Archive | January, 2022

Do you sell a monthly membership? If not, you might want to consider it.

Here’s 3 reasons to start a membership site:

1. Monthly memberships mean residual income. You sell a membership once and you get paid for it month after month until the customer cancels.

2. Selling a membership generally isn’t any harder than selling a one-time product, yet you can get paid a whole lot more for the same effort.

3. If you offer a trial membership, it’s even easier to get new subscribers. In fact, it can be easier than selling a regular one time product. Yet you can make a LOT more, as this case study will show.

Michael Hyatt has a membership site called Platform University. Twice a year he opens the site up for enrollment. Of course, you can take new enrollees into your membership site as often as you choose, but Michael likes to do it just twice a year – probably because it seems more exclusive that way.

Membership costs $37 a month.

But when his recent launch ended, he decided to offer a $1.99 trial membership to anyone who didn’t take the full $37 a month membership.

So after the one week trial period ended, he sent out an email to everyone who didn’t become a member.

In the email he offered a 7 day trial for $1.99, but the catch was they only had 24 hours to grab it.

That email went out to 40,000 people. 819 signed up for the trial offer.

(If you’re going to do the math to see how much 819 times $1.99 is, you’re going to miss the point. But it’s $1,629)

Of those 819 people, 292 cancelled the membership before it rolled into the $37 a month auto payment.

That sounds bad, doesn’t it?

It’s not. Because that means 527 new members paid their first $37 a month.

At $37 a month, that’s an additional $19,499 of monthly recurring income that Michael never would have had if not for the trial membership.

And things get even crazier, because the average member stays for 17.3 months, which is a lifetime value of $640.10 per member.

Which is to say, that $1.99 trial offer resulted in over $300,000 of possible future revenue.

Wow.

Really, it makes you wonder why he doesn’t just offer the trial membership.

But here’s the thing: By spending a week or even two weeks selling the membership at full price, he really builds the value.

So when he does offer the one week trial for just $1.99, it is such a no-brainer that people sign up in droves.

The campaign to get new $37 members is really a campaign to show people how valuable the membership is, and set it up so that the $1.99 is just too good to pass up.

If he had ONLY offered the $1.99 membership, he would not have properly established the value of the membership, and I don’t think his results would have been as good.

And all of this isn’t even counting the members he did sign up during that week long campaign at $37 a month each.

So how can you use this in your own membership?

First, you want to provide plenty of value inside your membership so that new members stay for a long time. Find out exactly what members want and give it to them. Have a place inside your membership where members can actually request new features to be added to your membership.

Next, really establish the value to prospects. Use lots of testimonials to show how your membership helps members to achieve their goals. You want to build the value so high that the cost of membership seems low by comparison.

Lastly, offer your trial membership for only a day or two before closing it. This gets people off the fence and grabbing the trial before it’s too late. You can always open the trial back up again in a month or two, as you see fit.

Finally, track your numbers. See how many people sign up at the regular rate, how many sign up for the trial, and how many convert from the trial to the regular paid membership

Of course, keep track of how long members stay. Find ways to get them to stick around longer and you will consistently increase your monthly income for even bigger paydays.

One more thing – imagine working your tail off to get your membership up and running. You might invest, say, two months into finding out exactly what people want, setting up the membership and filling it with content, software, etc.

Then imagine four months beyond that – you’ve got hundreds or even thousands of members with more joining. You’re making residual money on people who joined months ago. In fact, every month your income increases. You invest part of that money to continue to provide the content, software or services that members get, and the rest is yours. And life is sweet.

If you haven’t started a membership site of your own yet, what are you waiting for?

Email marketing is one of the best ways to make money online and develop passive income. If you use an autoresponder company (and you definitely should), you can write and store emails in your account that automatically get sent out to your list subscribers, helping you make money automatically 24/7/365 – even while you are sleeping at night.

Your autoresponder emails can contain links that sell products you believe in – either your own products or products you’re promoting as an affiliate. You could choose to store enough content to last a year or more, if you wanted to. Write 100 emails over time, add links to them, and load them up into your autoresponder account. Set them to deliver every few days, or even daily depending on your audience.

