Product Launch

How to Launch a Membership Site in 2013

by Melvin · Jul 7, 2013

This is a guest post by Karol K.

It’s no secret that various membership based services are getting more and more popular every year. Actually, the whole craze is not that much about the individual successful services, but more about the whole idea of making something membership-based in general.

We all know companies like Netflix and Hulu – both have been using the membership model for years now. But video streamed on demand is not the only niche for memberships. These days, customers can sign up to a range of interesting things. For instance, some of the more intriguing ones:

BagBorroworSteal – handbags on demand (members can rent handbags instead of buying them).
NewBeauty TestTube – sampling new beauty products every month.
BeCouply Dates – one awesome date a month; for couples (now this is what I call true online dating!).

And this is just a small part of what’s available (I don’t even want to get started on all the online games). Plus, there are more and more services sprouting up every week.

The reason is simple. People. Love. Memberships.

Why? Because they’re cheaper than buying something for keeps. Let’s take a look at the handbags on demand service – BagBorroworSteal. It’s no mystery that a designer, quality handbag can cost you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. It simply makes sense to rent it for a fraction of the price and then amaze your friends at a party just as much.

(If you need some more data to believe that memberships are indeed the new black then just take a look at how Netflix is doing (via WolframAlpha) – the section labeled as recent returns indicates a 630%+ growth in the last 5 years.)

The big picture here is this: Membership sites and services are here to stay. They are just a more customer-friendly way of doing business and delivering goods.

Which brings me to…

What if you’re a business owner and you want a piece of this membership pie too?

Surprisingly, launching a membership-based online business is quite simple, and cheap (at least when it comes to the technical stuff).

Now, let me set one thing straight. It is cheap, as long as your product can be delivered in a digital form. If you’re the next handbags-on-demand company then it will require some additional setting up.

For instance, I’m a freelance blogger and writer. The membership program I would launch would be focused on digital training for fellow writers and people who want to take their freelance writing career to another level. In a word, everything would be computer-based, so no additional expenses for me. You can easily imagine similar membership programs in other niches. Some more examples: software, content, online articles, videos, tutorials, training materials, freelancing resources, and other digital products.

Without further delay, here are some of the most cost-effective methods of today:

WordPress + WishList Member

WordPress is a pretty recognizable brand online, but just to make sure that we’re on the same page, let me give you a quick heads up. WordPress is one of the leading website management platforms available, and there’s a good reason for this… It’s free, easy to manage, customizable, and extremely functional. In fact, the very blog you’re reading right now is a WordPress blog.

However, it still gives you kind of a manual way of launching a site. I mean, you have to get a domain, a web host, and then install WordPress by hand (either yourself or with some help).

And what you need to do then, since we’re talking membership sites, is to get WishList Member – a premium WordPress plugin. Single site license is $97, multisite is $297.

This is a solution designed for the more internet and website savvy crowd. The fact that you have the site self-hosted means that you can do a lot more when it comes to customization, but you have to be knowledgeable about the internet technologies in order to do so.

That being said, WishList Member provides just way too many cool membership features to list them all here, so feel free to check the official site.

WordPress + Membership

Another possible combination, which I like to call “free + free” is the pair of WordPress and a different plugin that’s simply called Membership (free).

Essentially, launching a site through WordPress + Membership is very similar to doing it through WordPress + WishList Member, only this time you don’t have to invest money. (Well, okay, you still need to get a domain and a web host, but that’s a whole different thing.)

The plugin Membership offers a nice range of features, but it’s not as rich as the other solution on this short list. In the end, if you just want to get started with membership sites as quickly as possible then this may be the best way for you to test this whole business model and concept.

What’s next?

No matter what method of launching a membership site you choose, you still have a lot of work to do when it comes to the actual business tasks, which I’m sure you’re aware of. After all, software won’t do everything on its own. The businesses mentioned above didn’t become popular purely because of the quality of the software solution they were using.

