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

My recent interview with content creator and online marketer Rob Booker got me thinking about the first email we send to subscribers for our various niche content sites.

One of the things Rob said was that the trick to keeping subscribers on your email list, even while you are pitching something, is to set the stage early and simply tell them to expect it.

It’s a simple idea. Manage your subscriber’s expectation right up front and when the sale pitch comes, they won’t be surprised. Even with this website, which focuses on on how to make money online with content, I just assumed that our subscribers knew we would pitch them occasionally. This site is about making money, right? So isn’t it obvious that we’re making money ourselves? No, it isn’t.

Even though we haven’t pitched much to Membercon list yet, when we did about a month ago, we still got replies saying something to the effect of, “Hey I thought you were giving us free info – what the heck?” I take full responsibility for that – we never said straight up that we would be occasionally asking subscribers to buy something.

So, to make sure we are managing expectations of our subscribers right up front, this morning we changed the first email to what you see below. Using straight talk and a bit of humor, we’ll be doing this with all of our sites going forward.

It’s a bit like how Zappos.com offers new employees $2,000 to quit after the training program. They end up with committed employees who understand what they are getting into.

Let me know what you think. Does this do the trick? How are you managing the expectations of your list subscribers?

Well howdy doody! You found our secret mailing list. Welcome to the
potluck and party! The secret handshake lesson comes later…

Glad you decided to leave that boring “internet marketing guru”
party at that website down the street. Their stories are getting
pretty old, don’t you agree?

Leave your car keys in the bowl next to the door, because you’re
about to experience the intoxicating sounds, tastes and smells
of real online success.

Let’s get something straight right away. Can you handle the truth?

Here it is: we’re going to be emailing you ideas and tricks we use
but never publish on our blog. And we’ll explain it in a step-by-step
way that you’ll be able to understand and use them on your own website
right away to make some coin (or euros, pounds, dollars, pesos, etc.).

That’s what makes our list so valuable to subscribers.

But we’re also going to introduce you to products and services we
think are top notch and worthy of your attention and dollars – things we’ve
bought ourselves.

In other words, we’re going to ask you to buy stuff too.

So if capitalism, grandma’s apple pie, or marketing offends you,
you’ll want to find that unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email
and put yourself out of your misery right now. Go ahead, we’ll wait….

Still here? Wonderful! You’re in for a real treat. Stay tuned for the
next email and get ready to finally make some real money online by
selling content.

You can call or email us anytime.

All the best,

Tim and Emile (brothers and all-around good guys)

——————————-
Tim Bourquin | Emile Bourquin
MemberCon | Interview Income

30251 Golden Lantern Suite E-358
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677-5993

phone: 1-949-829-3049
email: tim@membercon.com
——————————-

Each of our sites will have a similar email so let them know that while we are going to be sending them great information, we’ll also be asking them to buy things we trust and feel are worthwhile.

I’ve been in this game long enough to know that when I sign up for an email list, I’ll be pitched occasionally. But it’s not obvious to everyone, so I want to make sure we make it obvious!

email marketing, selling content online internet marketing, online marketing

Rob Booker is a content superhero. I recently spoke with Rob, a friend of mine in the trading business, who creates content and sells it online in that industry. In this two-part interview, we discuss first how he balances giving away free content vs. selling his classes and information, and how he creates urgency and excitement about upcoming classes.

In part two we talk about how he published an E-book for the Amazon Kindle platform.

But first, our discussion about how he markets his content.

4 ways to watch/listen/read:

1) Listen to the audio here (click on the triangle play button):

2) Download the mp3 file here
3) Read the transcript (below the video)
4) Watch the video:

Related Links:

- Rob’s website

Transcript:

Tim Bourquin: All right everybody, hello and welcome to MemberCon. Another interview here today, I’m going to speak with Rob Booker. And actually, I’ve spoken with Rob at our other membership site over at Traders Interviews, but he’s also an entrepreneur outside of all the things he does in the trading realm. And so, I wanted to talk to him specifically about one thing today and that was the way he sells content. He just told me about a book that he’s selling on Amazon for the Kindle called, “Forex Strategy 10: Low Risk/High Return Currency Trading”. We’re not going to talk about that obviously, that part of it, but just about selling the content and his ideas for getting the word out there. So, Rob thanks for joining me here.

Rob Booker: It’s good to be here Tim.

Tim Bourquin: So, Rob lives nearby me now and is here in the office which is cool, I don’t have to do the interview over the phone. So, you’ve always had this kind of thing in the middle where you are a trader and you do all that and you’ve got your following there, but you’re an online entrepreneur too and you like to sell content, to put stuff out there. Most guys aren’t into it as much you. You read our MemberCon blog.

Rob Booker: Right. Right.

Tim Bourquin: So, how did that happen? How do you — kind of are in the middle there?

Rob Booker: Well, I’ve gone from trading for myself to being a CTA, which is a Commodities Trading Advisor, so I manage for families and friends and I’m licensed by the National Futures Association. As you know, trading and the world of the markets can be a really lonely endeavor especially early on when you feel like you don’t know very much. So, like some other people, including you and others, I started writing a blog maybe even before the term had been popularized, which turned into a regular column which turned into a newsletter service which turned into a membership site which turned into a huge ball and chain around my neck — no just kidding.

Tim Bourquin: Having to always update it?