How is this passive? It’s passive because these emails will go out to new subscribers at the preset intervals you’ve determined ahead of time. Ideally, you’ll design a list-building funnel that will work for you day and night. So, someone who joins your list today will get your email sequence in order – they’ll see the emails where you teach things and emails where you sell things. They’ll buy from you.

More people will join tomorrow, more people will join a month from now, and more people will join six months and a year from now. Those people will get your email sequence in order. So you’ll have hundreds and hopefully thousands of people receiving your well thought out, well-monetized autoresponder sequence. This can earn you a continually growing passive income.

You could be lounging on the beach, sleeping, traveling, or working on another project altogether and still be earning passive income from your autoresponder series because your emails are being delivered without any further effort on your part, after you set them up the first time.

Does this sound like a dream? There are few things better for online income and building a real business than email marketing. Focus on developing a passive income from autoresponder emails and your time and financial freedom can grow consistently.

More On What Autoresponder Emails Are

As a short refresher, autoresponder emails are emails that are sent automatically by your email autoresponder company. Examples of these include GetResponse and Aweber.

You’ll start by including a Welcome email. This email will go out to new subscribers as soon as they subscribe, after they confirm their email address if you are using double optin. This welcome email will introduce you and give people an idea of what to expect from being on your email list.

You’ll then write and upload additional emails that will go out to your audience at the intervals you determine. You might want them to go out every day at first. Or, maybe just every other day. Or, maybe once or twice a week is better for your audience. You don’t want to overwhelm people with your emails but you don’t want them to forget about you.

Some of your emails will be very informative. Some will focus on relationship building – showing your email list subscribers that you honestly and truly do care about them. Other emails will be monetized, either with links to your own product or products you’re promoting as an affiliate.

More on How to Monetize Autoresponder Emails

Which products should you promote within your autoresponder? I highly recommend that you hand pick these products very carefully. Don’t choose something just because you think it’s going to make you a lot of money. Part of your success in earning money passively with autoresponder emails is building relationships along the way. People have to come to trust you and your recommendations.

So, pay attention to your market and what they really need and want. What are their biggest needs, passions, and desires? It can really help to investigate which products are already selling well, what people are talking about on forums, and what’s on social media.

In addition to making sure the products you create or promote are needed and wanted, study whether those topics and products are actually making money. Sometimes, people are interested in a topic but aren’t really willing to pay for information related to it.

You’re in this business to make money, so it makes sense to follow the money. What’s selling? What has staying power as an evergreen product to promote?

That brings up another topic which is evergreen products vs. trendy products. Generally, you’ll want to promote evergreen topics within your long-term autoresponder sequences. That’s because you don’t know what will be hot a year from now. You want the products you promote to be as fresh and relevant six months or a year from now as they are today.

That doesn’t mean you should never promote trendy products which can potentially be huge money-makers. You will just promote those as broadcast emails instead of autoresponder emails. Broadcast emails go out to everyone at once instead of on a timed basis (based on when someone joined your list) in the autoresponder sequence.

Write emails that are designed to presell the reader on buying the product. Whether it’s your product or an affiliate product, your goal in the email is to get people to that sales page. Not only do you want to get them to click through and land on that sales page, you want to presell them on buying the product before they even land there.

That means knowing what their emotional points are. What are they desperate for? Connect with them on a personal level with the email. Don’t mention the product until their emotions are stirred and they’re reminded how desperate they are for a great solution… the solution you’re presenting to them.

Don’t be shy about including links to the sales page within your email, as well as a call to action to get people to click through your link.

Monetizing autoresponder emails isn’t difficult at all. It’s literally just a matter of linking to the sales page. But the way you do it is important. Pay attention to how email marketers you admire do it. Sign up for other lists in your niche to see how they do it. You’ll find your groove and what works for you.

Testing Different Monetization Options

Since this autoresponder series will be a great asset for you, it makes sense to tweak it to higher profitability over time. If a certain promotion isn’t selling well, try switching it out with something different. Or, take a different angle with the way you’re pre-selling in your autoresponder email.

You might be surprised at what works or how a different way of phrasing things or a different subject line or call to action works. Your skills as an email marketer will improve over time as well.

