By: Tracy Childers 1

Transcription

1 By: Tracy Childers 1

2 INTRODUCTION Technology can be one of the most frustrating parts of running your business. When it comes to technology there are SO MANY choices to make that just about any decision can easily become overwhelming. This is the reason I created my current business. My good friend Stu McLaren was talking about how difficult it was to start a membership site. I asked him a simple question. If you could have a solution that did exactly what you wanted, what would that look like? It turns out; Stu wasn t the only person struggling with creating a membership site. We found there were people all over the world trying to protect their digital content. Whether they were trying to create a full blown membership site, create an online course or simply protect a digital download, they all wanted to do it simply and easily without any coding. The idea of WishList Member was born. Six months later, Stu and I released the first version to the public. That was well over 8 years ago. Fast-forward to today and WishList Products now has thousands and thousands of people relying on our software to power their membership sites, courses and online communities. The number grows every day. At the time of this writing, WishList Member is currently running on over 75,000 websites.

3 Quickly after releasing WishList Member we realized that our customers needed help with more than just technology. They had questions related to just about anything you could imagine when it comes to running an online business. Without a doubt, the number one problem seemed to be related to exactly how to get started. We ve had a very unique opportunity to interact with thousands of small business owners. I put together this easy to follow special report because I thought it was time to share what my team and I have learned. If you ve been considering starting a membership site, course or an online community, you re in the right place. Tracy Childers President, WishList Products, Inc.

4 The 5 Critical Questions you MUST Consider are Who are you and why do you want to build a membership site? Are you the type of person that is driven by the possibilities of an income source that doesn t have a cap? Does the idea of flexibility and working from anywhere in the world drive you? Do you love to teach? Are you passionate about a particular topic you believe is going to make a positive impact on people and potentially change the world? Do you have an unending desire to help other people? Do you love coming up with and implementing new ideas? If you don t know, it s critical to spend some time thinking it through. I ve seen people get into this business because they were envious of what someone else had accomplished. Their primary focus was trying to emulate the other person s success. This type of temporary motivation typically does not end well. It s okay to be impressed with other people but you cannot spend your life trying to be someone that you re not. Find out what it is that you re passionate about. Find out what excites you. Find out who you are and what makes you unique. 1

5 The truly successful people are doing what they love. If you love creating new content, don t get bogged down in sorting out all the technology. If you love technology and geek out on setting up the latest marketing automation campaign but hate writing, find a good writer and put together a team that has a complimentary skill set. The most important thing is to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Once you understand this concept, you can focus on those identified strengths. Spend as much time as you can utilizing skills you re good at and enjoy. By determining your weaknesses or areas you are less interested in, you ll know exactly which tasks to outsource. Don t force yourself into a role that doesn t suit you due to your weaknesses. This process will be painful and leave you with a less than desirable result. In the event you re not sure what you like or it s not exactly clear what it is you re passionate about, don t worry. You ll just need to spend a little time and focused energy on figuring this out. There are many ways you can do this. The obvious option may be to take one of the many assessment tests available. One of the most well known options is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. That actual test costs about $50. However, there are a number of similar tests you can take for free. Seeking the guidance of a close friend or family member you trust is also an effective method for identifying your strengths and weaknesses. These traits may be more clear to someone else than they are to yourself. You may want to consider keeping a journal. Simply make some notes throughout the day about the tasks you worked on and how each of them made you feel. Do you find 2

6 yourself consistently focusing on certain items and avoiding others? This may be a pretty clear indication of what you like and are passionate about. Finally, it will help tremendously for you to get involved in a community of like minded people. In many cases you only need to ask what they are passionate about. That could provide the clarity you ve been seeking. I ve found conferences and online communities to be an incredible source for meeting people with similar interests. Remember, just because you decided to go into business for yourself doesn t mean you have to be by yourself. 3

7 What is your content strategy? You ve probably heard the saying Content is King. That s true but it may be a bit of an understatement. Content isn t just King, it s really the Kingdom. Another way of saying it is content is everything. If you re interested in creating a membership site you ve probably looked around, done some research, listened to some podcasts and maybe even purchased a book or two. You ll probably find across the board that most experts agree that content is VERY important. It s an extremely effective tool to build a business. Your content gives value, builds rapport, attracts customers, establishes your expertise and boosts your brand. Despite it s importance, the web is still flooded with terrible content. There seems to be a myth that was started at some point which states people are more interested in quantity than they are quality. I d like to set the record straight and tell you without a doubt, this idea or concept couldn t be further from the truth. We are living in a world of information overload. If you think people will spend time with content that is not engaging, you re wrong. You need to make sure your content is the best you have to offer. There are several different ways to structure your content in a Membership Site or a course and I will highlight the most popular models. 4