That being said, the membership model is working quite well for mid to big sized brands online already. Will it work for small businesses and startups? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. But products like WishList Member and Membership surely make it easier to happen.

Personally, I think that the sole fact that a person with a cup of coffee by their side sitting at home can launch a membership site in a matter of minutes is simply amazing. Thank you, 21st century!

What do you think about membership sites and their place among modern business models? Is it just a fad or will it last?

About the author: Karol K. (@carlosinho) is a freelance blogger and writer. Every day, he uses SEO and blogging to grow his brand. He writes and publishes posts about freelance writing (to be exact, about how to get paid to write online). If you want to join the freelancing world yourself then feel free to pay him a visit at Writers in Charge.

Will Mobile Marketing Mean the Death of Email?

by Melvin · Mar 30, 2013

This is a guest post by Simon Philips.

Do you rely solely on email marketing to promote your business? You may want to rethink this idea, as mobile marketing may become the high-tech, modern way for business owners to increase productivity and product awareness. If you still want to use email marketing, there is nothing wrong with that, but you may also want to supplement your email campaign with mobile marketing.

Types of Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing can come in a number of different forms, such as apps, ads featured in browsers, websites and SMS text messaging. The type of marketing you use for your business depends a great deal on the type of business you have and which marketing plan will work best for you.

Mobile vs Email

Even though there is an increasing number of smartphone users, approximately 41% of individuals still use a basic phone. If you rely solely on mobile marketing, you may not reach the majority of those people. On the other hand, if you rely solely on email marketing, you may miss out on those prospective customers who use mobile devices a great deal. For this reason, email and mobile marketing can be very useful in a business. Another fact to keep in mind is that there are approximately 3 billion email users worldwide at the current time, and email is still and will always be a popular way to contact people and notify them of products and services that are available.

When Email Marketing Pays Off

Approximately 83% of shoppers own a cell phone of some type, but the majority of them have stated that mobile advertising does not greatly affect or change how they buy items. If you want to influence consumers in their buying decisions and entice them to buy your products, you may find that email marketing will serve a useful purpose, especially if your products and/or services are sold online.

When Mobile Marketing Can Be Helpful

If your business operates out of a building and is not strictly online, you may find mobile marketing to be useful. About 72% of shoppers use cell phones and smartphones when they are away from home, and out of that number, 63% use them while they are shopping. Mobile marketing could direct more customers your way if you have a mobile-friendly website that features local contact information such as your street address and a phone number. Mobile users in your area who come across your site while they are out may actually decide to pay your business a visit if they are interested in what you have to offer.

So What is the Answer?

When it comes right down to it, there is a place in business for both email and mobile marketing. A smart business owner may want to use a combination of both types of marketing in order to cover all the bases and reach potential customers on every level. Even though mobile marketing is becoming more popular due to additional mobile users, email is here to stay.

Simon Philips is the founder of TouchLogic.co.uk , a mobile marketing company. Simon is a mobile ready website designer and helps small businesses make sure their sites are compatible with mobile devices.

Foretelling the Future? You Don’t Need ESP

by Melvin · Feb 1, 2013

This is a guest post by Amanda Green.

On the surface, it seems like product launches consist of three steps: think up the product, make the product, and launch it to the public. The truth is that there is a lot more work that goes into it than that, which involves anticipating the future, foretelling how a product will be received on the market. It’s not so mystical as say hiring a psychic to predict market fluctuations, although there are companies that actually do this. Realistic foretelling of the future involves thinking and acting precisely. Here are some of the things that you need to do if you want to set your product up to succeed.

Product Research

Here is the sad truth: chances are high that someone has had the same idea you’ve had before. This is why, as soon as you start to take your idea seriously, you need to go into research mode. You don’t just need to find out whether the product already exists. You need to look up patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc. It’s important to do this for every product that even remotely resembles yours. This isn’t just for your protection. It’s to help you figure out how to make your product the absolute best product on the market.