Even though your goal is for this to be a great passive income stream for you, you might want to revisit your existing autoresponder emails every once in a while to tweak and test so that your passive income ultimately increases over time. The better your conversions, the faster your email autoresponder profits will grow.

Sending Emails in Groups of Three

I highly recommend that you consider not monetizing in every email you send out. Sometimes, the build up is needed to get people really interested in what you’re talking about and selling.

You can do well in groups of three emails. The first email in a series can be one that introduces the topic related to the product you’re ultimately promoting. It can stir up emotions and make people feel the pain they have from an unresolved problem.

The second email in a series can touch on those emotional points and start to reveal the solution. You can do some light preselling in this email.

The third email in the series can be a more specific, hard-selling email that directly asks for the sale.

This type of thing can work well because it builds up to the sale and gets people interested. Send a different series/promotion set of three emails every week or so for a potentially great, passive income with emails that convert far better than average.

Successfully Earning Passive Income by Monetizing Autoresponders

Hopefully, you’re getting really excited about the possibilities here. You can set up many different list building funnels and autoresponder email series that essentially run on autopilot. You can earn a nice passive income this way. Do yourself a favor and invest your time into email marketing, because it truly can help you build a real business and develop a continually growing passive income over time.

There’s a huge difference in sales conversions when someone is excited about a purchase they’re making vs. when they’re surprised by the possibility of a purchase.

Think back to your own history. Has there ever been a product or anything you thought about buying for some time? Maybe it popped up in your thoughts throughout the day, you heard others talking about it, and you were convinced it would change your life, solve a problem of yours, or delight you. When it came time to buy, you jumped at the chance – you couldn’t hit that buy button fast enough. I’m sure it’s happened to you; I think it’s happened to all of us.

The same is true for your audience. That build-up matters.

If they just see your sales page blindly, they might not even read past the headline. They don’t yet have an emotional connection to it. Sure, you try to do a great job with your copy and get and keep them reading—but that doesn’t always work because once they reach a page, if they’re not already presold on the desire to read for more than an instant, you only have a brief time to capture their interest.

It’s so much better if they have an emotional connection already. It’s even better if they already know they’re going to buy before they even see the sales page. That’s when the real magic happens.

I’ve had people tell me that when I release a new product, some don’t even read the sales page. They know it’s going to be a good value so they jump right down to the buy button. That makes me feel great. That’s part of a reputation I’ve developed over time.

But often, it has to do with the preselling I do in my emails. I often talk about projects I’m working on, especially ones I’m particularly excited about (such as the Plug-In Profit Site). I talk about what the projects mean to me and what they’ll mean to the audience.

I have great relationships with the people on my email list. There are some who’ve been on my list for nearly a decade. With this trust come higher conversions.

But that longevity doesn’t always have to be there to do this successfully. You can presell by email and get people excited about making a purchase whether you’re new to business or copywriting or not. You can get people excited about making a purchase before they even see the sales page by using the power of psychology and preselling.

The Psychology Of Preselling

People tend to buy more readily when they’ve already committed to something in their mind.

People tend to buy more readily when they’re reminded of a desperation or passion they have.

People want easier, better solutions to things.

It often takes more than one point of contact before someone will be ready to buy.

What does all of that mean to you? It means that if you pay attention to these things, you can do a great job of preselling by email. You can secure that sale before people even see your sales page. How’s that for something amazing?

Let’s talk about the fact that it often takes more than one point of contact before people are ready to buy. Imagine you buy an Adwords ad and send someone directly to a sales page. They might not have heard of you. The sales page is great, though… are they likely to buy? They might… but your conversions won’t be anywhere near what they could be. There’s no real connection there.

Instead, imagine a scenario where you buy an ad, give someone a freebie so they’ll join your list, and start building a relationship with them by email. You send an email stirring up a problem they have. You send another offering them part of the solution. You send another email handing them the solution on a platter… they’re excited and decide they NEED this solution and are ready to buy before they even land on the sales page.

The latter option is better, right? It’s that relationship and connection that makes the difference. It’s that attention to human psychology that makes the difference.

The Next Time You Sell by Email…

The next time you sell via a sales page, do your preselling by email. It can work well to do a mini series of emails that leads to a link to a sales page and a call to action.

