a dollar and get 7,000 different products, and that’s no good, because then the value of that thing you’re buying is not a lot.  On the other hand, if someone is offering the rights to a product for 200 bucks and only 10 people get it, that is a much better investment because not a lot of people will have the ability to sell that information.  Fnd a good place to get the rights, preferably something where it contains a video or audio component because many times the rights will be sold for $20, $30 or more instead of $1 or $2, so less people will have it.

Also, niche it down.  Don’t fill up a site with a bunch of different rights materials.  Pick a specific topic.  For example, maybe you’re buying and selling just recent rights materials about copywriting.  If you’re going to be doing that, then don’t also put information in there about search engine optimization or AdSense.  Just stick to your one topic.

And finally, use your WordPress Blog to your advantage.  You’re making a membership site using WordPress, so you can put these different topics into categories.  If you were creating a membership site about copywriting, you might have some prize there about squeeze pages, some about copywriting with video, some about long form sales, that in that way, when somebody logs in, then you click on one category and get exactly what they want.

Another bonus is that this is searchable.  All WordPress blogs are searchable.  So, if you put a little description of each product you have inside of your membership site, then they can go to the search box, then type in exactly what they want.  You can also schedule out your post in WordPress.  That way, they get a bunch of stuff when they join, but over time, they get a little bit more hand-fed to them, so they have a reason to stay in.

That’s how I would create a site out of PLR or Private Label Rights materials.  Find it from a good spot, niche it down, drip it, categorize it, and search it, which is all built in if you use WordPress as your membership site.

If you can watch TV, then you too can use WordPress as a membership site.  See how I do it at www.membershipcube.com.

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What Do I Do If I Don’t Have Enough Membership Content?

The content you have in your membership site should be one of the least of your worries.  Let’s get your content problem solved and out of the way, so that we can focus on marketing that membership site and getting new people into your membership site and keeping them into your membership site.  To create membership content, I usually use Private Label Rights materials, interviews and webinars, and videos that I’ve made myself.  Those are the only sources of content you really need.

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First, what the heck are Private Label Rights materials?  These are books, reports, videos, software, even articles that you can purchase the rights to and either use as is or re-write in your own words or maybe some kind of a combination of the two.  If you purchase some articles that aren’t really so great, go ahead and edit them yourself to make them as good as you want them.  I have also done more creative things, fore example, take Private Label Rights articles and record them as a video, but the thing to remember about this is that if the original source material sucks, then your videos are going to suck too.

Next, interviews and webinars.  If you know how to have a conversation, then you can create a membership site content.  What I like to do is find someone who’s an expert in a certain area and schedule about 20 minutes with them and think of four questions I’m going to be asking them throughout the conversation.  These might be questions such as “where did you get started,” “what’s your big idea right now,” “what’s your next project going to be,” and “what’s your biggest mistake and how can we avoid it,” things like that.  And if you don’t get to all the questions, that’s fine.  If you run 25 minutes or 15 minutes instead of 20 minutes, that’s fine.  The important thing is that you have a conversation, you take a couple of notes, so that when you end the conversation, you can kind of tell people what to do next and wrap up the conversation and say, “We covered this, this and this…”

Webinars are the same idea where you talk to someone, but in a webinar, you show the screen instead of just interview.  So, in an interview, it will be audio only but in a webinar, you might actually be demonstrating the thing that you’re talking about.  If you’re talking to an expert about how to post a listing on eBay, you could open up your browser and tell the person, “Tell me exactly what to do to post a killer popular listing on eBay.”  And finally, make videos on your own.  Use a software called Camtasia and show, demonstrate things in a browser, demonstrate things using a software, create Powerpoints and show those in full screen, and that is a great way of creating some bonus content that maybe even just recap things that happened in your PLR materials, your interviews, and your webinar.  If you don’t have enough membership site content, use PLR materials, make videos of your own, anything about audio interviews and video webinars.

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How Much Content Should I Really Provide Per Day Inside A Membership Site?

Chances are if you are thinking about creating a membership site, you probably have the idea for two or three articles in your head.  Maybe you already have a good chunk of the membership site content written but if you have 5 or 10 articles, how much time does it really buy you in the membership site?  I am here to clear that issue up for you because a lot of people get it wrong.

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There are three things to think about when creating membership site content.  First, you want to combat both overload and boredom, you want to offer one big thing per week, and just give them one week of content upfront immediately when they join.

