Launching a New Membership Site - I'd appreciate your opinion

[hvazquez07]

Hey guys!

Over the past couple of months I've been diving more into branding myself. This has brought amazing results to my companies, but I also wanted to start my own line of info-products. On this case, I'm launching a membership site and community which is all about Conversions, Sales Funnels, PPC, Email Marketing and the like. I'm super excited since I've poured my knowledge of the past 2 years into it, and people are starting to respond really well!

In fact, to kick start it, I've offered all of the members from a free Facebook group I own to join for free. The response and the feedback I've got from that has been amazing. I wanted to have some interaction and people inside the members area before launching (and some real world testimonials about the platform as well). This has also served me to check the content, make some tweaks to the platform and squash some bugs.

But I have a feeling this product will fly based on the free subscribers/members response only. I've promoted other products in my Facebook group and nothing has been even close to this amount of response.

Anyways my plan for the launch (which is next week) is:

• Subscribers' only limited discount: For next week I'm setting the price at $67 per month for subscribers only. This promotion is going to last during next week only (closing on Monday 15th). I've setup a warm-up sequence the past two days to let them know I'm launching but without information to the actual signup button. I'm intending to create urgency and scarcity over next week via emails (and maybe some retargeting?)
• Setup a Facebook campaign for cold traffic going to a lead magnet, indoctrination email sequence and countdown sequence with a $5 trial for 5 days and then $97 per month.
• I'll be sharing the launch on my social channels, make a podcast episode about it, etc. Of course this would be for the $5 trial since I truly want to honor my subscribers with a deal nobody else gets.

I'd like to know some other ways of promotion you guys might have in mind. Particularly if you have some experience launching succcesful membership sites. What are the critical aspects to have in mind during launch phase? What could I do to get more people interested in the product?

Once this launch phase passes, I intend this to be an evergreen product as well. And I might or might not be rising prices in the future (if the content and the community keeps growing and becoming more valuable).

Thanks for any feedback or questions you might have guys!

It's trully appreciated

Have an amazing weekend.

 

[lion1978]

Well I guess this is maybe obvious, but having an affiliate program could get the sales roling in, especially considering what the community is all about.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Well I guess this is maybe obvious, but having an affiliate program could get the sales roling in, especially considering what the community is all about.

I'd consider this too, but I'd be selective about who I let into the program. I've seen way too many great products look like trash because affiliates created and spammed 10,000 youtube videos, web 2.0's, EMD's, etc. I'd definitely whitelist people.

Otherwise, I'm thinking about your demographic. If it's people running giant established websites or agencies, then all of the funnel optimization you're talking about is well worth $100 a month. The challenge will be convincing them that they need to continue paying to reap the next reward. Someone technically could join, study for a month, takes notes, and bail on you. Then turn around and make an extra $50,000 a month from your info. If this is your demographic, have you considered a much higher priced one-time fee?

If your demo is newbies and amateurs trying to learn, your pricing scheme seems good. The nature of what you're selling seems like you're going to deal with a lot of churn though if this is your crowd.

 

[hvazquez07]

Definitely that's part of the launch strategy @lion1978.

I'd consider this too, but I'd be selective about who I let into the program. I've seen way too many great products look like trash because affiliates created and spammed 10,000 youtube videos, web 2.0's, EMD's, etc. I'd definitely whitelist people.

Otherwise, I'm thinking about your demographic. If it's people running giant established websites or agencies, then all of the funnel optimization you're talking about is well worth $100 a month. The challenge will be convincing them that they need to continue paying to reap the next reward. Someone technically could join, study for a month, takes notes, and bail on you. Then turn around and make an extra $50,000 a month from your info. If this is your demographic, have you considered a much higher priced one-time fee?

If your demo is newbies and amateurs trying to learn, your pricing scheme seems good. The nature of what you're selling seems like you're going to deal with a lot of churn though if this is your crowd.

Thanks for the input R.

My demographics are mostly marketers, business owners, entrepreneurs, MLM people, Real Estate people and freelancers that are ALREADY having some results, but they want to tweak their funnel to bring it to the next level. The churn is fine and expectable, BUT that's exactly why I'm setting up a community which is being positioned as the best asset you could have.

