Archive for May, 2013

Membership Site Challenges, Engagement and Retention: How to Earn Online Income (This is Better Than Drip Content)

As usual, most people are hung up because they're focusing on the wrong things and asking the wrong questions when trying to get their membership sites online and making money.

A big focus problem: stressing out about retention (keeping payment members in your site) when you should "set it and forget it" and focus all your energies on getting new people in the door.

Look, you don't need to drip out videos in tiny pieces, run a call center, or offer trials or discounts to get people to rejoin. Here's what you'll use to get people to join your sites, take action, and complete that course you offer:

• Auto-subscribe everyone who buys into your membership site into an email autoresponder sublist with a follow-up email sequence
• Match up your follow-up sequence to either your drip content, or just schedule your emails at a REASONABLE PACE for someone to not just consume the content, but take action
• Important: don't send JUST ONE email per post... send at least 2-3 emails almost HOUNDING people over time to watch this video, make sure you watch this video, did you watch this video (this is the big one)

Just set those three things up and forget all about it. That alone will double your membership site retention whether it's monthly forever, a fixed term payment plan or even a single payment site – yes, I still follow-up with single payment buyers to make sure they take action.

Now, a reactivation page. Create a folder in your site called "invite" – such as, "http://www.webinarcrusher.com/invite" – this is the folder where you will store your reactivation pages.

Let's say Ray Edwards is a member of Webinar Crusher, and it's a 5 month program ($497 upfront or 5 payments of $99.95 spaced 31 days apart). He makes three payments and then cancels.

Don't jump to conclusions! The number 1 reason people cancel from our membership sites is due to credit card expiration... the average credit card only lasts 3 years and some even expire after 1 year! (Plus, for a long time, PayPal had a bug where, if someone updates with credit card information, it would CANCEL all recurring subscriptions!)

Ray has made three payments, and has two left, so we create a new payment button for two payments of $99.95 spaced 31 days apart, name the file "REdwards.html" (short for Ray Edwards). Add this as the headline, "Webinar Crusher: Reactivation Button." Add this as the subheadline: "For Ray Edwards Only!"

For the sub-sub-headline: "This Link Will Be Removed On (Deadline 7 Days From Now, i.e. January 1, 2015)." Add this as the text, "After clicking the reactivation payment button below, do NOT re-register. Instead, check out and then click the -- Existing members, login here – link." Then the button re-activate.

That's it! Adding that button, and nothing else, gets 50% of our drop-outs to sign back up into our membership sites. No bribe or incentive to rejoin, no discount or trial, no special video or gift... just the button to sign up and pay off the remaining payments and that's it!

Now, can I share my BEST strategy for taking membership retention through the roof? Hint: this is the same technique we've used in sites like Membership Cube where we had an 89% success rate (in an industry where even 10 or 20 percent is good) and the average person in our class setup three membership websites.

It's called: membership site challenges. It happens in three parts...

• Part #1: You explain and show your module in a 60-90 minute video session
• Part #2: Tell them at the end of that session (video in a blog post) to fill in the challenge or assignment (but don't call it "homework") – a very quick task, for example, create a 3-minute video and publish it online
• Part #3: Ask four questions to get people to micro-commit to performing that task, including a deadline – they post a comment answering the four questions
• Part #4: They go out and do the small assignment they were supposed to do, then come back and post "I AM DONE!" as a comment.

For example, let's say that Webinar Crusher is a 4-module course (it is). In the first module, we show you how to plan and promote a 20-minute webinar to a live audience. It's one thing to talk about it, another thing to show it, yet another thing for US to do it, but then we want YOU to do it too!

At the end of that video (it's a live paid webinar session but we record it) we send you over to that challenge within the membership site. It's just a blog post that says something like this...

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the title of your webinar?
2. What product will you review?
3. Where will you post your recording?
4. What time and date will your 20-minute webinar be?

When you are finished, come back and type "I AM DONE" in the comments.

Here's the formula for "challenge" posts...

• The first is usually the NAME of some kind, as in, what's the name of the video you'll create or the product you'll create.
• The second question is some sort of minor detail, such as the product you're reviewing or how long the video you're about to record will be
• The third question is a proof element, usually where your completed task will end up online
• The fourth and final question (don't ask more than four) is the exact time and date you'll finish and be completely done and online

This works WAY WAY better than a quiz or a "pay as you go" course.

You post this, you COMMAND people to fill in the challenge, right there in the video and during your live training, you fill this challenge in yourself.

Have a membership site, and run these challenges, build in some complementary software, systems, tools, and templates... email on a sequence several times per week when there are new posts and challenges... and now you don't have to worry about drip content or all these "crazy tricks" to hide from your buyers or fool them into paying you money.

Is this something you are ALREADY using, or WILL be using in your membership site?