Evolution of Publishing Comes In A Vook?

As technology and innovation gets faster, it will only get better across all types of industries, and especially in the publishing industry. A new innovation the publishing industry has been unleashed, and it combines the imagination of books and the essence of video together as one, too become a Vook.

A vook is a new innovation in reading that blends a well-written book, high-quality video and the power of the Internet into a single, complete story. You can read your book, watch videos that enhance the story and connect with authors and your friends through social media all on one screen, without switching between platforms.

A vook is an entirely new integrated media experience that blends a book and video — bringing them together as one medium. You need either access to the internet via any computer, or a compatible mobile device. Vooks are compatible with both PCs and Macs and are also available as applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Other formats, for other devices, are in development.

The application allows readers to interact with the content in four views:

* The read view presents each chapter in its traditional format while integrating logical video breaks.
* The watch view plays high-quality, full screen videos that bring the words and story to life. You can read along with the text in a pull down window.
* The mix view combines both the text and video on one screen.

Overall, there is no direct way to sign up automatically as a publisher, and put your own Vook together. It looks like you have to contact the company directly as an author. This will be a great medium for marketers who develop digital products, and have extremely high level of quality. Right now, there are major partnerships with high quality publishers where authors can showcase their work. It was said that corporate style publishing companies were dead. But with Vook, it looks like large publishing companies will have some use after all. Publishers can now do more for their authors in the areas of creating a marketable video, marketing the whole project, ensuring brand stabilization of the Vook. This definitely opens up doors to connect publishers and their authors again. However, I’d rather see more of an independent model, where any author who wants to independently publish can create a Vook using their own resources to create the book and video and thereby create a Vook.

Live Video Streaming Will Be Web Marketing 3.0 For 2011

Live video streaming is a tool that you should be using now in your internet marketing efforts. Streaming video live is growing rapidly and in the Internet Marketing world, is a tool that can be utilized to enhance your credibility, boost your social proof, increase sales, and engage directly with your customers and build relationships. Live video streaming will be the wave of the future in web marketing in 2011, mainly due to emerging technologies such as Facebooks social graph, companies such as Ustream, Justin.tv, YouTube, Livestream, and even online collaboration companies such as GoToWebinar, DimDim, ConnectSolutions and many more.

For Internet Marketers, it will be a very important tool to use so that you can now be more competitive, engage directly with the customer, build your credibility and increase your sales. In the online industry, there are customers with hypersensitive trust issues, due to some unscrupulous marketers. But now, with improved FTC Regulations and advancements in technology such as live video streaming, will not only improve the Internet Marketing industry, but will be a major factor in shaping it.

According to a comScore report, Americans are spending 648% (upward to 1.4 billion minutes) of their time watching live video online; services such as Stickam, LiveVideo, Ustream, Justin.tv and Livestream).  Hulu has increased 75% and YouTube went up 68%.  It goes to show that more viewers are not only seeking out but actively watching live streaming videos.  According to the comScore report:

Live online video sites have not only been successful in building audience, but also in keeping that audience tuned-in. For instance, the average live streamed video view is 7% longer than the average online video view. If you narrow the audience to a specific demographic, though, live video really begins to prove its advertising value to media planners. Live video sites are 72% more likely to deliver the elusive demographic, males age 18-34, than the average online video site. In fact, males age 18-34 comprise almost 30% of the total live video viewing audience in our sample sites. Even without the same brand recognition as other portals and publishers, live video sites are able to retain viewers’ attention and deliver desirable audiences for advertisers.

As an online marketer, today you have your typical marketing methods which utilize a content based landing page to generate leads, or a mini-site that provides some detailed information on your product or service.  A trend this year has been video sales pages, which has pushed out the need for a copywriter and takes on more of the concept of a direct-response pitch to your offerings.  Another trend, which I think is now being a bit overdone, and a bit disingenuous is the use of “live” webinars, or shall I say pre-recorded and repeated Webinars that pretend to be live.

Some really good live webinar software include, WebEx, GoToMeeting. These two web-based softwares are premium and cost a bit.  Free services include DimDim and Join.Me.  In a future post, I’ll get into deeper detail of these and other online webinar platforms you can use in your marketing efforts.  However, webinars are a useful live tool that is used by internet marketers where they can discuss and interact with potential customers in real time by showing an online powerpoint presentation, sharing their screens, have phone conversation and direct chat.  Overzealous marketers tend to do these types of events multiple times per week, as well as sending out replays as part of their email marketing efforts.  The problem ends up being over-saturation whereas, some marketers don’t engage with the potential customers enough, sending out too many replays, not taking enough time to answer all the customers questions in detail, falsifying their event by saying its live when it’s been pre-recorded.  Another issue is that it’s an area where some marketers tend to hide behind their power point slides, and phone conversations, and thereby become a telemarketer rather than a marketer that should be engaging and building relationships with their visitors.

