“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly,” declared the philosopher G.K. Chesterton.
He most likely meant that most people who try something with the best of intentions will make mistakes – but that shouldn’t stop us from trying. The key to advancement is to avoid the curse of perfectionism.
This axiom can be applied to the creation of your membership site. You should strive for excellence rather than perfection.
Avoiding the most common mistakes made by most marketers is one of the best and fastest ways to achieve this, so let’s dive in.
Always remember that simplicity is the ultimate goal when creating your first membership site. Do not attempt to create a sophisticated membership site with multiple tiers, trials, and other features.
You want to start with a free trial and then upgrade to a paid membership. Content should be supplied efficiently, on time, and with ease to members. In a nutshell, that’s it.
You’re not constructing a space shuttle, but a membership site. Keep it straightforward.
It’s understandable that you want to blow your consumers’ minds by providing them with a wealth of information. There is one question you must answer:
Is it viable long-term?
Setting the bar too high at the outset might lead to unrealistic expectations, and if you don’t deliver, they’ll see it as you failing to keep your promises, and they’ll cancel their membership. So you’ve already set yourself up for failure by setting the bar too high.
Less really is more.
This is one of the most serious errors you can make. When it comes to having your deliverables ready, make sure you’re at least two months ahead of your ‘oldest’ subscribers. This will provide you some breathing room in case content creation is delayed.
Many newbies make the mistake of planning next month’s content during the current month, and they’re always racing to finish it. Being behind the eight ball is a bad situation to be in. It’s frantic and exhausting.
If you’re late with a delivery, you can bet your subscribers will lose faith in you and leave. You never get another chance to make a good first impression. Make certain yours is flawless in terms of content delivery.
Make sure you thoroughly test your membership site when you first create it. Pay for it, sign up, and see how easy it is to join the membership – and how easy it is to get to your material.
It’s a good idea to wait a month to see if you’re billed again – and if you are, did you obtain access to the content for the following month? You should’ve got it.
Before you start your membership, double-check all of these things. You may shout it from the rooftops once it’s finished, and there will be less snags once people start joining your site.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint, to run a membership site. Your goal is to increase the number of subscribers and produce quality content on a monthly basis. Do not attempt to oversell your customers by bombarding them with new offers every two days or so.
Allow them to digest the information. If you want to make more money, provide upgrades within the membership site so that members can obtain more privileges and so on.
Give your potential clients two or three options, but no more.
Anyone interested in creating membership sites must put in the effort. Engaged members and a continual stream of new users are the keys to membership sites’ success. Prioritize the consumer experience to accomplish this.
You want your members to be happy because they paid for the privilege of joining your site. Customers will not have a positive experience if your website performs poorly–if it loads slowly, has a clumsy interface, or has disorganised content. Users want simple membership sites that are easy to use.
Using a landing page builder to construct independent pages for a specific purpose will ensure that customers obtain the information they require as soon as possible.
You can expect more interaction from site visitors if you create a nice website design. Examine the user experience before investing in a membership plan for your website. Consider yourself a member and go through the emails that validate your purchase and membership. Use the site to navigate and manage your account.
As soon as your membership site is up and running, make sure it stays that way. Posting regular content, introducing relevant tools, and launching engagement campaigns are the best ways to excite and keep users engaged.
Remember to prioritise the consumer experience by creating a user-friendly and easy-to-navigate website. Since we’re discussing user experience, make sure you’re continuously sharing new and relevant information that’s still in line with your content strategy.
While it’s easy to focus just on attracting new subscribers, you must remember that your current subscribers are also vital. Focus on customer retention and providing a positive user experience. When you have the opportunity, engage them.
Avoid sending spam or making frequent updates if you care about your members. Additionally, the right tools and automation will greatly assist you in managing your subscriber base. Don’t forget to pay attention to customer service.
These six errors are widespread and can harm your membership site. Keep them in mind and avoid them, and your site will develop into a profitable investment that pays off time after time.
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There are several ways to measure your goals, ranging from simple to complex and free to expensive. Sometimes it makes sense to spend money on tools, but when setting goals for your own purposes, keeping it low cost makes sense.
For instance, use a spreadsheet when first starting out. Most people associate Microsoft Excel with spreadsheets, and that costs money. However, there are free alternatives, such as Open Office Calc. The Open Office suite of products is available on multiple operating systems. This software is fully functional and compatible with Microsoft products. The best part is it is free.
