Developing a Membership Site (Part 2 of 5)

In Part 1 this blog series on developing a membership site, you’ll notice that I gave an example of an eight-week course. That was no accident.

You see, most people who think of “membership sites” think of content that’s delivered weekly or monthly… indefinitely. Members pay month after month and the owners deliver month after month.

This works fairly well for some types of sites -- and if you have hours and hours each week to devote to creating new content. But if you’re running a training site, your members are going to drift away if you just give them tips and tricks indefinitely. And they might even bail out a couple months after joining, simply because there’s no end in sight.

So here’s what you do instead…
Create a fixed-term membership site. This is a site that runs for a specific period of time, such as 30 days, eight weeks, three months, six months, 12 months… or any length of your choosing.

Tip: For best results, create a step-by-step series as described in Part 1 of this article. 

Here’s why this works…
Imagine if your site went on indefinitely. Someone might join and, after a couple months, quit. That’s pretty normal. But if the course only stretches out for six months, psychologically the customers will feel better if they just remain a member for the entire six months. They want to see it through to the end.

This is actually a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) trick. Simply put, people don’t like unfinished business. That’s why they’ll even read books they don’t like or watch boring movies – once they’ve invested some time into the activity, they want to see it through to the end.

While just creating a fixed-term site created this psychological commitment to your course, you can make the commitment even stronger by building anticipation for the upcoming lessons. That is, from the very first lesson you work on “selling” the other lessons.

• Build anticipation for the whole course in lesson #1. Your first lesson should include an overview of all the lessons. But don’t just write it out like a table of contents. Instead, write it like bullet points to a sales letter. 

Example: “In Lesson #3, you’ll discover a simple trick that will triple your job interviews!” In other words, arouse curiosity whenever possible.

• Build anticipation for the next lesson at the end of each lesson. At the end of each lesson you’ll want to include something like, “Stay tuned for next week’s lesson, where you’ll find out the three things you must do to prepare for your job interview!”

• Build anticipation for future lessons and bonuses periodically. Finally, from time to time, you should remind members of upcoming lessons. For example, in lesson #5 you might remind members of a particularly valuable lesson or bonus that you’re offering in lesson #9. Again, write it like a sales letter bullet, where you arouse curiosity and put forth a benefit. 

The biggest challenge in running a membership site is retaining members.

With a typical membership site, your members may only stick around for two or three months. But you can quickly and easily ensure that more of your members stay around for six months, 12 months, or even longer by creating a fixed-term membership site!

In tomorrow's blog post, we'll talk about how to create a "set-it-and-forget-it" membership system. Develop it once and have it earn passive income for you, month after month, year after year.

Developing a Membership Site (Part 1 of 5)

So you want to start a membership site.

The first thing you need to think about is your niche and your topic.

Now think about this for a moment…

Your goal is to get members to happily pay you month after month for content. Obviously, that means you need to:

• Over-deliver with quality content. You want your members to feel like they’re getting a steal for the price. 
• Give your members what they want. If you’re just starting your site, then look at what products job seekers are already paying for -- and think of how you can turn that into a membership site.

But here’s something else…

In order to get your members paying month after month, you need to be able to make them look forward to each upcoming lesson. And the best way to do that is by creating a membership site around a step-by-step process. That is, your lessons teach your members how to achieve a specific result. 

You see, if you just provide tips and tricks for your members, there’s no sense of continuity. Your members don’t develop as strong of a psychological commitment to staying a member, because they won’t have a need to see the course through until the end.

Now imagine having numbered steps and lessons instead. When someone is receiving lesson 10 of a step-by-step process, they’ve made an investment of time and money into learning the process – so they are less likely to “bail” before they’ve received all the steps.

Let me give you a few examples of sites that teach a specific achievement or result using a step-by-step process:
· 30-Day Plan to Get Your Dream Job
· How to get interviews for almost any job you apply for
· Creating and optimizing your LinkedIn profile
· Using social media (Twitter, Facebook) in your job search

Now let me give you an example of what a 8-week job search course might look like:

Step 1: Articulate your dream job.

Step 2: Identify likely employers.

Step 3: Begin building your network.

Step 4: Update your job search materials (resume, cover letter, networking letter, etc.)

Step 5: Make contacts/target hiring managers.

Step 6: Prepare for the interview.

Step 7: Post-interview followup methods.

Step 8: Success! Negotiate your terms, thank your network, and plan for your first 90 days in the new position.

Notice how each step builds on the previous step.

It starts with setting a job search goal… and ends with negotiating the new job offer.

In other words, if the member completes the steps as the course progresses, he or she should be able to enjoy a specific achievement or result by the end of the course.

Note: The above example is an 8-week course. Naturally, you could easily stretch this out to three months, six months, or even a year or more by creating more steps and more in-depth steps. You could go on indefinitely as long as you kept providing more advanced info as the course progressed.