Rob Booker: Yeah. And it became an excellent way for me to repeat the concepts that I believe in with respect to trading. It helped solidify those beliefs. It’s so you know everything that I gave out in the subscription site, I felt like I was getting back in spades and it just sort of took on a life of its own. So, it’s been about six years now that I’ve run the membership site, publishing eBooks, content, actual published books, and selling subscriptions right on the website to members that have been around for years and years.

Tim Bourquin: Have you found a good balance between offering the free blog content, offering free eBooks like I saw on your site that you offer and transition those people over to actually become buyers or something?

Read more…

creating content, membership pricing, selling content online free content vs. paid content, how long should a free trial be?, internet marketing, online marketing

Nathan Hangen is a blogger and digital content creator who is finishing his commitment to the military next month and taking the plunge into full-time online content sales. I came across his site after seeing a comment he made on another blog. What interested me most was what I saw him doing on his site. He was offering a paid E-book but also offering it as a free download.

I was curious as to what his results where and why he decided to offer a free version alongside the paid version. In this interview, he answers that question and many others. I ask him about his goals for selling paid content, his past experiences in doing so, and what he thinks about “launch fever” that seems to be overtaking the internet marketing world.

4 ways to watch/listen/read:

1) Listen to the audio here (click on the triangle play button):

2) Download the mp3 file here
3) Read the transcript (below the video)
4) Watch the video:

Related Links:

- Nathan’s website
- Nathan’s site designer – Kimb Jones
- Pat Flynn – Smart Passive Income
- David Risley
- Chris Guillebeau

Transcript:

Tim Bourquin: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to my interview here at MemberCon.com. We’re going to be speaking with Nathan Hangen. And I got he got my attention because I saw his comment on somebody else’s blog. So I went over to his site and took a look at what he was doing, and he is doing a lot of the things that we talk about here at MemberCon. But one of the things that was really interesting to me is that he sells an eBook, but alongside it, he’s got a free version that anybody can download that is set up a little bit differently. We’re going to talk to him about that today and his whole business too. So Nathan, thanks for joining me on the phone today.

Nathan Hangen: No problem. I’m happy to be here.

Tim Bourquin: I’m going to jump right into this and then we’ll get a little background on it in a minute, but you’ve got an ebook that you sell on your website that you’ve got a paid one that people can pay for, but then you’ve got pretty much the same content right below with a link for a free download. Can you talk about how you made that decision to do both of those?

Nathan Hangen: Sure, absolutely. To be honest, I talk a lot about experimenting on my blog and that’s what this was. It’s really just an experiment. Number one, it’s not original content. It’s a combination of old posts mixed with some new thoughts. And so I didn’t feel right. I wasn’t sure how I felt to be honest about pricing, and I couldn’t come up with or have a price that I was happy with.

So, at the same time, I also wanted to test the responsiveness of my audience, see who was there for free stuff, see who was there for me and who might be willing to pay more. And so what I did was I basically created this as a free product. No opt-in required, you know. If you want to come and get it, I paid money, 150 bucks for the design, and I said “Come and get it if you want it.” But if I also offered more with the premium version. You can get access to my Members Area. You can talk to me and I have some premium podcast there and just a bunch of stuff, not a ton but enough. And so I said you can come and get that. You can get the premium version for 10 bucks and so I wanted to see how many people would opt for the premium versus the free, and I thought that would give me a good test for how responsive my audience was to what I was doing.

Tim Bourquin: And what did you find out? Did people pay for it?

Nathan Hangen: Yeah. To be honest, I didn’t expect a lot and so I only think I got a lot in the beginning primarily because I didn’t really pitch it. And if you look at my blog even now, it’s kind of hard to find it. And it’s almost intentional. I didn’t want it to be like a launch or anything. But people are paying for it. I think right now, we’re at about nothing huge. I think I’ve got 30 people that have paid for it and they’re in my Members Area. I just raised the price to kind of I like the people that are there and I’d be happy if we didn’t have any more. So a lot of people took the free option and that’s okay.

Tim Bourquin: You’re in the military. You’re going to be out in a month. You’re going to try and do your website full-time. Thanks for your service by the way. I appreciate that. So, where do you make the majority of your revenue then with your blog that you intend to do this full-time after?

Read more…

creating content, membership pricing, selling content online internet marketing, Kimb Jones, Nathan Hangen, Pat Flynn

When I interviewed Paul Colligan a while back, I asked him of all the tools out there to sell online content, what was working best? Without hesitation, he said EMAIL.

I was a bit shocked. Old-fashioned, “been around forever”, everyone-knows-how-to-use-it email? I thought surely RSS, Facebook, Twitter or some other form of social networking had taken over. After all, that’s all anyone talks about it seems. Paul knows what he’s talking about, but I’m one of those types that has to see it for myself to believe it.

So over the past few months Emile and I have been conducting our own experiments to see what converts to sales best.

Paul was right. As in BIG TIME right.

It’s convinced us that building our email list is the single-most important use of our resources. We do spend a lot of time on our website, but all of that time lately has been spent figuring out how to make our website build our email list faster.

If you’re selling anything online or simply want attention for something you are doing online, trust me on this. Build your email list and mail to it at least every other day.

You’ll get the response you are looking for.

We’re just starting to work on a way to build in daily urgency to buy with our email list. More on that later…

building your list, email marketing building your email list, email marketing, internet marketing, Paul Colligan