Archive for October, 2009
4 Reasons Not to Have a Membership Site, Plus 8 Reasons You Should Start a Membership Site
A couple days ago I asked my list if they had a membership site yet... I got 300 responses to that question and I want to share the results with you right now:
- 165 people, or 54.8% own membership software
- Out of that half that owned membership software, 89 people or 53.9% have at least one paying member
- Total, those 89 people who had a profitable membership only accounted for 29.6% of the responders
So Strange!
Some of these people paid $197, $297, even 4000 bucks for a membership script but only half of them are doing anything with it.
So let me share with you a couple of reasons that stopped me from creating membership sites (I've created 19 of them in the past 12 months... and only ONE before that time period!)
Four Disturbing But True Facts About Inaction and How to Overcome Them Immediately
I just came back from the 2nd Warrior Event in Raleigh, North Carolina where I was a speaker.
Speaking of webinars and seminars, remember the "Which Test Won" game we played on the webinar a few days ago? I showed you how:
- What converts BETTER than a squeeze page giving a free gift? One of my $7 reports selling almost the exact same thing!
- Removing three words from a headline TRIPLED conversion rates -- an EXTRA $625 from every 500-something clicks
- Adding a small logo to another sales letter boosted conversions from 1.99% to 3.57% -- an EXTRA $846 from every 1000 clicks
When you split test you make those small tweaks. But if you don't even have a product of your own, or a sales letter, then it's impossible to split test those pay raises!
Here's Something Crazy...
When I was on stage at the warrior event, I asked this question...
Because I Can
Let me tell you about the first product online that got me to pay higher than $100 for the very first time (this was years ago).
He called it a "Because I Can" sale. Basically the guy put together a huge package with a bunch of his own products, including resale rights.
- This was long before that kind of thing was common!
- JV giveaways didn't exist yet...
- Pitch webinars didn't REALLY exist yet...
He set the start price at $37 and the end price at something like $297, and the sale only ran for about 3 days. Every few seconds the price would jump up a fraction of a penny. I waited until it was above $100 before I bought.
Back then I think my highest priced product was $197, and if I sold two copies of it in a week I would be jumping for joy. I might not have had a $1000 launch yet. I was still full-time in college, rent was only $625 a month (a lot for me at the time). I didn't have a full time job or any other source of income.
But... I Still Bought!
What got me to buy? Scarcity!