Sometimes, you will need more sophisticated tools. For instance, when you work on multiple projects simultaneously and there may be dependencies associated with some of the goals, you’ll need to have a better method than a spreadsheet to manage these. This is also true when you have multiple people that you need to measure their contributions to the projects.
While you could use spreadsheets for this, they are not meant for collaborative activities. The reporting features are lacking in a spreadsheet program. A program such as Microsoft Project gives you more control over these types of features.
Keep in mind the tool should not be used as a means to run the projects for you. They have their uses, but the responsibility rests with you, or the project manager. Also, you have to consider some flexibility in the measurement as not every item will go according to plan. You may need to make some adjustments along the way.
Being too rigid with the plan can cause problems within a team. Strict adherence to a tool will make the projects rigid, by definition. On the other hand, you do need some ways to accurately measure the goals. It’s a delicate balance that requires compassion as well as firmness.
When choosing a tool, try to get your team involved, so they know what to expect. This isn’t always possible as some companies already have solutions implemented. If this is the case, you will need to manage the expectations of the team and provide any training and assistance needed to make the tool work for them.
Your manager determines what course you are to take. This is based on organizational goals or tasks that he or she has been given. Many managers are not adept at setting goals for themselves, let alone for other people. This can lead workers astray and is something that SMART goals can help with.
If your manager is not familiar with the concept, try to become an advocate. This is going to require you learning what it’s all about. It’s not a bad idea to take some training on the concept. There are courses available online, and you can start by searching for the term on YouTube.
Keep in mind that YouTube videos can be posted by anyone, so make sure you scrutinize the videos carefully. If someone sounds like they don’t know what they are talking about, move on to another one.
If your manager is not initially on board, you may need to take the initiative and start using the concept for your own goal setting. It’s much easier to convince people when you are successful with the concept. Trying to convince them from a purely theoretical perspective is not as effective. Managers want results and are afraid to try something that is not proven in their minds.
You may need to negotiate to position your ideas in a positive light. For instance, you can suggest that by setting goals using a SMART framework, you can get more done. Therefore, tell your manager you are willing to take on more responsibility to prove out the concept to him or her.
If your manager is not yet ready to accept this concept, at least you have planted the seeds. It’s likely he or she will look up the concept online based on you suggesting the idea. This will create an atmosphere of familiarity. When you bring it up again sometime in the future, your manager will be more receptive to the idea because it’s not a foreign concept.
One last means of getting manager buy-in is to document your experience with it. For instance, you could set up a journal and show how you used the framework to get your personal goals accomplished. It’s difficult to argue with success when it is recorded for your manager to read.
Having tips about SMART goals is great. However, sometimes it helps to solidify the concept by describing some applications of its use, which are described here. For clarification, the acronym is taken to stand for, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Based.
Exercise Program
Goal: To work out every day for 20 minutes per day and achieve a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 20. I will use the X System to attain that goal.
Explanation: The specific part of the goal is to achieve the Body Mass Index of 20. It is measurable as I can take a BMI reading throughout the period to compare. It may be attainable, assuming I believe in the X System or have used it before. It is realistic in that if I go to the gym and the assumptions are true, I will reach the goals. For time-based, I have given it three months and 20 minutes per day.
Save for College
Goal: To save $50 per month in a 521 account and continue to do this until my child is ready for college as the cost of college keeps rising.
Explanation: Based on historical trends, college costs rise every year. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that they will continue to rise. The specific goal is to use a 521 account, which in the United States, allows for tax breaks when saving for college. My bank statements will allow me to measure whether I am saving enough each month and make the necessary adjustments. These goals are attainable as long as I can continue working. If I made some projections based on the number of years before needing the money, this plan is likely to be realistic. However, the best course of action would be to compare alternate plans to see which would give the best return. The frequency (time-based) is monthly over some years.
The ideal situation is to be able to address each of the five components of SMART. Don’t worry if you find some overlap. As long as you can work from your plan, it won’t make much of a difference.
Of course, you will certainly be aware that setting and achieving goals requires a lot of self-discipline, so if you want to learn about growing your own self-discipline then download the featured resource below which is a free report all about the power of self-discipline; download it, read it and take action 😊
If you have read this post, you’ve now got traffic coming in, which is great. Now you need to make the most of that traffic, which means persuading visitors to take a specific action.
The idea here is that converting your traffic creates more benefits and help for your audience, while generating more profit for your business.
To that end, this part is going to show you how to start to optimize conversions on your website, in your ads, and within your email campaigns.
Let’s get right to it…
Get The Basics In Place
Let’s start by making sure you’ve got the basics down, and you’re using optimization best practices.