Product Testing

You need to test your product before you start marketing it to the public or attempting to launch it for sales revenue. There are a few phases to this.

1. Prototype testing

Make several different models of the product you want to launch. These are called prototypes. Bring people to, for lack of better word, play with your prototypes and then ask them what they think. Track their responses to each prototype, positive and negative. Use their feedback to inform the next round of product prototypes. Repeat this cycle until you’ve got a single product that is free of bugs, glitches or problems.

2. Product Honing

Once you’ve got a prototype that is functional and without major bugs, create a few variations of this finalized prototype and run through the testing process again. You can help yourself with this process if you bring in groups both from your original prototype testing sessions and brand new eyes.

3. Run the Numbers

Trying to pick a price point can be difficult, particularly with markets being as volatile as they are. You need to do more than just a simple Excel sheet projection to figure out how your product is likely to sell given what you know about your market, the current economy, etc. Profit Stars asset liability management team recommends running a variety of different scenarios to help you get the fullest picture of your product’s projected success…which, unless you’re a mathematician is probably something you’ll want to hire a professional to help you do.

Get It Out There

It’s okay to do a soft launch of a product to get an idea of how it will perform within the real world. Soft launches are a great way to get independent feedback and to test market response. You can also use this time to properly market the product for a “real” and “hard” launch on a future date. This is another area where it is helpful to hire professionals. A marketing firm can help you pick a date and make sure that a good amount of buzz and anticipation is built up for your product so that, when it hard launches, it will bring in a large sum of money. Even better, professional marketers will know how to help you sustain the buzz surrounding your product launch long after the launch has actually taken place.

Unfortunately, as far as we know, nobody is able to accurately predict the future, though as stated before, some companies do test the waters with psychics. The real way to foretell the future is to do your research and testing correctly. If you do, there’s no reason to believe that the product you dream up can’t be launched successfully and profitably.

OnlineProfits.com Reopened its door, for FREE! (wtf?)

by Melvin · Jun 10, 2010

Internet marketing is a very broad topic. In fact, some school are either having an exclusive course on this subject or integrating it to their marketing course. The internet has been around for quite some time so expect it to have more and more impact to our offline ways.

Anyways, if you can remember Daniel Scocco last year launched his own internet marketing course called OnlineProfits. For those of you who are not familiar with it, it’s basically like a university course on the subject of internet marketing. It contains 24 huge modules which would take you from the start up to the advanced modules. Those modules are the main core of the program.

OnlineProfits.com Relaunched, now for FREE

Yes, thats not a typo or whatsoever. I actually had to refresh Daniel’s announcement to make sure I’m reading it right. His main reason is that he wants to have as much people as possible to gain access to his membership program. Whether that’s true or there’s something fishy remains to be seen. 😉

There’s actually a catch though. In order to get lifetime access to the OnlineProfits Membership area, one must sign up either to the hosting plan of his partners for this program. The partners I’m referring to are Hostgator and Hostnine. The deal is that if you sign up to them via Daniel’s affiliate link, you can get the whole membership site for free.

Now I understand that each and everyone of you already have your own hosting but as Daniel said “sparing an extra $10 to get a $325 membership program” is the best deal and if you don’t find it lucrative enough, then the program may not be for you. To be honest, I didn’t mind paying $10 to get this membership site that is this good. Actually if you use the code “onlineprofits” you will get your hosting almost free ($0.01) but then you have to sign under Daniel’s link. So it’s definitely a no-brainer.

OnlineProfit Overview and Comprehensive Review

From a hindsight, Daniel Scocco’s membership program claims to be the most complete internet marketing resource on the web. It contains all strategies that you will need to do to anything you desire, may it be blogging, affiliate marketing, information marketing and etc.

So as I’ve said, the program contains 24 content-packed modules, from the rudimentary history of internet marketing up to advanced tactics like link building and social media.