8 1. Free Content You may be better off in some situations by offering a membership that provides completely free content. This is pretty common within organizations. They are providing content to members of that organization but they don t want it open to the public. It s intended for a certain set of people. These members may be a part of a church, a club, an industry association or any other organized group. Another great example for a free content model is a news site or any site that has a large amount of traffic. There may be much better ways of monetizing your content than charging for access if you have heavy site traffic. having a baby. 2. Fixed Term The Fixed Term Model works well for specific situations where there is a clearly defined end in mind. There are a large number of situations that may fit into this classification but some great examples would be a course on subjects like planning for a wedding, grief counseling, test preparation, or The idea being that once the end point has arrived the information is no longer necessary. So the course is designed to be completed after the fixed term. 5

9 3. Open Access The best example of an Open Access Model would be a site that offers a wide variety of courses. The members pay a monthly fee and they have access to every course listed on the site. An excellent example of this is a site called Lynda.com. They offer over 4,000 courses on topics like Business, Technology and Creative Skills all taught by industry experts. The key is there are multiple authors covering a wide variety of courses. It s important to note that you don t have to start with a large number of courses. Many of the sites you ll find in this category have been around for years and years so they naturally have an incredibly impressive amount of content. Many of them did not start this way. In order to get started you just need to have enough to show value. You may start with a few and then continue to add more along the way. 4. Delivery A perfect example of the Delivery Model is something everyone should be familiar with, a magazine subscription. Once you subscribe to a magazine, you will receive a new magazine every month as long as you maintain your paid subscription. I ve been a subscriber to a magazine called Runners World for several years. A few years ago, they made me an offer to 6

10 subscribe to their digital version. This way I can access all the magazines on my ipad or other mobile device. When I open the app, I can see all the magazines I have access to. If I don t have access to a particular magazine, there is an option for me to purchase it. This concept is also a great fit for a membership site. You can do the very same thing by delivering a new piece of content each month to your current members. The members of your site will only have access to content they purchased. 5. Combo The most popular membership model is what we refer to as the Combo Model. There may be bits and pieces of each model implemented throughout your site. For example, you may have some free content that is helpful in terms of attracting people to your site. You also have premium content that is only available for paying customers. You may deliver certain items each month and have a library of other courses that are always open. We follow this model in our own membership site called WishList Insider. As you can see there are a number of different models to consider when you start planning your site. The key is to do whatever makes the most sense to you and your market. When it comes to your content, we can t emphasize enough how important it is to make it the best you possibly can. Think through how much content you really believe you re going to be able to 7

11 provide. We ve found that most members really do prefer a small amount of high quality content compared to a large amount of average or seemingly useless content. Remember, it s quality over quantity and it s always best to under promise and over deliver. If you re wondering to yourself, Does the quality really matter? I ll put it into very simple terms YES!!! 8

12 How do I make money? I mentioned in the section on Content that some sites are not intended to make money. Let s not confuse that with a Free Content model. Just because the content is free to the consumer doesn t mean the site owner is not making any money. In fact, some of the largest revenue generating sites are based on giving away free content. I realize this may seem a bit confusing so let s dig a little deeper. When we first released WishList Member back in 2008 we thought we knew what types of people would use our software and what they would use it for. Little did we know we were in for a big surprise. We thought everyone would be charging a monthly subscription for content. Once a customer paid for the content, our software would be used to provide access to that paying customer and protect that same content from everyone else. We quickly found there were a lot more reasons for protecting content. We started seeing people protect content that was never intended to make any money. There were organizations that wanted to protect things like schedules, directories and all sorts of other sensitive information. These sites from the very beginning were designed with one thing in mind. They wanted to protect sensitive information. These types of sites had no real intention to make money and that s completely fine. 9

