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Chapter 5 Lining up Everything

Always make sure that you have plenty of help lined up. Be sure that hosting and payment process are lined up and tested. They form the backbone of your actual product launch. You should make sure that you have all of this done in advance so that you have ample time to tweak something if you see that it needs it. All tests should be performed well in advance.

The importance of having your support desk in place at this point really cannot be underscored enough. There is really no realistic way that you can expect to handle all of the marketing as well as the support. You will only make yourself crazy if you attempt to do so. You need to make sure that you are free to get into contact with your affiliates and JV partners not have to be concerned with support problems that may pop up.

Developing Incentives

One of the more important things that you want to make sure happens when you actually go live with your launch is that people take action right away. The way to make sure of this is to build in some incentives and bonuses. One of the most traditional ways to do that is to say okay, the first ten people who respond will get this and the first fifty people who respond will get something else, etc, etc. This probably sounds like it might be a really good idea, but the problem that lies in this approach is that once all of the bonuses are gone, you are going to see your sales drop.

One thing that you can do is to put a time limit on every single thing that you do. For example, you might put ten days on one thing and seven days on something else. This allows people to know that they have a very specific amount of time in which to respond and then it's over and gone. That's it. The key to making this work is that you can't make any extensions because if you do then people will know that they really do not have to stick to that timeframe. Ultimately, you have to give customers a reason to buy your product right now not at some vague point in the future.

If you leave it open-ended that is exactly what is going to happen. Consider it for a moment. You very well might be able to make more money eventually if you leave it indefinitely open-ended, but do you really want to have to wait to have the money slowly trickling in? If you put a definite time frame on it you will have a much better chance of increasing the amount of money that flows in through your site during those first few crucial days. Bonuses are another excellent way to establish value and demonstrate to people that they must act right away.

Taking the time to make sure that you have everything lined up and planned well in advance of your launch is perhaps one of the most crucial things that you can do to assure the success of your website. In the end it really does not matter what kind of products you have to offer, if you do not heed the importance of this step. You could easily have very high quality products and you could have taken the time to build up interest in your products and it would all be nothing if you have not worked on being sure that everything is appropriately set up, tested and planned for.

Chapter 6 The Post Launch

Once you have the launch set and up, the next thing that you need to begin focusing on is what you do after the post-launch. There is a lot of planning that goes into the launch phase and it is somewhat natural to think that once you have that out of the way you can simply sit back, relax and take a deep breath, but the truth of the matter is that even after you have the launch taken care of, you still have some work left that you need to take care of.

You must continue to look forward and make sure you are poised to capitalize on the success you have achieved with your site. Ask yourself what is going to happen next. It can be awfully tempting to want to just move right on to the next project, but it can be helpful in many ways to take time to sit back and somewhat take stock of what has happened with this project and see where there may have possibly been problems so that you can work on correcting them to avoid those problems in the future.

Customer Service and Support

This is also the time when you need to make sure that you are continuing to focus on support issues. Remember that you are now dealing with your customers, not prospects. You must do all that you can to take care of them and do whatever you can to help them.

Refunds

During about the first month after your launch you will need to focus on fixing any problems that may come up and answering any support questions. This is where having a support and tech team can really come in handy. Keep in mind that you should expect that you will most likely have some refunds that will come in. This can happen even on the higher end items. It is simply a part of common business practices. Every business has refunds, so you should expect your share.

Do not allow yourself to get down about refunds. You can easily make sure that you are prepared for this type of thing by figuring between 5% and 10% for a refund rate. If at all possible, try to have someone you can dedicate to simply handle any refund issues for you. There is no point in your having to waste any valuable time handling these issues when there are other people that you can delegate these tasks to so that your time is freed up for moving other things forward.

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Chapter 4 Copywriting Recap

Because so few businesspeople have actually mastered the art of sales copywriting, any business owner who does so enjoys a distinct advantage over their competition. Doing so is not so difficult as one might assume though it does require diligence, practice and follow through.