The first thing you need to understand is that conversion optimization isn’t based on just one factor. Instead, it’s about optimizing multiple factors.
Here’s what you need to put into place:
We’ll cover these exact issues in detail throughout this article.
Each piece of content or each page of your website should have one clear goal. If you try to point your audience towards taking multiple steps, they’re going to get overwhelmed or confused.
You want to keep it simple. One goal per page, and everything on that page is designed to help the visitor take the desired action.
There are a variety of ways you can convert your visitors to have them take a specific action.
Here are examples of the types of goals you might set for your content:
This isn’t an exhaustive list, as you may have specific actions you want your audience to take.
Remember, however, that you should pick just ONE primary goal for each piece of content (or for each page on your website).
Sometimes marketers have one clear goal (such as “buy a product”), but they still give too many options. For example, they might give the prospect the option to buy Product A or Product B or Product C.
If you want better conversions, then tighten your focus. Pick one specific action, limit the options within that action, and then focus the content on getting the visitor to take that specific action (e.g., buy Product A).
In addition to setting content goals (the action you want your users to take), you also need to select your metrics and set goals around those metrics.
For the purposes of this article, the one metric we’re most concerned about is the conversion percentage.
The key here is that you need to be realistic with your conversions.
For example, you can’t expect a 20% conversion rate on a $100 product with a cold audience. For this example, your conversions are more likely to be around 2% — more for warm audiences, better sales copy, and so on.
Be realistic so that you don’t get disappointed. But at the same time, always strive to do better and increase those conversions using the tips and ideas you’ll learn in this article.
You can have all the other pieces in place as far as conversion optimization, but if you aren’t giving your audience what they want, then your conversions will suffer.
That’s why you need to do your market research in order to determine:
Which brings us to the next point…
Take these steps to do your market research:
Take note that while you should use all these methods in order to get as much insight as possible, the best way to find out what your audience wants is to see what they’re already buying.
As you do your research, you’ll want to utilize these tools:
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A survey can help you get better insight into what your audience wants. Follow these tips:
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The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to craft offers and content that really resonate with them. Finding out what they’re already buying will help you select the right offers.
However, learning about who your audience is – from their basic demographics to their hopes, fears and desires – will help you create content that makes each prospect feel as if you’re speaking directly to them.
If you can forge this sort of connection with every piece of content, you’ll see your conversions rise.
One way to learn more about your audience is to spend some time observing them, talking to them, and even becoming a part of the target market. You can:
For example, if you spend time talking to dog owners or viewing their online conversations, you may find that many small dog owners struggle with a pet that seems to “rule the roost” despite the small size.
That tells you that you can create products and content that address these issues, but you can also speak directly to these dog owners in a way that will resonate with them
(e.g., “It seemed so simple – you were going to clip your dog’s nails, but the next thing you, know his lip was up, and he’s snarling at you…”).
Another way to learn more about your audience is to research their demographics using Google.
For example, you’d search for “dog owner demographics” or “demographics of people with diabetes.” Then make note of:
… And anything else you can dig up.
Be sure to use reputable sources of information only, such as those coming from universities, news organizations and professional research organizations (such as Pew Research).
When a prospect lands on your page, they’re going to be wondering why they should do business with you instead of your competitor.
If you want the sale, the subscriber, or some other conversion, then you need to give your visitor a reason.
Here’s a real-life example: Papa John’s pizza rolled their USP into the slogan, “Better ingredients, better pizza.” While other competitors (such as Domino’s Pizza) set themselves apart based on the speed of delivery (30 minutes or less), Papa John’s set themselves apart based on taste.
Here are the different ways you can set yourself apart from your competitors:
This is not an exhaustive list – you’ll want to do some brainstorming on your own to determine what makes your business and your offers unique.
Be sure to research your competitors to see what USP they’re using so that you don’t pick the same one. You’ll also want to pick a USP that your prospects really value.
You don’t need to strongarm your audience, use psychological tricks, use click bait or do anything else to trick or manipulate your audience into taking action.
If you’ve got a targeted audience, you put a desirable offer in front of them, and you explain this offer by sharing benefits, then you’ll naturally get the conversions you desire.
On a related note…
Your reputation is one of your most valuable assets, and it has a big impact on your conversions.
If you’ve got a great reputation in your niche, you’ll always produce better conversions than those who have poor reputations.
So, you will now be hopefully be generating more traffic to your website, and converting that traffic into either leads and/or buyers. For your convenience, you can get all the tips mentioned in both posts in a single handy detailed report; just click on the featured resource below, download, read it and take action 🙂
It often seems that confidence is elusive, like a smoky mirage. Sometimes, it feels magical and wonderful; other times it can be frustrating.