13 Let s shift now and talk about how sites do make money. If you break it down into basics you either make money by charging for content or you can do what we call monetizing content. In the free content model you won t be charging specifically for your content but you will be using the content to make money. The best example I can give is by doing a search on just about anything you want and start it with the words how to. I just did a search on how to thread a sewing machine. I found a lot of good information. One of the links goes directly to a video on YouTube. Before YouTube played the video on how to thread a sewing machine, they showed me a video ad that was directed at marketers and how they can get more customers. Kind of interesting that they would think I m interested in marketing when I searched about threading a sewing machine. It may seem almost scary that they appear to be so sophisticated that they know who I am and what my interests are. This is one way of monetizing free content. I realize this has nothing to do with starting a membership site but it is a good example of understanding that free content can be monetized in many ways. Let s not get diverted too much, back to my search on how to thread a sewing machine. If you scroll down a bit you ll find an incredible example that links to a site called craftsy.com. In fact the actual link goes to the following URL: 10

14 The very first thing I saw on the page was a pop up box that asked me to subscribe and join their site for free. I could probably browse their site and get access to most of the content for free. However, it s much better if they ask me to join. This gives them the ability to communicate with me. Once they can communicate with me, they are able to make offers for all sorts of things. Who knows, they may sell me the latest and greatest sewing machine that will embroider my initials onto everything I own. They have a membership but the purpose is not to sell access to the content. At least not all the content. They may have some premium content they sell. For example, they could be selling a course about how to start embroidering. 11

15 The sky is the limit when it comes to what they can offer. I just want you to think through the endless possibilities that are available here. The primary way of making money with a membership site is to simply charge for your content. As I mentioned earlier, we thought this meant everyone would pay a monthly fee and have access to the site as long as they continued to pay the subscription fee. While the monthly subscription model is great, it s really just one of the many ways to make money when charging for content. Let s take a look at some options you may want to consider when it comes to charging for your content. Monthly Subscription I mention the monthly subscription first because we thought this is what everyone would use. It s pretty straightforward. The customer pays a fee that automatically gets billed each month. Just about all payment systems will allow you to set up a subscription that will automatically be billed to the customer s credit card each month. Another alternative is PayPal. They offer subscription payments that automatically get billed to the PayPal account. One key to understanding a monthly subscription is knowing that the amount charged for the first month will be the same amount charged each month moving forward until the subscription is canceled. 12

16 Annual Subscription An Annual Subscription is very similar to a monthly subscription. The primary difference is that it will be charged once per year rather than once per month. In some cases an annual subscription may be the only option available. However, it s very common to provide a choice of either a monthly subscription or an annual subscription. It is typical to include a discount for purchasing an annual subscription when this choice is offered. For example, the price of an annual subscription may be the equivalent cost of 10 months. An even better way to present this is stating that it is like getting two months for free. Trial Subscription An offer that includes a trial subscription is quite popular as well. The way this offer works is for a person to make an initial purchase for a very small amount (let s say $1). That will give them access to a site for a particular amount of time so they can try it. Once the initial trial period is over, the customer will be charged the ongoing subscription rate. I realize you may be wondering why you would charge a small amount like $1. Why not just give customers a free trial? The reason for charging something small up front is so the customer can set up their payment information. Once the trial period is over, the subscription will automatically be billed unless the customer cancels the trial. Whenever you re charging for content the most commonly related question is how much to charge? 13

17 There really is no magic answer. However, there are a few things you may want to consider that will guide you in making the right choice. The first thing you should do is a simple market comparison or analysis. This doesn t have to be something elaborate but you really need to have a good handle on what else is available within your niche or industry. If people in your market are accustomed to paying $10 for something you probably don t want to try charging $1,000 for something similar. There are always exceptions but you should get the idea. Some people may advise you to start high and then you can always lower your prices later. My recommendation would be quite the opposite. We ve had a great deal of success with starting low and then increasing prices later. This gives you an opportunity to create scarcity. Just before raising your price you ll want to let people know. You ll be surprised how many people take action on the final day of a deadline so they can take advantage of a lower price. In order to determine the actual price to charge I believe the most important thing to consider is how much you would be willing to pay for the content if it were not your own. If you can t convince yourself of the value of the content it will be incredibly difficult to convince others. 14

18 How do I start building my site? This could very well be the most popular question we ve ever heard. At some point you ve got to get the ideas out of your head and into reality. The easiest way to do this is to have some sort of a draft that shows what you want. This first draft will be helpful if you re building the site yourself but it will become critical if you re having someone else build the site for you. There are a number of ways you can create a draft but the most basic is to start with a pencil and paper. The idea is to just get going. You don t need to be an architect or have pretty penmanship or fancy doodling skills. Just start sketching out what you want the front page of the site to look like. Here s some motivation for you: 15