So after the long sales page, we had video sales pages, and then the trend of live webinars.  Now, with live video streaming, marketing efforts will come to the light. In streaming live video, an internet marketer can launch their product or service in real time and potential customers can actually see who they are dealing with, what’s actually happening, whether or not the dreaded “crashing of the website during launch” actually occurs, and get real time data and information directly from the product owner.  Marketers can interact and engage in discussions live during this period in the launch phase.  A recent product launch by  Chris Farrell Mike Filsaime called AffiliateDotCom was an example of a live video streaming launch. They utilize the streaming video service called Ustream, and combined that with a social proof element using the social graph feature provided by Facebook.  That feature allowed only purchasers of their product to be able to provide a Facebook “like” and “comment” which would be featured on the site.  Others who did not purchase, simply would get an error response stating about only purchasers of AffiliateDotCom could make a comment.  This strategy allows for verifiable, and transparent and open social proof of not only sales of the product, but the actual inner workings of an internet marketing product launch.

Note: I personally saw this myself, and at the time there were about 1,500 actual Facebook people who placed a comment, signifying they had purchased the product.  With 1,500 people in the first 6 hours of launch at a $1997 price point, I can attest to at least at $2,995,500 in sales for their product launch on the high end and at least $562,500 in sales on the low end if everyone of the buyers took the payment plan.  Disclosure:  I witnessed this during the beginning of their launch on 8/24/2010, and these figures are based on what was researched, and estimated based off the information provided by AffilaiteDotcom.

So, look out for more live video streaming launches as a marketing tool.  I think this is definitely a way not only to market your products effectively, but when discussing what it really takes to be an Internet Marketer, a person can now really see it and experience themselves in real-time, streamed live right in their own homes.

Know Your Numbers

While working as a store manager for the number 1 supermarket in New England, my boss at the time, provided me with some advice that I have utilized in almost every avenue of life, whether it be on the job, in school, even in relative personal situations.  As a store manager for a supermarket company, I was responsible for overseeing a $100 million a year business. To be a store level manager at a young age was definitely an experience, it also acknowledged that I had talents in the areas of communication, dealing with people, running a mult-million dollar operation and how to make sales.  However, being in a corporate environment can also be a detriment, especially when you are not being recognized for successful efforts and achievements, slow upward mobility, and low pay.  Seriously, if a 1 store generates $100 million a year, and you as a manager is making less than $50,000 a year, there’s definitely an issue.  But one thing the head store manager stated to me was, “Always Know Your Numbers.”

Knowing your numbers in the business was an essential part of being “noticed” as an effective manager.  It didn’t matter if your sales were down for the week, it didn’t matter if customers were complaining, it didn’t matter employees were on a rampage.  Yes, those were all issues you had to address of course, but that was your problem.  What matter to corporate and what matter to your District Manager was whether you knew all your numbers.  Your numbers included:

• Daily & Weekly Sales
• Number of Employee Hours spent
• Weekly Expenses
• Main Products on Sale
• Percentages Relative To Each Area
• Next week projections

If you were able to quickly know your numbers, connect that to any issues the store was having, and project future outcomes, you were a genius, you were respected, and you were recognized for that week. But, you had to continually prove yourself over and over again, all by knowing your numbers.

Although I reject that “knowing you numbers” should provide respect and recognition, it should be combined with achievements, and timely rewards of upward mobility, but that’s a story for another day.  In rergards to knowing your numbers, it’s something as an Internet Marketer you should be a measure you need to be calculating, addressing, and analyzing on a daily basis.