Good sales copywriting must also flow from the assumption that no reader is interested in hearing a single word about the product. Assume negativity on the part of the audience and work from a position of someone who needs to make a case convincing enough to overcome this negativity. One need not change the entirely negative attitude of the reader, only get them into the state where buying seems to hold the promise of increasing their happiness.

Sales copywriting is essentially the same as is any other form of persuasive writing. It entails grabbing the reader's attention, involving them in the narrative and leading them comfortably and logically along to reach the writer's desired conclusions.

It does require practice, as does any other marketing skill to reach the level of effectiveness, and even perfection, that is required to ensure success. The most effective way to practice it is to engage in sort of a mentorship, learning from the best examples of sales copywriting that one can find and imitating those sources while turning them into something completely new and unique.

Like any language-based skill, copywriting requires that the author adhere to basic rules of style. The idea is to grab the reader's attention and not to let them go once that goal has been attained.

Grabbing the reader's attention starts with an effective headline. This headline does not need to be limited in length as does a newspaper headline and can very well be several sentences long. It should employ clever language and sometimes outright shock value to engage the reader.

Write as many headlines as necessary, even if the number gets to be 100 or more. The best headline may not come along for a long while but it's worth it to keep on going.

The first paragraph needs to clearly define the product and appeal to the reader's basic needs. This means making appeals to the natural inclination of any human being to increase their level of pleasure and to decrease their level of pain. It needs to provide a good reason why the reader should stick around and listen to the rest of what the writer has to say.

Understand the differences between benefits and features using the simple rule: Benefits don't result in the reader being able to say "So what?" Features are open-ended and don't immediately identify themselves as useful to the reader.

Use simple if/then statements to make the product more relevant to the reader. "If you need to lose weight fast, then you need to read about this product!"; "If you need a way to make money from home, then you need to attend this seminar!" These sort of statements limit the question and don't allow the reader to add their natural negativity to the equation.

Don't be afraid to offend! The best sales copywriters understand that offending the audience is sometimes the best way to grab their attention. Don't go overboard, of course, and be sensitive to the audience. At the same time, realize that if something is borderline offensive some very accomplished copywriters take this as a sign that they're on the right track.

Keep track of what you've written and see which sales letters are garnering the most success. These sales letters likely contain characteristics that can be used over and over again without losing their effectiveness.

Remember to rewrite ineffective sales letters and not to give up too easily. Get personal with those hesitant customers. "I haven't heard from you in a while and was wondering if you'd seen this new product," and similar statements drive the point home and make the whole affair more personal to the customer. Remember that the customer should feel as if they're being directly-addressed and that they're not simply the recipient of the latest corporate sales letter to be sent out bulk rate to thousands of clients.

Throw out your style guide. The advice that writers should avoid adjectives does not apply to sales copywriting. You're not selling a weight program, you're selling the best weight program out there and the amazing results are something that those who suffer the horrible anxiety that comes with being overweight need to be informed of. Remember the axiom "Sell the Sizzle, not the Steak".

Remember that those sales skills that apply in person apply equally in print. While writing, engage in a conversation with the client. Use the same persuasion techniques that work in real life. What's being used is language and the effects of language are largely the same whether it be of the spoken or written sort.

Have your efforts proofread and critiqued by friends and family. Better yet, hire a real editor. Don't take any harsh criticism personally, regard it as an opportunity.

Remember that one is always selling a cure, not prevention. Prevention does not conform to the quick and easy requirement for any effective persuasion writing. Persuasion is not, in the minds of most consumers, worth spending a lot of money on. Cures, however, are oftentimes worth any amount of money, especially if they happen to be very easy and convenient cures that are relatively pain-free. Think of it in terms of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain: Prevention tends to minimize pleasure and require painful efforts toward self-denial. Cures offer only the alleviation of a pain. It's easy to see which sales pitch requires the least amount of work on the part of the salesperson.

Don't overextend one's financial resources when launching a new product. Remember that it's very easy for even experienced and skilled investors to fall into the trap of allowing good money to follow bad. Take small steps first and test the waters. If the product shows promise, then allocate more finances toward promotion. This can include measures such as shooting video for promotion with home cameras instead of hiring a production crew and making use of a great deal of sales copy as it's one of the cheapest forms of advertising available.