Each lessons consist of 500-1000 word article specifically targeted to the certain topic. Another good thing for me is that there is this handy “play now” buttons on most lessons. This is also downloadable so just in case you want to listen to the mp3 while on the go or whatever, you can. Btw, my computer resolution wasn’t able to capture all the modules through the print-screen function so to see all the modules and the topics inside them visit onlineprofits site below:

www.onlineprofits.com/

Altogether the lessons are so-packed in meaty content that I don’t have an idea how Daniel was able to produce all of this. It can be a bit overwhelming for you to look at it, but since its presented in modules, its good to take the lessons one at a time.

All Star Faculty Mentors

One unique feature OnlineProfits.com features is their All-star cast faculty. Again I don’t have any idea on how Daniel pulled this people as mentors for his membership program. Some of the lessons inside the program were produced by them depending on their expertise. For instance, Zac Johnson on Affiliate marketing topics while Hamlet on SEO related ones. I never had seen any other membership sites that have experienced people like them on board as mentors

Live Case Studies & Several Add ons

What’s unique with OnlineProfits.com recently is the addition of live case studies. This case study is produced by Daniel himself so this is one exciting way to really understand how the lessons should be applied. It contains exactly the steps as well as the monthly stats that Daniel would be providing as well.

Like any other program, this does also have several addons to inflate the value more. One of which is the tools section. If you’re not new with internet marketing then most of the tools here are probably not new to you but still there are some nice ones like domain name ideas generator and stuffs like that.

One of my favorite place aside from the lessons in there is the Resources Page. In that page one can find all the resource free exclusively for OnlineProfits students. It contains useful stuffs like list of free and paid web directories, list of dofollow blogs, list of dofollow social media networks and etc. I also like the free premium wordpress themes that are given away. These aren’t just your cookie-cutter free template. In fact, the premium ones you see on WooThemes and iThemes are given away here for free w/c is pretty amazing.

Lastly are the library and social clubs. The library is just basically a compilation of all useful (or useless) articles on any niche. It also comes with a MRR rights so just in case you want to resell them, then you can totally do it. The social clubs on the other hand is just simply a club for promotion. Just like a community for retweeting articles, digging, sending it to stumbleupon and etc.

How to Avail the FREE access

The entire program costs $392 before and I’m sure those who joined the program before will be ‘not-so happy’ with the fact that its offered for free now.

Again you have to sign up to Daniel’s partners which are HostGator and HostNine and you have to do under his affiliate link. After signing up all you have to do is email him you’re invoice number and in less than 5 minutes you can immediately access the program.

Verdict & am I recommending it?

Internet Marketing is a big part of online business. Actually for some people, it’s all what online business is all about. I was fortunate enough that I had experience and that I started young. But even with that, I still took the course.

I know most of you here are bloggers and there’s a good chance that since you’re reading my blog, you’re serious with what you’re doing. You hear me preach a lot that blogging alone is not enough, if you don’t have enough knowledge on internet marketing and you’re not a competent marketer, chance is you’ll not succeed.

I rarely promote info products and membership sites here in my blog and even though I consume a lot over the past few years, I made a point that I wouldn’t promote it here if it’s not possible for my readers to avail it or study it. With OnlineProfits, not only you can get it for free. But it also gives you a good and organized lessons on how things work and why they work. I’m sure most of us here learned internet marketing through experience and with this program, it only aims to sharpen up those previous learnings and organize them in such a strategic manner that we can use them immediately.

Be a part now of the highly-touted OnlineProfits membership program for FREE and start learning internet marketing from people who actually do it and not just teach it. Let me know!

Most Blog Fail at This, Marketing!

by Melvin · Feb 7, 2010

Ever wonder why 90% of the blogs just can’t get off the ground? Simple, they suck at marketing!

Because of the nature of blogging and what it really is, a lot of people doing blogging just couldn’t really make it. Blogging is defined originally as a hobby, something that’s like a personal diary where you can enjoy doing it without needing to spend that much of time. So up until now this is the stumbling block that most newbie bloggers and even intermediate ones face.

