Tips and Tricks for Making Money with Interviews

One of the blogs I have started following recently is StartupFreedom.com, written by Sean Gallagher. Sean was a DJ who realized there was a market for selling information on how to become a successful DJ.

I enjoy reading his blog because like Emile and I, he doesn’t come from the “make money online” crowd. He has real experience selling content to a niche target market and talks about his success on the Startup Freedom blog. He also does interviews with other online entrepreneurs. Like us, he believes that interviews make great content.

A funny thing happened. I contacted him about doing an interview and he agreed – but we each thought we were interviewing the other. So when the agreed time came for the interview and we realized we each thought we were taking the lead, we just decided to have a conversation about how we both got started and things we were doing to sell memberships and content.

Below is the video. Some of this I’ve already talked about here on Membercon, but there are some nuggets in there that I haven’t mentioned before. Plus Sean has some great advice for membership site owners as well.

Note: One thing I realize – I move my big grape head around a lot during interviews. I need to STOP! So, if you can get past my ugly mug being front and center the whole time, I think you’ll get some good info from our talk.

Part 1:

Part 2:

creating content, membership site software internet marketing

One of the things I like about the aMember membership site software is that it allows us to see when someone has completed the first step of becoming a member or purchasing an information product, but doesn’t complete the entire transaction.

For whatever reason, when a prospective member abandons the process, they stop short of completing the second page and do not put in their credit card or PayPal payment information.

Online stores have worked this problem for many years, figuring out ways to minimize abandoned shopping carts. Our membership sign up forms are the same thing, and we too constantly think about how we can make the process as dead simple as possible.

The first page of our membership form has 6 fields to complete, all required, including first name and last name. Right off the bat some usability experts in internet marketing say that’s a problem. They would argue that you should have one single item on that first step – an email address field. By making that first step just an email, if your prospect abandons the form at anytime after that first page, you can contact them and ask if they need further information or had any problems.

Currently, we can tell if someone stops after the first page, but not if they start completing the first page and stop right there. The experts are absolutely right on this point, however we are somewhat forced to live within the capabilities of aMember. At this time, if someone abandons the process at any time on the first page, I have no way of knowing – and that bothers me – a lot. That’s on our list to work on…

Here is the form as it currently presents:

The first thing we do to minimize abandoned membership forms is to put our phone number front and center at the top. It is vitally important to me that if someone has any trouble or second thoughts at this point that they can pick up the phone and talk to me immediately (assuming it’s not 2:00 am of course.) Putting an email address there is a distant second choice because most people know email isn’t instantaneous. People won’t bother emailing and simply click away.

If someone completes the first page but doesn’t complete the second page, their account is still created in the system, but shows that payment has not been made.

Here is the second page of the form:

Each day, sometimes multiple times per day, I login to our membership system and see how many accounts were created but were abandoned before payment was made. The process can be abandoned by the prospective member for millions of reasons. Anything from, “I thought this was a free service” to credit card declines. On the credit card decline side, that’s a bit easier to tell. After I check incomplete transactions in aMember, I head over to our Authorize.net account to see if that same person’s credit card was declined. Unfortunately I don’t have the same ability in PayPal.

No matter what the reason may be for not completing the transaction, every prospective member who abandons the process gets a personal email from me. aMember also does this automatically 24 hours after the process was abandoned, which is nice if I’m out of touch, but I like to send a more personal email as well.

It’s simple and to the point:

Dear Joe,

I saw that you had started the process of getting a Pass to TraderInterviews.com but didn’t get a chance to finish it.

Hopefully our site didn’t give you trouble but if it did, please let me know and I’d be happy to process your membership manually.

If there was some other information you needed or wanted to know before getting the Pass, feel free to call or email me directly. I answer my own phone all day.