19 Do you see what I mean? My drawing skills and penmanship are not the best. The key here is to just get something out of your head and into reality. One of my favorite quotes of all time applies here You don t have to be Great to Get Going, but you have to Get Going to be Great! Once you have a simple home page, you can move on to all the other pages of the site as well. You ll eventually start getting into more detail. You ll want to show everything you can think of. Things like: What the login process looks like. What the pages look like that display the content. Any kind of navigation for moving between various pages. Frequently Asked Questions It s really important to remember that this is a First Draft. It DOES NOT have to be perfect. In fact, it is extremely likely that you ll change this several times as you move forward. You re just trying to push a little closer to your goal. If you really want to get fancy you can design this on a computer. You can use just about any program that allows you to draw or design layouts. I ve seen people use Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Power Point, Keynote, Photoshop, Illustrator and other programs that many people likely haven t even heard of. 16

20 There is even a whole category of programs that are designed to do this very task. They are called Wire Framing tools. There are a lot of different options for tools like this. My personal favorite is an application called Balsamiq. 17

21 How do I make it all happen? Now that you ve started building momentum, you re probably wondering how to make this all happen and bring your site to life. In order to do that, you re going to need to choose a platform. This is definitely an area that can quickly become confusing and overwhelming. I m going to make it simple for you. The platform you want to build on is called WordPress. There are other platforms available, but WordPress is the best choice for several reasons. I ll start with maturity. When you re working on something that is important, you never want to trust something that is not proven. WordPress has been around for over 10 years so they have become a very mature platform. It s also important to consider popularity. WordPress runs over 25% of the entire Internet. There are over 15 million websites created with WordPress. This may be obvious but I want to point out that you will NOT be alone by choosing WordPress. The last thing you d want to do is to be stuck in a platform that nobody but you and one other person understands. There are plenty of other reasons to choose WordPress but I d like to focus on why WordPress has become so popular. From the very beginning WordPress focused on flexibility. Rather than try to create one platform or system that could do EVERYTHING, they opened up their system so other developers had the ability to make it do ANYTHING. 18

22 WordPress is a platform with two key components. The components are Themes and Plugins. Themes are the component that will control what a site will look like. Plugins are the component that will control how a site will function. There is no way WordPress could think of every way an end user would want a site to look and function. Even if they could have thought of everything, they found it best NOT to even try. They opened up the architecture to allow other developers to build whatever they want. This strategy was brilliant and developers across the world took notice. This concept makes for a near perfect scenario when you re trying to create a successful membership site, digital course or online community. You re able to choose a WordPress theme that will make a site look exactly the way you want. You re also able to choose a plugin that will make it function exactly the way you want. The latest trend in themes is the ability to make just about any theme look any way you want. In the past, a choice on a theme was much more about what it looked like and then you d slightly modify it to fit your needs. The choice in a theme has now become more about how much you can modify. When working with WordPress, the biggest part of creating a successful membership site is more about choosing the right plugin for your needs. 19

23 At this point in time there are several WordPress plugins that can be used to create a membership site. As you might imagine, I m a bit biased as the Co-Founder and President of WishList Products. We are the creators of WishList Member. It was the first premium membership plugin that was 100% dedicated to working with WordPress way back in While we d love for you to give WishList Member a try, it may not be the best choice for everyone. I really feel it s best to share the things you ll want to consider when choosing a membership plugin. I realize this choice could be a bit daunting or overwhelming. I ve done my best to make this list both straight forward and fairly comprehensive at the same time. 1) Membership Levels. You ll definitely want to make sure you have the ability to create multiple membership levels. For example, you may want to have a Bronze, Silver and Gold level that all have different price points and they have different levels of access to your content. This is also very important when you have content about various topics. For example, you may have an investing site that has a level that teaches about real estate and a completely different level that has access to information about investing in the stock market. 2) Dripping your membership content. Dripping content is a term used with membership sites that means the member will not get access to all the content right away. The content is dripped out over time. For example, a member will have access to some 20