Combattng overload and boredom.  Most people only think of this from one direction.  They think, “I want to combat boredom.  I don’t want somebody to join my site and only get one post a month.  So, I’m going to give them one post every single day.”  So, they combat boredom, but they don’t think about the overload.  They don’t think that if somebody joins the site, leaves for a week then comes back, they’re going to be so behind that they will never get caught up and then they were left wondering why everybody dropped out of their membership site because they all became overloaded.  I prefer to post less than once per day, but more than once per week.  Somewhere in that range is good because if you post once per day, it’s too much, if you post less than once a week, it’s not enough.

That brings me to how much you post exactly.  Well, here’s what you do.  Post one big thing per week, and by big thing, it could just be one 15-minute video, one 15-minute audio, or a download or a piece of software or something like that.  Have one big thing a week, but in the meantime, offer reminders.  Have a post or an email message, saying, “This post is coming tomorrow.”  Have a thread the next day where they can ask a question or leave a comment.  Have it next day where they just watch the video stream on your site that the day after that, they can download it.  Deliver one big thing a week but then have reminders afterwards.  So, maybe you posted a 15-minute video but then later in the week, offer a 3-minute recap audio, so that if they press for time, they can just listen to the audio.

And the final thing you should know about providing content is give people one week’s worth of content at the start.  I used to provide only one day’s worth of content at the start when I first joined, but the problem with this is that when somebody first buys from you, they are the most excited, they are the most interested.  They’re not going to be okay with just waiting around because they just thought they want that instant gratification.  When somebody buys, give them at least one week’s worth of content at the start and then start dripping out your content from that.

When you’re thinking about how much content you should provide per day, how to schedule or stretch out the content you already have, combat not just boredom but overload as well.  Post a few times per week but not once a day.  When you post, post one big thing a week, like one video and in the meantime, have reminders, have recaps, ask questions, offer the download to kind of keep people busy but not overwhelmed.  And when they first join, give them one entire week’s worth of content upfront.

Your membership site content and your membership site setup are both the easiest parts.  Find out why and how at www.membershipcube.com.

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How Do I Get Others to Write Content for Me?

Let’s face it.  A lot of people simply are not writers, and even the people who are writers, even the best writers get writer’s block from time to time.  So, how do you create enough content to fill up a membership site without getting stuck, without getting bored, or without getting frustrated?  I have three simple solutions for you.

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First, promote user comments into full posts, look for a columnist and outsource your writing, outsource your content creation.  The easiest way I create membership site content that’s free is to simply look at user comments.  I host membership sites inside of blogs.  I make a post, you just can comment.  If a user leaves a particularly good comment or an important question or even if I post a video and they take notes in the form of a comment, I will copy their comment, paste it as a new post and set the author of that post to that person who left the comment.

What do I end up with?  I end up with a review post that somebody else wrote, that I did not have to pay any money for, that someone else will probably find useful.  I only do this sparingly, but every now and then, if you have a blog in a membership site and it usually leaves a really video response or takes really good notes or leaves a very insightful comment, consider molding that comment into an entire post.  Now, if that person leaves you lots of content over time and they become a trust source of authority for you, consider making them a columnist, the person who leaves multiple posts on your blog.  The cool thing about WordPress that a lot of people are not aware of is that you can set user access levels – meaning you can set some of your regular subscribers to be what are called “contributors.”  If they want to make a new post, they go and they submit it for approval, you approve it, it becomes live.  It’s a very easy way to allow users to write their own post on your blog, but they do not become live until maybe after you’ve edited them and finally put a stamp on it for approval.

And finally, if you’re really stuck for ways of getting content, simply outsource it.  Hire an article writer if you found someone who’s writing they like, but what I prefer to do is record an audio about what I want to say, hand it off to a transcriptionist, and then they create the article for me.  Not everybody can write but everybody knows how to at least talk on the telephone.  If you can talk, you can write.

And those are my three favorite ways of getting other people to write membership site content or me.  First, promote user comments in the posts.  If there is a repeat user who leaves a lot of good comments, make him a columnist using the user access levels in WordPress.  And finally, outsource your content into article writing or transcribing.

Go ahead and create your membership site content right now, then pilot into a membership site using this training at www.membershipcube.com.

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Should My Membership Site Be Service or Content-Based?

I used to be a freelancer.  I know many other people who are currently freelancers who are just not happy.  They do all kinds of custom jobs and spend a big chunk of their time just figuring out what somebody wants them to create.  And the problem with that is that they cannot charge for those hours where they are hashing out what kind of project is going to be made.  Not only that, as after the project is done, they end up putting way too much time into it and end up making a lower hourly rate than they’ve thought when they negotiate at the price.  A temporary solution to this is to instead of being a freelancer, offer a service-based membership site.  I’m going to explain to you in a minute what it means to have a service-based membership site, how to price it, how to package it, and why you should not continue on doing it forever.