All the best,

Tim

—– —– —– —– —– —–
Tim Bourquin, Co-Founder, TraderInterviews.com
27285 Las Ramblas Ste 235 | Mission Viejo, CA 92691
(office): 1.949.348.2590 x. 15 | (fax): 1.949.348.2851
email: tim@ideasfordownload.com
—– —– —– —– —– —–

I’ve tried different variations of this email – some more salesy and “pitch-like” than others. But I found a simple, no pressure email works best to get a response.

About 30% of the people who get the email respond. I’m surprised a bit, I guess, that more people don’t respond, but everyone has their own reason and perhaps they just decided it wasn’t for them and don’t want to have the conversation. Of those that do reply, about 10% actually then join after all. I wish it was more, but it’s still enough to make the extra effort to reach out to them.

If you have ways you minimize membership form abandonment, I’d love to hear about them.

membership site software, subscription pricing membership sign up form

I’m surprised actually that the socialists haven’t been more vocal in the comments yet, but someone did say I was an “arrogant ass” so I judge that as a success!

Andrew also put my interview behind the membership wall, which makes total sense since I egged him on to do so and because we were talking about membership sites.

But here are a few clips of the interview if you haven’t seen them yet. Was I over the top? Perhaps. But in the moment, I wanted to get the point across strongly that content creators deserve to be paid for their work and that it’s their choice – not the Internet’s choice – of whether to take that route or not.

email marketing, membership site software, starting a membership site Andrew Warner, membership interview, Mixergy

One of the first things Emile and I did when we decided to start a membership website was evaluate the various choices in membership site software. I’m fortunate that I have a brother and business partner who is a software engineer. I knew that ultimately whatever software package we decided to go with, Emile would be able to customize it to our needs and preferences.

No software package does everything you want it to do right off the shelf. But we wanted to find one that came close so that we could get up and running quickly. The good news is that as membership sites have grown and become more popular, there are more choices and features available. Most of the membership site software available for internet businesses are relatively turnkey. If you don’t need it to look a certain way or handle membership chores a specific way, you can get any of these up and running quickly.

If you’re not lucky enough to have a software engineer brother, you can always ask the company selling the software to install or customize it for you (usually at an additional fee – but you can always ask to have it installation included). The sellers usually have forums you can access and ask for help as well. Otherwise, RentACoder.com, ODesk.com or ELance.com are good resources to find software installation help. Just be very specific about what you need on those freelance sites.

We’ll update this post as needed so if I’ve missed a software package you think should be included, let me know in the comments. Also, let me know your experiences with these software packages in the comments. These are in alphabetical order and the ones at the top shouldn’t be construed to be any better than the ones below. Everyone has different needs for your specific membership site so be sure to do your own comprehensive reviews before buying.

For purposes of this article, we’ve listed just those membership software packages specifically tailored for online membership sites that offer paid premium content to their members (articles, videos, podcasts, webinars, message boards, etc.).

aMember
This is the package we use for our membership site at TraderInterviews.com. One of the more popular packages out there, it’s got a lot of plug-ins and since lots of membership sites use it, there is a lot of help available for installation and customization. It runs on your server or web hosting account. If you have a website already built and need just the membership functionality installed within your existing design, this is a great choice.
Price: $179.95 – $199.95
Pros: It works very nicely with WordPress so if you are using that particular blogging software to run your site, it’s a great choice. It also has nice integration with a ton of payment systems including the majors like PayPal and Authorize.net. Lots of plugins and installation/customization help available.
Cons: Limited customization available with regard to the emails that get sent to membership site owner and member. (Specifically, we wish it would send a different email to us when a new member signs up as opposed to a member renewal – as of now they look identical.)

Easy Member Pro
This membership site software solution is a favorite of the “long sales page internet marketing” websites. It puts a lot of emphasis on the affiliate functionality because information product marketers rely heavily on services like ClickBank and other affiliate programs to sell their memberships. If you know that the long sales page is the way you want to go, where most of your site that is available to the public is sales material to sell the membership, this is a good choice. It runs on your own server or website hosting account. They’ve got some great videos that explain how to use your admin control panel which are very helpful. Also, if you don’t plan on having your own merchant account, it has tight integration with ClickBank.com to handle your payments
Price: $97.00
Pros: Relatively simple to use interface to create pages. Inexpensive.
Cons: Limited design customization. No integration with Authorize.net or your own merchant account.