In this series, I’m going to be discussing specifically about knowing your analytics. Website traffic is the machine that will keep your business going.  The more traffic you have, the higher the potential for your success.  Traffic does not guarantee success, but it definitely will provide a higher opportunity for you to achieve success.  In the development of ProfitDoctrine, I wanted to ensure that I have a method of analyzing traffic results and have a method of having real time analysis and results.  I have implemented a some quality resources that will allow me to implement a sound traffic strategy which will include measures to analyze and conduct SEO optimization, a Backlinking strategy and more.  The resources I’m currently using are:

Profit Doctrine Traffic Generation Resources

• Visitor Maps:  Displays Visitor Maps with location pins, city, and country. Includes a Who’s Online Sidebar. Has an admin dashboard to view visitor details.
• Clicky Statistics:  Clicky is a real time web analytics software.  It’s boasts tons of features, however, it’s only useful as a paid option.  I would recommend not setting it up on your site until you are 100% ready to launch your product, otherwise, you are putting a trial use to waste.  You can receive tons of real time data such as: short url stats, clicks on links and content, country location, real time visitors, and goals.  Definitely provides a great clean wordpress dashboard.
• WordPress Stats:  Automattic created its own stats system, to focus on just the most popular metrics a blogger wants to track and provide them in a clear and concise interface.  The focus here is simply visitors by Day, Week & Month, as well as on Posts and pages.  This is effective for getting a brief overview of what your largest day is and your current days tally.
• Woopra:  Woopra is a comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking and analysis application.  I joined this service when it was in Beta when it first came out.  I’m glad I did.  There is a free and paid version.  I think this service is effective specifically when conducting launches, running blog contests, or you want to understand traffic analysis on a specific posts you just published and want to see the results on a timely basis.  Woopra is definitely known for their location based accuracy.
• Google Analytics:  Track your WordPress site easily and with lots of metadata: views per author & category, automatic tracking of outbound clicks and pageviews.
• Majestic SEO: provides Competitive Link Intelligence to SEO specialists.  Very cool dashboard features, and gives some really heavy duty backlinking anslysis.  It also has a comparative feature so you can see where your site is compared to your peers.
• WP Click Tracker:  Tracks link clicks from hrefs in posts and pages.  Awesome graphical dashboard where I can track popular clicks, click by day and hour, and to understand unique clicks vs. the total clicks.

One high quality traffic stats plugin that I want to use on my site is Wp-Stats-Dashboard by Dave Ligthart.  However, this plugin has major conflicts on the WordPress 3.0 platform.  I have sent a notice to Dave in regards to this issue, however, it has yet to be addressed.  WP-Stats-Dashboard is a highly effective, rich graphical interface that tracks stats along with many of your social media networks.  However, once WP-Stats-Dashboard is installed, it disables the Ajax drop down menus in your dashboard – a very important feature of WordPress 3.0.  Additionally, since it doesn’t have it’s own separate dashboard page and link on the dashboard menu, it takes up a lot of space, and slows down the loading of everything else in your dashboard.  Essentially, when your dashboard is loading, it will freeze up.  I would suspect the only way to use this plugin freely, is to get rid of everyone of your plugins, and use this plugin ONLY on a vanilla install.  Therefore, if you want any other features to actually work on WordPress, I can’t recommend WP-Stats-Dashboard until those issues are fixed.

These are all the traffic based resources I use to analyze my traffic stats, and to get a real-time look at what’s happening on my site.  In the next series, I’ll discuss what I am using for analyzing affiliate traffic and revenue, sales, and other tools and resources to “know my numbers.” Do you know your numbers?

What resources, software, and tools do you use in your online business?  Leave a comment and provide some details on what you use for Traffic Analysis, Link Analysis, Revenue Analysis, Sales Analysis, Expense Analysis.  Any tool or resource you use in your online business, let us know.  I’ll create a table of resources based on the information you provide.

Does Your Blog Have A Lead Generation Process?

Generating leads and building your list is a key business process as an Internet Marketer.  Lead generation is basically the life blood of your business.  Many bloggers don’t embrace the concept of the lead generation process until it’s too late.  Many bloggers are inclined to slap on a email form and call it a day, however, by not planning and systematizing your process, you could be doing yourself a great disservice.

Whether you are a blogger, specializing in direct linking using PPC, selling information products, or any function in Internet Marketing, you must build a solid lead generation process.  This is one area I am looking at heavily as I build and grow my new media publishing firm.  As I looked at the process, I wanted to focus on multiple areas that will not only provide a systematic process in generating a lead, but also not to be intrusive to my readers.  Some blogs have pop-ups after pop-ups, trying to collect leads and monetize them at the same time.  In my opinion, you still need to give your readers a quality experience while they are on your blog.

There are 7 areas I have looked at to developing a strong lead generation machine on your blog.  These 3 areas revolve around 1 model, which is the concept of the freemium business model.  In each of the areas I will outline below, will consist of providing high quality freebies, and giveaways to my readers.

NAVIGATION BAR: I will feature a dedicated page for people to directly sign up for my custom free reports or free product that I create. This will be prominently displayed in the navigation bar, won’t be intrusive, and basically adds to depth of my site.  On the actual page, it will be a short sales copy of the freemium offer, with a focus on signing the visitor up to become a subscribed member of my email newsletter.  The goal here is to focus on building customer loyalty.