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The idea behind a service-based membership site is if you are a graphic designer, you might only be charging, say, $25 for every graphic that you create, but wouldn’t it be a lot better if you offered some kind of a “logo of the month” club, where you charge people, say $25 a month, and for $25 a month, they get access to 10 different logos that they can go and change on their own.

Instead of maybe charging somebody one-off $25 one time for one logo, you are charging them access to this member’s area, and in the process, you’re building up all these logos that in the past, you only could just throw away in the trash because this other person had exclusive rights to them.  So, both people win because the buyer wins, because they see, “Oh well I get 10 times as much stuff,” but you also win because you’re building a long-term business, not just working per hour.

Now if you do this, here’s what you do, package it into some kind of a monthly offer.  For example, they get 5 or 10 new logos a month for each and every month.  Not just one or two, not just pick and choose, but they have no choice, they have to get this big lump to get their package and then you just justify why that bigger package is worthwhile.  And then the more you do it, the more you can increase your price because at first, it seems like, “Well, I used to charge $25 per logo.  Now, it’s $25 for 10,” but in the future, you can bump it up to $50, plus once per month, you will customize a logo for them.  And now, it’s almost a no-brainer offer because now it’s they get $5 per logo plus you customize one for them anyway.  Now, you just doubled your hourly rate and you have all these other logos that you dripped out to them that is just already done.  And finally, the membership site is better, the content is better because you do it once and it plays out over and over.  Those pre-made logos that people can design and customize on their own, you do those once and they will play out for all future subscribers.

If you do a lot of freelancing and you’re looking towards creating your first membership site, consider making it a service-based membership site where you package up these deals and get people on a recurring income stream instead of a one-time payment.  But it’s very important that you look into a way to remove yourself from the equation in the future.  For example, just maybe you start off where they get the customizable logos plus the one that you make on your own, but in the future, phase yourself out and they purchase it into a membership site with only logos they have to customize on their own.

If you’re trying to make your next membership site or even just thinking about it, go right now to www.membershipcube.com to find out the easiest, best, and fastest way to create a membership site of your very own.

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How Do I Keep My Membership Site From Becoming A Chore?

Over and over, I see people with membership sites and they are literally killing themselves maintaining these sites.  I have been in that position in the past, where at one point, I was super excited about getting some membership site going, getting it live, but now, months or even years later, it’s become a chore.  That is one of the worst things to happen because your business should be fun, your business should be something that you wake up and get out of bed excited about, not something you have to go and maintain because you have to.  To keep your membership site from becoming a chore, follow these three rules:  Be aware that membership sites do not have to be recurring, they do not have to cost your members money, and they can and should be fixed-term membership sites.

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Do membership sites have to be recurring?  No, they do not.  There is totally nothing wrong with making a site that costs $50 for access, somebody pays 50 bucks and they can get into this private protected member’s area where you’ve posted blog posts, videos, audios, and downloads and that’s it.  If they refund, they are kicked out, but as long as the payment is okay, they can log in, recover their lost password, and maybe even leave a comment or a two forever.

There’s nothing at all wrong with creating a membership site that costs a one-time fee to join.  And if you ever want to make it a two-payment option in the future, you can.  If you want to make it a monthly option in the future, you can.  But for starters, I would definitely recommend that your first membership site is a single-payment, meaning a not recurring membership site.

The next thing to keep in mind is that membership sites can be free.  You have articles floating around out on the internet.  You have videos floating around on the internet.  Why not package them all up to a membership site and require people not to pay money but to sign up and get into a free membership site.  Now, what is the point of this?  The point of this is so that you can build an email subscriber list of all these members within the site.

And the final thing you need to know is that whatever your journey is, if it’s taking a single-payment site into a recurring site or a free site into a recurring site, it does not have to continue billing people forever.  I know it’s tempting to charge 50 bucks a month forever and ever and ever, but most people stay in a membership site for three to six months.  Why not make this membership site build them $50 a month for six months and then they are in for life.  So, instead of creating this ongoing membership site, you create a six-month membership course, where there is a clear goal, a clear end date, and instead of them paying every single month, you are financing their journey into figuring out whatever your membership site sells.

Those are my three pieces of advice to keeping your membership site from becoming a chore.  Don’t make them recurring at first, don’t always make them cost money, and make them fixed-term memberships, where there is a clear end date.

How long have you been trying to create that fixed-term membership site?  Robert will show you how to get that site up and running this week, if not tonight, at www.membershipcube.com.

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What Is Drip Content?

Every now and then, I get asked what drip content is or how do I use drip content in my membership site and why is drip content so important.  And the truth is that if I did not have drip content, my membership sites would not be as nearly as successful as they are.  And also, the average person’s idea of drip content is completely wrong.  So, let’s deal with drip content today.