But I’ll let you in on a little secret: you can build up your self-confidence without having to resort to any crystal ball. ‘How?’ you ask.
It’s simple.
I know that some people exude confidence and may be naturally confident, but many have honed the skill that it looks natural, yet they are natural introverts.
Keep reading to find out more about self-confidence and why it matters.
Self-confidence isn’t tangible. You can’t touch it and say, “This is confidence.”
It’s something we get a feeling for when we, or others, have it.
Likewise, we can recognize when someone lacks it. Even when they try to attempt to compensate for it, we sense it and feel bad for them.
The good news is that self-confidence is a soft skill, which means you can learn it and apply it to your daily life. It’s not fixed, like your height for example. It’s mainly based on your mindset and the actions you do to follow through.
Bear in mind that confidence is infectious. Even though we can’t see it, we still sense other people’s confidence levels in the way they behave and speak.
When someone is confident, they exude excitement and energy. You’re motivated to work hard and feel that same energy.
The downside is it goes both ways. When one person lacks confidence, it can deflate everyone around them. They just get the sense that there’s no point in trying.
There are different reasons why being confident can improve your life.
Below, you’ll find a few examples of how it can make you a happier, more fulfilled individual.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it gives you an idea as to how much having, or lacking, confidence impacts all areas of your life.
We all need confidence to bring balance and a sense of direction in our lives. Making a conscious decision to develop your confidence will allow you to take positive risks. It gets you out of your comfort zone and puts you on the path to success.
So what?
That’s what life is about. This is what boosts your self-esteem and makes you better at everything you do.
We all make mistakes. We all fail and meet obstacles in our lives.
The key is to understand that failures are a necessary part of progress. Read that again and really take it in.
Often, we feel that when we fail, it’s the end of the journey. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
To fully embrace your failures, you have to think of them as detours. When you’re forced to change lanes or take a detour that doesn’t mean the entire journey is over. It just means you’re taking a different path, but you’ll get there eventually.
Now, why do some people succeed after failing and others don’t? Those who manage to learn from their mistakes. They go over what went wrong and find a way to fix it.
Let’s take a second to think about Thomas Edison and Michael Jordan. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of these two names? Success? Fame? Glory? All of the above?
How about failure? You’re probably saying to yourself, ‘These are two of the most prominent members of society. They haven’t failed.’
Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but they have—many times, in fact. Yet, they’re smart enough to use their failures as stepping stones to aim higher and work harder. Imagine our much our lives would have been impacted if these two men had given up every time they failed!
One of Edison’s quotes about refining the light bulb is, “I haven’t failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Many times, we can be our own worst enemies. We critique every move, every word, and every thought over and over again.
In moderation, it can be a great incentive to do better. Although, this only works if we treat ourselves with the same kindness and empathy, we show others. Sadly, it doesn’t happen very often.
Own up to your bad decision, embrace it, and move on. That’s now part of your DNA; it’s helping shape a stronger, more resilient person.
Imagine it being part of your arsenal or a superpower. Now, you’ve turned your mistake into something that can make you more resilient and less anxious.
Self-confidence is an integral part of who you are. Understanding why it matters can mean the difference being happy and being miserable.
Having that self-assurance can help boost your relationships and career. You’ll also be able to inspire others to become happier, more fulfilled individuals.
So, what are you waiting for? Decide today to work on achieving solid self confidence today and watch it transform your life!
Being confident requires self discipline and many people struggle with this, so if you want to harness the power of self discipline, check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂
Traffic is the lifeblood of any business. Without it, you won’t have any visitors to your blog posts, videos, landing pages, sales pages etc.
In other words, no traffic equals no leads or sales, so it is an essential skill to muster.
You need to consider whether you want to use free or paid traffic, although nothing is really free, because organic traffic is time consuming, whereas paid traffic is instant, but you will need a budget to run enough paid ads to get any viable metrics that you can use.
Basically, before you jump in, you need to do some planning first. Read on to learn how to develop a solid website traffic strategy.
Before you start bringing traffic to your site, you’ll want to determine your overall goals. Specifically, what are your overall goals in terms of revenue and sales?
You need to figure this out first, and then in a moment, you’ll determine how much traffic you need to achieve your goals.
Note: these numbers need to be realistic. While you may want $10 million this year, that’s not realistic if you’re still new to online marketing. You may find a goal like $100,000 (and the traffic required to get to that number) more realistic.