In fact, the course could be downloaded and shared, but there will be continuous references to the community posts and files, etc. That's kind of "cloud based" knowledge that I want to push as the #1 asset of the entire membership.

I'm also offering a $597 yearly upsell right after the offer, independently of where they came from. On the inside I can take it all they way up to $5.000 for 6 weeks consulting or $12.000 for a DFY sales funnel.

+1 on whitelisting people that I have had previous good results with. Mostly people for who I have written guest posts to and I know their demo are still within reach.

 

[CCarter]

I'd study this Podcast about Fizzle.co: Behind the Scenes of a Thriving and Active Membership Site with Corbett, Chase, and Barrett from Fizzle.co

^^ I don't listen to podcasts, nor do I agree with the lazy "passive income" mentality and therefore would never be caught dead on this site or recommending anything from Pay Flynn. So take all that into consideration with what I am about to say, "This was a GREAT podcast" and it falls in line exactly with what you are doing.

One thing I would say is also study BH.C (Blackhat.Community). Todd does an excellent job of creating an engaging environment by having top experts in each skype chat interacting with users. That's one of the benefits, being able to rub shoulders with top dogs. They then take it to multiple levels by offering tools for their membership which members can use any time. Ontop of that they do instructional video tutorials on using the latest blackhat tools AND they invite the creators of tools to come and do AMA and webinars on how to get the most out of their tools, techniques, and general help. Basically it's a community based on creating value from multiple angles for the membership. There are multiple reasons to keep the membership, whether it's access to top blackhatters like Grindstone and some clown named CCarter, or tools that scrape majestic or Archive.org or do rank tracking for your keywords, or the videos from Holly or the SERP Shaker creators on the latest blackhat techniques working today.

Regardless of your views on blackhat SEO, take that word out and input your industry, and you have a perfect recipe to having user continue to engage within a community, therefore giving them more reason to stay longer, instead of just downloading all the porn videos and canceling before the next month... I mean your content. You see, that technique of downloading everything and leaving the next month is so old the porn industry has been battling it since day one. Porn companies figured out monthly, then weekly, then daily updates were required to keep user engaged to a point where they stay members.

BUT the EXACT same problem the porn industry has right now is what you are going to have. You'll be battling the free content available on the internet. Even if you have a new unique way of doing things, it soon will be available for free on the internet at some level. The key is to keep users engaged with content, interactions, and add-on benefits like tools you create internally so they have a reason to stay.

I'd consider this too, but I'd be selective about who I let into the program. I've seen way too many great products look like trash because affiliates created and spammed 10,000 youtube videos, web 2.0's, EMD's, etc. I'd definitely whitelist people.

I unfortunately have to agree with this since I've experienced it first hand. There is nothing more defeatist and angering then working on a brand for 9+ months, creating a service/product that you poured lost of positive energy into, then turn around and see some affiliate of yours SPAM the living daylights out of your brand + "review", "Is " + your brand + " a scam?" + your brand + "free download", and other dumb-shit which is their only effort in attempting to rank. In fact is pretty retarded since it's a pretty lazy route since the affiliate add no value to the end brand and just creates internet junk and trash all over the net with your good name.

Be selective of who you allow into your affiliate network and ask them how they plan on promoting it. If their marketing game plan consists of "GSA SER-ing" to simple rank for your brand name and ride your coattail, since you would already be ranking for those terms by yourself anyways, pass on that affiliate. It's one of those things that gives affiliates a bad rep and SEOs a bad rep. But I can't be too mad I'm a part of that scene but employ other tactics, since I where no hats.

 

[hvazquez07]

C that's an amazing and insightful answer. Thanks a ton for that. The interviews (AMA) are also part of something I have upcoming on the website, as well as weekly funnels critique, where people can submit their funnels and have them critiqued by me and experts. The little tools for different purposes thing is fucking gold. I'll start brainstorming about those.

Thanks once again. I really appreciate your feedback guys!!!

 

[Sutra]

I've been watching this thread to get membership ideas for my site down the line. That really was an awesome and helpful post @CCarter

Look forward to hearing about your experience with the memberships @hvazquez07