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The most basic form of drip content is just where your blog delivers content in a sequence.  Even if you don’t have a membership site, just a regular WordPress blog out in the open, when you make a post onto a WordPress blog, you can choose to either publish items immediately or in a day in the future.  And what makes WordPress really cool is if you schedule a post for next week, it will be scheduled until next week.  For the moment, it will not appear at all, but when next week goes around, suddenly that post will go live.  That is a very easy way to schedule your content and to deliver your content out in a sequence is simply by changing the date on your next blog post to a date in the future.  So, if you have ideas for three new blog posts, instead of simply posting them now, schedule them a week apart.  That way, the content shows up gradually over time.

Now, when I talk about drip content within a membership site, many people do this wrong.  They simply apply the blog model I just explained and charge for access  to that blog.  The problem with drip content in this way is that if somebody joins during month one of your site and cancels, then waits several months and comes back on month six, they can see all those back issue archives without paying for the months in between.  The correct way to do drip content is drip out the content based on when that person joined.

Now, let me explain.  When somebody joins your site, they should just see the first chunk of content you have on your blog, maybe the first week or so of content.  But then if they wait a month, they will be able to see the next month of content.  But if they cancel at any time, they’re back to zero.  If they join one-to-one and they cancel and come back on month six, they should be back at the beginning.  That is the big difference between a blog on its own and a membership site in a protected area, which is when somebody joins this membership, their drip starts when they join, and when they cancel, they’re gone.

That is what drip content is, where people don’t get all the information all at once, it gets slowly dripped out for them, but most importantly, inside a membership area, the content is slowly given out based on when they joined and not when you posted that content.

Robert Plank is the creator of Membership Cube and he wants to give you the ultimate solution to drip content at www.membershipcube.com.

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Should I Launch A Physical Seminar Or An Online Membership Site

You have authority in a niche.  You have some kind of expertise.  You have a message to deliver.  You have a lot of stuff to say, now you just have to get it out to people.  So now, the question is, should you create a digital membership site or host a physical seminar in the real world in a hotel room?  The answer may surprise you.  There are pros and cons both to physical seminars and to online membership sites and we’re going to go over both of those today and figure out which one is right for you.

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A physical seminar is good for the ego.  It gives you a lot of authority.  It gives you instant credibility because you have a real-life event and a real-life world, you’ve put down money for some kind of a conference room, you’ve got people in seats, but those are also the same problems – is that seminars are expensive.  You have to have the conference room, you have to have a camera, you have to pay a photographer to film you, you have to usually pay for things like the wireless microphone and you have to fly down there yourself, book your own hotel room, and then get people into the seminar.  So, it takes a lot of buildup, it might cost you advertising, and then if no one shows up, you might have to cancel the event or you might look like someone who has no authority and now you have your first social proof.

Having a physical seminar is expensive because you have all these costs, including travel, it’s risky because people might not show up, and it’s scary because you have to show up and who knows who might not attend, who knows if there’s some other event in the same hotel room, and who knows if people don’t like what you have to say and leave.  It’s also tiring because unless you have other speakers, you have to get up there and present all day for maybe one, two, or even three days.  So, a seminar is expensive, risky, scary, and tiring.

Now, what about an online membership site?  Well, an online membership site is much cheaper because you don’t have all those costs of the conference room, the travel.  You still have to pay things like web hosting and software but this is a lot, lot more expensive than a physical seminar.  But the disadvantages for membership sites – is that it’s slower to set up.  I mean you could have an idea for an event, for a physical seminar three weeks or a month away and get it scheduled and promote it and have people there in a month, but with a membership site, you might have your membership site out this week but it might take a while to get the same number of subscribers in your membership as you would have attendees at your physical seminar.

It might be slower to start off if you’re brand new at membership sites.  It also is not necessarily more work but work stretched out over a longer period of time because with a one-time event, you simply promote it and it’s done.  With the membership site, even if the single hint of product, you have to always get new blood into that membership site and get new people buying.  So, it’s work stretched out over more time but your big advantage is that you can automate it.  You can set up an automatic follow-up sequence, you can set up a Pay-Per-Click account and have the traffic and the marketing all automated.  You could have a sales setter that’s online 24 hours a day and have the money trickle in over time.

With the physical seminar or only membership site, which is best for you?  The answer is both.  You should plan on doing a digital membership now and a physical seminar some time later if that’s the kind of thing you like to do.  But do the easy one first.  Set up a membership site first because it’s cheaper and you can automate it, and then build up enough of the following to host physical seminars.

Avoid all the mistakes that I did and get your very own membership site set up by 5 o’clock tonight at www.membershipcube.com.

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