24 content immediately after they sign up. They will get more content after they ve been registered in the site for a certain amount of time. It may take days, weeks or even months before you release all the content to the member. This is an extremely effective way to manage your content and control the pace at which it is consumed. 3) Payment options. The method that you collect payments may completely dictate what solution you choose. There are a large number of ways to collect payments for a membership site. In some cases, this may be a decision you ve made that cannot be changed. For example, you may have chosen to use a system like Infusionsoft for the robust marketing automation they offer. You may have chosen to use ClickBank for the large affiliate network. You may have chosen to use SamCart for their optimized checkout pages and up-sell features. It s incredibly important for you to make certain that your membership plugin has an integration with the payment provider you plan to use. The last thing you ll want is to be surprised about a plugin not having an integration with a payment provider you ve already decided on. This will significantly delay your progress. 4) service options. Choosing an service provider may be very similar to choosing a payment provider. There are a large number of marketing services available. Typically a membership plugin will offer an integration with your service provider. This means, when someone is added to a membership level they can also be added to a mailing list with an service provider. There are some service providers 21

25 that have been around for years like AWeber, MailChimp, Infusionsoft and Constant Contact. Other services may be a bit newer but have some unique features like Active Campaign, ConvertKit and Drip. This is definitely something to consider when making your decision. 5) notifications. While we re on the topic of it s also important to consider notifications. The plugin should provide the ability to send automatic notifications for various things that take place in a membership site. This is different from using an service provider for autoresponders and broadcasts. notifications need to be sent for things like initial sign ups that will provide username and password information. notifications are also used to identify the administrator of the site when various activities take place. For example, you ll want to be notified when someone signs up for the site or various activities that need an administrator s approval. 6) Self-Service Accounts - A membership plugin should have the ability for members to make various updates to their accounts. One of the most common tasks for maintenance in membership sites are passwords. Passwords will need to be updated and they are forgotten by members on a regular basis. This functionality should be built in so the members can make changes and request password resets on their own. This provides a more user friendly experience and also cuts down on your customer service. 22

26 7) Ease of use One of the original reasons we created WishList Member was ease of use. Many of the other solutions available at the time were practically impossible to set up and configure. If you need to hire a technical guru just to install a system it s probably a good indication things are going to be difficult throughout the rest of the system. Summary: There could be an endless number of features to consider. My advice is to be careful of getting stuck in the paralysis of analysis. At the end of the day, you really need to take action if you want to make it happen. If you choose a solid company that has been around for a decent amount of time and has shown a solid track record of making updates to their plugin along with a reputation for great customer support you can t go wrong. The quote I mentioned earlier is definitely applicable here so I ll share it again: You don t have to be Great to Get Going, but you have to Get Going to be Great! We ve been creating membership software for well over 8 years now and WishList Member is trusted by over 75,000 membership sites and the number grows every day. Would you like to know the biggest problem we ve seen? 23

27 Without a doubt, the single biggest thing we ve found that prevents people from creating a successful membership can be summed up in one sentence... Avoid getting hung up on thinking every last thing needs to be perfect. Two simple words that can make all the difference in your future are Gradual Improvement. In Closing: I certainly hope you ve gained some actionable insights from this free special report. We would love to find out how you ve used WishList Member to create your own successful membership site. Who knows, maybe you ll be our next great case study. If you have questions or need assistance, the WishList Products team can be reached at our online support system. Here s to your Successful Membership Site! Tracy Childers President, WishList Products 24

28 About the Author Tracy Childers is the President and Co-Founder of online software development company, WishList Products. WishList Member, the company s signature product, is a powerful yet easy to use plugin that turns any WordPress site into a full-blown membership site. Business owners, authors, and information publishers across the globe have used WishList Member to power more than 75,000 membership sites and online communities since Tracy lives with his wife and three children in Park City, Utah, where he enjoys running, mountain biking, snowboarding and skiing. 25

29 Copyright Notices No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electric, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the authors. Requests for permission or for more information should be sent to: WishList Products, Inc Village Center Circle # Las Vegas, NV Published by Tracy Childers, President WishList Products, Inc. 26

30 Legal Notices The purpose of this book is to educate, entertain and provide information on the subject matter covered. All attempts have been made to verify information at the time of this publication and the authors do not assume any responsibility for errors, omissions or other interpretations of the subject matter. This book results from the experience of the author and if legal assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be engaged. The purchaser or reader of this book assumes responsibility for the use of these materials and information. Adherence to all applicable laws and regulations, both federal and state and local, governing professional licensing, business practices, advertising and all other aspects of doing business in the United States or any other area is the sole responsibility of the purchaser or reader. The author assumes no responsibility or liability on the behalf of any purchaser or reader of this book. 27