One final tip…To keep your customers happy, make sure that they are progressing and enjoying results right from the beginning.

Example: If you create a yearlong course, don’t stretch out the process for a year. Instead, give the step-by-step instructions your customers need to experience some type of results immediately (within a few weeks or month after joining) and then provide more in-depth instructions as the course progresses.

In short: Satisfy your customers’ needs for instant gratification while still providing the continuity that will keep them as a member. You’ll learn more about that in Part 2 of this series. 

- And stay tuned for the launch of the Career Membership Sites Made Easy program -- a step-by-step guide to help you set up and launch your own fixed-term membership site in 48 hours or less.

Using Social Media to Maximize Your Content Distribution

When does 1+1=3?

When you can leverage individual efforts to create greater effect. Marketing efforts are more powerful and effective when they work together. For example, if you have a social networking account you probably have social networking buttons on your blog or website. You invite people to share on Facebook, for example, and like your Facebook business page too.

Your content marketing strategy is probably your most important and effective marketing tactic in your strategy. (See last week's blog post about creating a content strategy.) Content, after all, is what drives visitors to your website. It makes sense to blend your content marketing efforts with your social media efforts for a really powerful strategy.

Here are a few ideas or strategies to integrate your content marketing and social media efforts.

1. Linking. Each time you publish an article or blog post, link to it from social networking sites. You can try different approaches to test which works best. Does a straight headline with a link work? Or does your audience prefer a teaser paragraph and a link? Some marketers have found that asking a question works best to motivate click throughs from social networking sites.

2. Publish full articles. Some social media sites provide room for full articles. For example, LinkedIn and Facebook Fan pages both give you room to publish an abundance of content.

3. Include social media buttons on your site and in your content. If you have a blog, there are plug-ins that you can add to integrate social media buttons at the top of each blog post. You can also include a call to action in some or all of your posts. You can include a signature that says, "Like this post? Share it on Facebook."

4. If you're using article marketing to drive traffic to your site, you can link to those published articles from your social media accounts. You can also include a "Follow me on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn" or whatever sites you use. This helps broaden your audience and your awareness.

5. Use content to grow your social media connections. Each article or blog post should ideally have a purpose. You may want to promote an affiliate link. You may want to drive traffic to your opt-in page. You can also use content to build your social network following. Include a call to action at the bottom of your article or blog post and link to your profile.

There is tremendous potential here. You can also use social media comments or questions to create content for your site. You can also integrate them both into your email marketing strategy too.

Remember that each marketing tactic is more powerful when it is integrated with your other existing marketing tactics. Plan your content. Plan your social networking strategy and then plan how they can work together.

"Not Enough Time to Create Great Content"

Last week, I had a series of blog posts that talked about creating a content strategy and monetizing your content. I heard from a couple of resume writers who said, "I'm so busy writing resumes, I don't have time to create lots of content." Well, just for you, I have 10 ideas to help you when you're either short on time, or worn out from writing resumes and aren't inspired to write a lot more.

1. Glean content from social marketing sites. Presumably you've interacted with other people online. Use those comments you've posted to create a quick blog post or article for your site. Or respond to a question that was posed on social media as a blog post. Add a headline, a few subheadings and tweak it for publication. The result? Quick and easy content.

2. Show some "link love." Instead of writing a full-blown article or post, link to an article or blog post and share your opinion about the content. Invite others to comment too.

3. Compile and quick print. Create a list of resources or links to articles and blog posts on a topic that is near and dear to your readers. For example, you might create a list of the top 10 career sites and link to them.

4. Photo sharing. Share a picture and ask readers to create a caption. Some bloggers actually create a specific day for their photo sharing. They call it "Wordless Wednesday" or something like that. People love to look at photos and you don't have to write a word! (If you're also an artist, you could create a cartoon and ask for captions.)

5. The best of the best. Create an article or blog post recap. Highlight and recap your top blog posts from last month, last quarter, or even last year. Focus on a specific topic to add more value. For example, "Top 10 Blog Posts Getting LinkedIn."

6. Get readers involved. Take this hurried time to create an opportunity. Publish a quiz or survey and gain valuable information about your audience.

7. Read all about it. Grab a news feed or two and share links to industry news or headlines and snippets. You can actually create a weekly or monthly post with this idea. For example you could create an end of the month news update and highlight all the newsworthy things that happened that month.

8. Roll with it. Grab your video camera and create a quick how-to video. A few minutes is plenty to provide good content and it takes less time to create a video for many than to write an article or blog post.

9. Comment Love. Share your favorite comments from the past month, quarter, or year. This shows your readers that you appreciate their feedback and gets other readers involved.

10. Editorial. Grab a headline from the news and expand on it. Share your opinion.

11. Quotable. Share a quote that inspires you, makes you laugh or is relevant to jobseekers. It's a simple cut-and-paste blog post!

Don't have time to write a blog post or article? No problem. Use one of these ideas each week and you'll keep your readers happy.