ExtremeMember.com
I found this hosted membership software from a blog post from one of its customers. They have a professional-looking site, which is important when the service will be providing you templates for your own membership site! They are based in Australia so phone support has limited working hours in the USA, but they continue to add features to the software. I had a tough time finding anything it wasn’t capable of doing since they recently added Authorize.net support (to use your own merchant account). It looks like this software would be a great choice for someone who doesn’t want to host their own software and needs most everything built-in to a monthly service fee.
Price: $19.00 – $99.00 per month (depending on number of members and size of site)
Pros: Nice designs. Tight integration with WordPress. Affiliate management built in.
Cons: Monthly fee so no self-hosted option (could be a positive for some people!)

Top Pick! MagicMembers.com
This is the WordPress membership plugin we use for InterviewIncome.com and we are very happy with it. The big plus for us was integration with our Authorize.net merchant account. This plugin allows us to take PayPal and use our merchant account without having to purchase yet another plugin like 1ShoppingCart.com. It is easy to install and use with WordPress and has nice Aweber integration. It allows for multiple membership levels, which we use to offer multiple membership products. It also allows you to charge for individual blog posts which is a nice feature. Excellent “teaser” functionality that allows you to easily set how much member content you show to non-members. And finally, they have a “content drip” feature which allows you to sequentially deliver content as a course automatically. Good, responsive support.
Price: $97.00 (one-time fee)
Pros: Easy integration for existing or new WordPress blogs.
Cons: Affiliate functionality is separate plugin at additional cost

MemberGate
This is also a popular membership site software package. I personally know a few friends who use this particular package and they are very happy with it. It seems to be the most “turnkey” of the membership site software choices because they install and test the functionality for you. MemberGate also goes a step further and provides a full content management system that enables you to add pages of content easily. In essence, the MemberGate software IS your website because it includes everything you need. Because of this, you’ll notice that many MemberGate sites look similar to each other, but they do offer customization of the look and feel.
Price: $3,995 to $29,995
Pros: Turnkey solution that provides everything you need to get your website up and running including content management. Phone support (which is a big plus if you’ve ever waited days for support via an email form). Industrial strength for large membership sites.
Cons: Pricey and similar look/feel to other MemberGate sites.

MembershipEase.com
A self-hosted membership solution, this software has screens that allow you to point it to the folders that contain your premium content. At $27 we’re a bit leery about using it for anything but the most basic of password protection features. It’s claim of being “100% hacker-proof” is also suspect (nothing ever is 100% hacker proof).
Price: $27
Pros: Inexpensive
Cons: Web-based overseas support only. No customization.

Memberstar
This is a hosted solution, meaning everything runs on their servers and therefore includes a monthly fee. One benefit is that (presumably) backups are handled on their end, alleviating the worry that your own server will crash and take all your membership data with it. I had a tough time finding the link to the actual features of the software since most of the site spends time selling the benefits of having a membership site business rather than talking about what the service offers.
Price: $59 for the first month, $129 per month thereafter
Pros: Hosted solution means no installation headaches
Cons: Very limited customization, website has feel of one-person company (not necessarily a bad thing but I would imagine support response is at the mercy of the one person owner)

WishList Member
This membership site software is actually a plugin for WordPress software. Billed as the “fastest way to turn a WordPress blog into a membership site. Because WordPress is so popular, there are lots of message boards and freelancers out there to help you install all kinds of plugins, including this one. If you’re comfortable using the WordPress admin area and you need simple membership functionality without more advanced member tools, this is a good choice.
Price: $97
Pros: Good integration with AWeber.com, the popular email marketing tool
Cons: No merchant account integration. You’ll need to use PayPal, Google checkout or other 3rd party payment processor, or purchase a 1ShoppingCart account to use your own merchant account with Authorize.net

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