Now that you have your overall goals, your next step is to work backwards to determine traffic and conversion specifics to achieve these goals.
Here are the questions you need to ask yourself:
The point is, don’t just pick a traffic goal out of thin air. Do some realistic calculations to determine how much traffic you need, minimally, to achieve your goals.
It’s a good idea to add at least 20% to your estimates as a cushion, as most people underestimate the traffic they need to obtain to achieve their goals.
Now that you know how much traffic you need, you can start setting specific traffic goals for the year as a whole, for each month, and even for each week.
Be sure your traffic goals include the following characteristics:
For example, “I want more traffic by the end of this month” is not specific nor measurable. Instead, you’d set a goal such as “I’d like to increase traffic by 25% this month.” (Naturally, you’d know what your baseline traffic number is, so that you know exactly how much traffic you need to reach the 25%.)
The next part of your planning is to determine where you’re going to send your traffic, and what you want this traffic to do when they arrive at the destination. Take note that you’ll likely send traffic to a variety of links, and you’ll want the traffic to do different things at each of these destinations.
Common destinations include:
And similar.
Be sure to create a specific plan for how much traffic you want to send to each destination. For example, you might send the majority of your traffic to a variety of relevant lead pages, and then send some traffic directly to sales pages.
As you’re creating ads and content to drive traffic, keep in mind that not all prospects are in the same place in their buyer’s journey. That means you need to create content that appeals to people in these three stages:
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Another factor to take into consideration when developing your traffic strategy is what part of your sales funnel will you be promoting?
There are 3 main parts to a sales funnel, namely top, middle and bottom.
As the prospects move down the funnel, the numbers decrease, but their receptivity increases.
A basic funnel looks like this:
Not everyone is going to follow your sales funnel exactly. For example, some people may start by buying your core offer or even your backend offer.
As such, you need to consider your funnel and the path most people will take as you develop a traffic strategy (and how you’re going to allocate that traffic throughout your funnel).
You don’t necessarily want to send all your traffic to sales pages. In most cases, it’s wiser to send traffic to your lead pages.
That way, you can build your platform – and then use your email list to send your traffic wherever you want.
Before you start creating a traffic strategy, it’s a good idea to determine how much money you have to invest in this strategy. Primarily your investment will be put towards two things:
After you determine how much you can invest per month, then you’ll need to allocate these funds (e.g., X% to paid ads and Y% to outsourcing). The exact allocation depends on your needs and budget.
You don’t need to implement your traffic strategy yourself, as you can outsource all or part of it. For example, you can hire someone to:
And so on. The exact needs you have will depend on the traffic strategy you develop, but you’ll want to start thinking early on about what parts you might be interested in outsourcing.
If you have a limited outsourcing budget (as most of us do), then you’ll need to decide what to outsource. Consider these points:
Next…
There are multiple ways to find freelancers to help you with your traffic-generation activities. These methods include:
PeoplePerHour.com, Upwork.com, Freelancer.com,
Fiverr.com or similar.
Next…
Ultimately, you’re going to have plenty of traffic methods included in your overall traffic strategy. However, a big key to your success is to keep it simple.
Start with ONE traffic method. Study this traffic method so that you understand it. Implement the traffic method and refine your method as needed.
Once you’ve got one traffic method up, running and delivering results for you, then you can add another method. But don’t do this until your website traffic rankings are high enough to justify it.
You can use Google Analytics as a good free website traffic checker, although it can be a little complex due to the mountain of information you get!
So, to put it another way: focus on just one traffic method at a time.
Before advertising, you need to know everything you can about your ideal customer. That way, you can place ads in the right locations, you can select the right keywords and audiences for generating quality traffic, and you can create ads and content that really resonate with the targeted audience.
Here is the type of information to include in your customer avatar:
… And anything else you can dig up that will help you find and connect with your audience.
Here’s how to collect information on your audience:
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Avoid these two common traffic mistakes:
#1, Using non-targeted advertising. Targeting narrower audiences often means you’ll get less traffic from a particular source, but that traffic will be more responsive than a broader audience. This usually results in a better ROI.
#2, Using little-known methods or platforms. For example, if you’re going to place a pay per click ad, then stick with well-known platforms (like Google Ads), as the big platforms combat costly click fraud.
So, you will now be hopefully be generating more traffic to your website, but now you will need to convert that traffic into either leads and/or buyers and we will cover that in another post here.
For your convenience, you can get all the tips mentioned in both posts in a single handy detailed report; just click on the featured resource below, download, read it and take action 🙂