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Chapter 4 Handling Membership Site Delivery

One area that you will need to consider when setting up a membership site is how members will be able to access the information that they receive as part of their membership. There are many different ways that you can handle this, so it is important to give careful thought and consideration to the best methods based on your needs, abilities and budget at the current time.

Using a Thank You Page Delivery System

One method that can be relatively simply and which does not require extensive technical knowledge is to use a thank you page delivery system. All that you need to make this method work is a payment processor. Basically, the system works by sending people a thank you page after their purchase. Inside the thank you page you can put a link to the product or products that the customers can download as part of that month's subscription. This method works well enough if your members are receiving access to one new item each month.

The beauty of this method is that it is quite simple, inexpensive and does not take a lot of time to set up. There are problems with this method that you should be aware of; however.

First, there is absolutely nothing preventing your members from forwarding that page to someone who is not a member of your site and allowing them to have free access to the download.

Additionally, there is also the risk that search engine spiders could potentially pick up on your thank you page and this is certainly a page that you do not want them indexing. There will always be the inherent risk that someone will be able to link to your page, bookmark it or even distribute it.

Using Autoresponders

Another method that you can use which is far superior to the previously described method is to use an autoresponder. This method is also fairly easy to set up and does not require a lot of extensive technical knowledge. The main idea behind this method is that you utilize emails in order to send content to people each and every month as part of their membership. You can set it up so that this occurs automatically and all of your members are emailed their new content at the same time.

This can save you a tremendous amount of time once you have it set up and basically put at least a portion of your membership site on auto-pilot. You can even use the autoresponder to password protect download pages or if you choose you can have the autoresponder actually send the products and content as email attachments.

There is also a downside to this method as well. If you choose to use the autoresponder to send the products as an attachment, you must make sure that the products are small enough that your members' email will be able to accept them. You must also recognize the fact that there is a chance that your emails will be filtered as spam and firewalls and your members may never receive your deliveries.

Generally, you will have few problems with this method, but you must be prepared for the fact that you will receive some degree of customer support tickets from members who will say that they did not receive their products as a result of the inherent problems associated with using this method. As long as you are able to stay on top of such problems and handle them efficiently and quickly, it should not be too much of an issue.

Digital Delivery using a Membership System

Yet another method that you might consider using is a digital product deliver with a membership system. If you are concerned about people possible passing around your products or not even receiving them at all using the autoresponder method, then this is alternative that you might consider using. With this type of system your members will be able to create their own accounts on your membership site as well as their own logins.

This is an excellent method to use if you want to make sure that you maintain better control over your products and content. It is also a good system to use if you want your members to be able to access archived products and information that may have been added prior to the member joining. This is certainly a better value for your members, which means that they may very well be willing to pay more for that convenience.

You should be aware that this type of system will naturally cost you more money. The exact amount of money that you will need to pay for this system will depend upon how much you use the service and how many members that you have for your site. Even so, it is imperative that you look at it as an investment in your business that will help it to grow and expand at a much faster rate.

Coping with Attrition

One area that you will need to be particularly aware and which can creep up on you, especially if you have automated your membership site with automated delivery and sign-up, is attrition. Attrition refers to the number of people who have become members of your membership site but who have then dropped out at a later time. If you only have a few people who drop out you might not notice the impact, especially if you still have others signing up on a regular basis.

Even so, it is imperative that you keep an eye on this number because if your attrition rate should climb you will have some fairly significant problems on your hands that will affect your profitability.

One of the biggest causes of attrition is failure to match what your customers perceived they would receive for their subscription to what they actually receive. Another common cause for high attrition rates are delivering more information that your members can possibly utilize. The reverse is also true. If you do not deliver enough information and products, members will also be likely to drop out. Inferior products or overpriced products for the market can also attribute to your attrition rate as well.

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Chapter 3 - Getting Started Begin at the Beginning

Now that you have a basic outline of the work and tools necessary for the development of a workable membership website, it is time to really dig in and get started. This chapter is going to discuss some choices that you will face and some of the smartest options to follow. We will look at assembling your website; recognizing value; working with words; testimonials; and the day to day details and glitches.