Almost always, the case is that bloggers don’t want to learn marketing at all. Selling sucks isn’t it? And besides you never dreamed to be a sales person throwing up stupid sales pitches to your audience. That being said, it‘s safe to conclude that bloggers don‘t think marketing is essential for the success of their blogs.

If you‘ve been reading this blog for quite some time, you always hear me say that blogging is internet marketing. That is true and your success depends on how competent you are with marketing. Some people who want to learn it even pay for those expensive internet marketing courses and programs while others simply just try to learn it themselves.

In blogging, however you really don’t need to know each and every stuff about internet marketing, you only need a few of them to get started. Coupled with building relationships, good marketing can really skyrocket your blog/brand/profile w/c would get you more traffic and obviously the end result is income.

Blog Marketing for Fame

So for the last 2 and half months or so, I took some time in creating this guide w/c would help an average blogger grow their blog on a quick rate. Nope this isn’t a make money eBook or a crappy PLR product. This is a simple info product w/c is targeted to bloggers who like to explode their blog traffic, get their brand known and simply just slay it in the blogosphere. Whether you’re a newbie blogger or an intermediate one, I would like to hope that this product is one that can be very valuable to you. It contains tips on how you can grow your blog quickly in less than one month (or whatever pace you want to). And by saying growing your blog, it’s not just about increase daily hits or huge unique, it’s about building a real brand with real community that will be with you for the long haul.

Edit: This book has been rebranded and updated as ‘Blog Marketing Guide‘

Subscribe now & Get Immediate Access

After signing-up to my blog’s newsletter you will immediately be able to download your copy of the Blog Marketing for Fame eBook. On top of that you’ll also receive my exclusive tips and tricks to market your blog (stuff that is not published anywhere else), insider’s information about my upcoming projects and so on. The newsletter is totally free and if you think the content you’re receiving is crap, you can cancel anytime.

You can subscribe to the newsletter by going here.

I Am Going To Steal Your Ebook!

by Melvin · Oct 24, 2009

Disclaimer: This is not a post teaching you to do this evil thing. I, myself HAVE NEVER EVER stolen any eBook. I don’t need to, I make enough money to live. Just look at this post as a guide to have a basic understanding on how this process works and how you can protect yourself when you do selling eBooks.

Internet Marketing in whatever niche you are, involves a lot of selling. And 90% of the products is what we known as info products or eBooks. But do you know that most of the eBooks that these people are selling are usually just ripped off for free? Or do you know that a lot of people have a ton of good quality eBooks they don’t even pay for? Well I’m sure you, as a reader of this blog are selling ebooks, or have plans of doing it, so this post can be a good read for you.

So most people do sell ebook via Clickbank. In selling, you are required to do two pages. First is the salespage itself, where you would pitch your offer and the second is the thank you page, a page where a paying customer would be redirected once they have made the payment. The problem that I see most of the time is that any user can easily access the thank you page!

One good example is the sales page Problogging BluePrint. So the main page is the index page while the download page is just located in /thanks.html part. Fortunately the link is broken (and its unfortunate for paying customers!). The surprising thing is that most salespage function that way! They have their download page accessible almost by anyone! I mean the usual locations are the ff:

/thanks.html
/thanks.php
/download
/download.html
several variations

That’s why Im not surprised that a lot of info products just leak like crazy. Another bone head mistake most marketers do is make use of robots.txt. Oh my god! I mean yes you can tell the search engine to hide your download page but have you forgotten humans can read it? So if you guys want to steal someone’s ebook all you have to do is try to go /robots.txt and see the page that they disallow, LOLS… Another problem is the noticeable increase of PDF search engines. It’s surprising that a lot of popular eBook shows up on sites like pdfsearchengine. So altogether, it’s an uphill battle to combat eBook fraud and many people so far fail to do it!