The first email can stir up the reader’s emotions and hit on their problem. Make them feel that pain and pressure so they’ll want to remove it at any cost. Get that thought into their mind and they’ll be subconsciously thinking about it until the next time you contact them.

The second email can restate that pain and emotional need again. This time, hint at the solution.

The third email can present the solution on a silver platter – and the answer is found within the product on your sales page. Include a call to action to buy.

Get people excited about what you have to offer ahead of time. You can really improve your conversions. Learning how to write copy isn’t just about writing a good sales letter, it’s also about writing great email copy.

Examples Of Preselling By Email

Here’s an example for you. This is a very simplified example, so adapt it to fit your needs.

Let’s say you want to promote a product that’s designed to teach stay at home moms how to write a money-making blog so they can start or continue staying home with their kids while bringing in an income.

Email 1:

Subject: Moms who need more money…

Hello,

Having children is amazing – it’s a huge blessing.

You’ve decided to stay home with your children or you want to stay home with them.

The only problem is that there’s just not enough money. It’s next to impossible for a real family to live off of a single income in today’s world.

But you don’t want to miss a moment of your child’s life.

What’s the answer?

I completely understand what you’re going through right now, and it’s one of the toughest things there is.

I think this topic is so important that I’m going to send you another email tomorrow to talk about solutions, okay?

Sign off

P.S. I think you’re going to like the idea I have for you… It could mean the difference between staying home with your baby or not.

Email 2:

Subject: Can stay at home moms earn money from home?

Hello,

Last time, we talked about the fact that you really, really want to be able to stay home with your children.

We also talked about the fact that it’s nearly impossible for most families to survive on just one income.

At the same time, you’ll stop at nothing to be able to stay home with your little one.

What’s the answer?

The answer’s pretty cool… and it can definitely work for you. I’m really excited to tell you this. I actually work with MANY stay at home moms who earn full time incomes from home.

They do it all from the computer.

No, this has nothing to do with those ridiculous (and scammy) fake posts you see on social media that say stuff like “earn $3,000 from month doing nothing!”

There are REAL moms who really wanted to stay home with their kids. They’ve started their own business from home and are now earning great incomes doing it.

There’s actually a ton of different options out there for doing this. You can write, blog, freelance, work as an affiliate, and even create your own products.

All of these can be your path to freedom… your path to getting to stay home with your kids and earn a full time income.

I’m especially excited about one of these options in particular because I think it’s perfect for you. You can do it in your spare time and it’s really a lot of fun.

I’m going to share that business with you next time.

For now, think about what it would mean to your family… and to your children… if you could stay home with them with no stress. What it would mean to you and your spouse to have a second full time income coming in, in your spare time at home.

Until then…

Sign off

P.P.S. Remember to check your email tomorrow, okay? There will be a special message from me.

Email 3:

Subject: Hey mom… here’s your answer for earning a full time income from home…

Hello,

I’m so excited about this because I truly think this can change your life and the lives of your family members.

Yesterday, I shared with you that there are actually a LOT of different ways moms can stay home with their babies and earn a full time income, often in their spare time.

Today, I’m proud to offer you a complete guide on doing this as a part time mommy blogger.

This method in particular is fun, easy, and lucrative. You can do it in your spare time and earn a great income doing it.

I know how badly you want to be able to stay home. I also completely understand how hard it is to do that if there aren’t two incomes coming in.

Here’s your solution… it’s a complete guide that will help you get started. It’s just $7 – less than the price of a couple of Happy Meals.

This could be life changing. After all, your children are only young once.

Grab hold of your future and your income by starting your own lucrative blog from home. This isn’t a “biz op”, this is a true opportunity to make your own path in life.

You work hard, and now it’s time to cash in on it.

Link to sales page

To your success,

Sign off

As you can see, there’s a lot of room here to write emails like this for your own product.

Make these preselling emails whatever you need them to be. The moms in the example haven’t even seen the sales page yet… but they’re probably going to buy, right? It’s the answer to their problems. The click-throughs and conversions on that third email should be quite high because the moms are already pre-sold on that product.

Apply this to your copywriting or promotions and you can dramatically boost your sales.