Assembly

Your website is going to begin to feel like a great big puzzle, and you must assemble many of the major pieces before it begins to really look like something. This means that you must be sure you have these necessary pieces before you begin the process of building the site, and this will always include knowledge as well as equipment and resources.

The knowledge you should really try hard to acquire as quickly and efficiently as possible will include marketing basics, and website infrastructure. For instance, you know that you should compose some sales letters, website content and choose adwords, but how do you start this process? You also know you need a gateway through which members will visit the site, make their purchases or establish their recurring payments (if you decide to sell the memberships through the site rather than through an affiliate). This means you will need to understand where these things can be located.

So, let’s look at the "physical” site first.

Send Me a Programmer!

Most Internet entrepreneurs quickly realize that they are going to need some guidance and support from a qualified programmer who can help them to setup the many processes that must occur through their site. While there are an enormous number of web hosting companies offering all kinds of ecommerce sites, they may not provide the kind of integrated services demanded of a membership website (i.e. the membership database, login software, library of numerous media types, and more).

What most membership website owners fail to realize is that they should work in a backwards direction - they should work with a programmer to design the system, rather than purchasing various programs and sites and then demanding that the programmer make them all work cohesively.

Additionally, a good programmer will probably have all kinds of connections and resources for additional areas of the website as well. For instance, you will need to record telephone and “live” conversations to be converted into downloadable files. You will need to understand how to work with video recordings, PDF files and more as well. Finding a good and reliable set of professionals to walk you through this setup process is going to save you an enormous amount of time and money.

This means you should sit down and really scrutinize your plans in order to identify all of the equipment, software and gadgets you will need. Then meet with your programmer to work out all of the technical details of the site and establish the best approaches to use for your various media requirements.

Unfortunately, many successful membership website owners admit that they spent large sums of their capital on costly services and equipment that they did not need to purchase or use. They learned through painful experience that there were far less expensive options and even some that were more efficient than those they identified on their own.

This leads to the next phase in the getting started process - recognizing value.

Recognizing Value

As a membership website owner, you will soon realize that you can find a purpose or value to almost every interaction, discussion or tool you see. Recognizing value that will benefit your site is an important skill. It helps to categorize such information however, if it will eventually

help you achieve your goals. Earlier in this book we recommended that all membership website owners make a comprehensive list of the steps they made while researching and building their site. This was something that would help to keep the resources available to the members fresh and unique. This is where you should also keep your lists and notes about valuable connections, discussions and ideas too.

For example, even if an interview has gone badly, there are going to be quotes and paragraphs that can be used elsewhere. Consider that you will probably interview subjects for twenty minutes or more, and if there is little information given or if the subject of the interview was a bit dull, you can still insert some of their statements into newsletters, web content, articles or more. Value is everywhere, but you have to be open minded and creative in order to use it to its fullest degree.

This concept of “recognizing value” also applies to the materials you offer. If you really, sincerely want to succeed, then you are going to have to scrutinize everything posted for members to view. Regardless of your subject matter - psychics, horses, shoes or marketing - your membership website should always be viewed as a true informational resource or a “one stop” destination for learning, interaction and more.

This means you should always keep a watchful eye for those items and materials that will be of value to your site and your members. Once again, let us turn to the fictional psychic website as an example. As the owner, you would want to always keep an open mind about the sort of “stuff” that would interest your membership. This might mean that you would consider posting “how to” articles about photographing ghosts or spirits just as much as you would consider providing your customers with an eBook you found about reading ancient runes.

Working with Words

Until you are really comfortable with the process of writing your ads, emails, website content and eBooks, you should consider hiring a “pro”. There are all kinds of online agencies offering very high-quality writing services specifically geared to Internet businesses.

For instance, a website owner could hire a writer or copywriting service to craft “private label” articles, different eBooks, all of their sales letters and landing pages and even their newsletters if necessary. The most important thing to remember about such a choice, however, is that you are receiving the work of a writer, but not necessarily a specialist. If you want to truly create exclusive materials and offerings you will still have to do the research to understand your subject and constantly expand the amount of information you are making available through your site.