How Do I Protect My Ebook?

Well this post is not really a guide on info product protection but since we’re here Im going to give you some brief explanation of what I know. If you’re a clickbank merchant, make sure to have a third party plugin to protect your download page. One that I came across through is DlGuard. Since I have never done any clickbank thing I would suggest you to do your own research as to what the reliable third party plugins are.

If you’re just selling a product yourself, using e-junkie is the smartest thing. E-Junkie is one of the leaders in terms of handling info product automation, payment and delivering the product itself. So far I haven’t heard any issues about using it and even the top marketers like Darren Rowse is using it. $10 per month is a reasonable price for the protection that it gives.

Lastly, always do a simple Google check for your eBook to see if some asshole is sharing it. Use the query “title of your ebook” filetype:PDF, and then scan the search results THOROUGHLY. It’s because sometimes you protect your download page a lot that you forget the file itself. Again some morons do buy it only to share it to other people while other people accidentally (or not) stores it on their server only to leak when someone does a search. Just consider doing this like a maintenance thing.

It can also be a good option to use the PDF search engines we mentioned earlier to your advantage. Search for your eBook, then if you find it, contact the site owner and tell him to remove it (or send him a DMCA notice). Obviously when someone shares it, he knows it’s illegal so he’d just more likely laugh at you when you contact him. The best thing to do is send the notice to their hosting provider by doing a quick whois on the site that distributes your copy illegally.

Conclusion:

Selling eBooks is a big and still growing industry and unfortunately not a lot of people are techy enough to protect the hardwork they exerted. Protecting your own info product can be really hard but there are ways. Im not saying people are evil but put yourself in their situation. You are craving for some expensive info product and you see a flaw that would make it free for you, are you not going to download it? The obvious answer is the answer for 98% of us!

I don’t know about you but if you’re just letting your product leak like waterpipes, then I think your product and you deserves to be ripped off for free. After all security is part of any business model both online and offline that should never be neglected. I would really love to have your opinion about it. Or maybe you can share your own tips that you implement yourself!

MMO Blog Monetizer Launch

by Melvin · Jun 3, 2009

Ey guys nice to be back hear. 😀

You’re probably wondering where the hell have I been because of the lack of post and activity online. The truth is I always am online working with stuffs that I have to. And one of them is the launch of the MMO Blog Monetizer (click here for the salespage ).

My newest info product is basically about monetizing make money online blogs. Although it doesn’t really stop there. The ebook also covers monetization of blogs related to internet marketing, blogging, niche marketing, webmaster and any type of blogs that relate to making money online in general. The book costs $14 and is an 18-page ebook. I didn’t use big and wide fonts so don’t worry as what you’re getting there is pure meat (with marshmallows). If you’re interested in maximizing your income potential from your blog then read on.

This product is intended for:

Bloggers who feel they’re not monetizing their blog to its full potential.
Bloggers who have blogs preferably that exist for over 6 months.
Bloggers who feel they’re blog is on the category listed above.
Bloggers who have had difficulties getting advertisers for their blog

And it’s not for:

Douchebags!
Serial refunder/fraudulent buyers
Newbies just starting their blog.
Bloggers who own a blog that have little to no traffic
It doesn’t cover setting up a blog (walkthrough)
Complete Newbie on Blogging

So to be honest I’m really confident with this own product of mine (w/c happened to be my first one). I actually launched a beta launch last thursday (via twitter and some social sites) and already managed to make 4 sales w/good feedbacks. So since this is my personal blog, I wouldn’t be retarded to do hard-selling as most readers here are my loyal readers. If you feel it’s not helpful, then don’t buy it. If you already bought it then let me know your opinion. If you are interested in buying then don’t go to my sales page, instead click this link and enter the discount coupon “goorlandomagic” to get a $4 off discount to the product (I know the Magic lost again). Questions, inquiries and criticisms are very much entertained in the comments section.