SIDEBAR FORM:  The sidebar form is like a direct marketing piece.  It will feature directly a call-to-action to visitors who want to quickly sign up for my email newsletter.  The sidebar subscription form will consist of direct subscriber message, as well as a high quality graphic of my ebook or information product that I will create.  I may possibly use video to give more of a face to face connection.  Some bloggers have opted to add a direct video describing either what they are getting, or what there site is about.

DELAYED POP-UP FORM: I will create a delayed pop-up form which will be a large direct call-to-action of the feature freemium product that I will be offering.  I will use the newly created WordPress plugin called Pop-Up Domination.  I have researched this product thoroughly, have purchased it, and will be using it avidly not only on this site but also on products that I create.

BLOG POSTS: Blog posts are an overlooked lead magnet.  If used wisely, the blog post will be an effective tool to capture leads who are really interested in what you have to offer.  The benefit of a blog post is that it will be in a controlled area where the visitor will be wanting to see your offer.  If you have keyword researched, and SEO’d blog post, it will also increase your leads heavily if done right.  In capturing leads through blog posts, Iwill focus on a highly targeted and keyword research title, and presenting a specific offer for my readers to accept.  There are numerous methods I will use which will include:

1. Request for more information: I will provide teaser information, and a person can sign-up to not only get that information, but also subscribe to the newsletter.
2. Graphical Ad Unit:  Within the blog post message, I can direct readers to a graphic based ad unit, which will include a link to subscribe to my offer.
3. Subscribers Only Posts:  Create subscribers only posts.  These are different from Members-only posts, where as you may have a paywall for premium type posts, whereas, subscribers are just gaining access to the information.
4. Contests:  Having subscribers sign-up to the newsletter specifically for a blog contests.  This will be highly effective whereas, you are engaging in one-to-many relationships, and interacting with readers who are interested in your offers.

SIDEBAR & END OF POST ADS: What can be extremely useful are graphical ad units spread throughout your blog.  You will be marketing your lead generation process via ads on your sidebar, and at the end of your blog posts.  Utilize 125×125 ads, and 468×60 size ads, or whatever suits you best.  I would recommend varying what they look like, as to not overdo readers viewing the same ad over & over, but ensure that it does not deviate too much from your original brand that you are offering.

MINI-TEXT BOXES: Another method we will use inside of blog posts is the use of a mini-text box.  This can be a highly effective method. If you have knowledge of CSS & HTML, you can create contextual text boxes that are placed within your content, requesting readers to simply sign-up to your offer.

WP GREET BOX:  Show a different message to your visitor depending on which site they are coming from. For example, you can ask Digg visitors to Digg your post, Google visitors to subscribe to your RSS fee, and much more. Download this plugin at the WordPress extension repository.

These are all free methods you can get started today in creating your lead generation machine. Provide a quality offer, implement these strategies, and increase your leads to your blog. What methods have you implemented on your blog to improve or build your lead generation strategy? Let me know what you’ve done, what has worked, and what has not worked in generating more leads to your blog.

Top 10 Ways To Sucessfully Promote Your Website For Free

As an Internet Marketer, you should always be cognizant of what methods you are using to promote your website.  Website promotion should be a ritual that is done on a consistent and methodical basis.  To have a successful promotion strategy, you should keep a set of standard operating procedures, or simply a basic plan of what promotion methods you will do, when you will do them and how often you will do them.  Then to ensure success, you simply need to adhere to the goals you set and promote your website.

Here are 10 free methods you can use today to promote your website.  You may choose to do some, and it’s better to do them all so that you can enhance the awareness of your site.  Promoting your website is a must if you want to become a successful Internet Marketer, and must be done on a consistent basis.  You cannot rely on just setting up a site, and hoping that someone will search on a keyword you have chosen.  Remember, keywords are competitive on a daily basis, so you not only have to ensure your sites marketability, but also compete against others vying for the words you want to be searched about.

1. Write Articles and Submit Them:  Not only you should be writing for your blog, you should also be writing articles for article submission and syndication websites.  These are like free giveaways, and the positive outlook for yourself, is that your article will be attributed to you, whereby, it will have your signature and site reference on there.
2. Building Community Through Forums: Build relationships by signing up to related forums in your specific niche.  Be an avid contributor by not only offering your own expertise, but ask questions on things you may not know about or require assistance on.  There is always someone will to provide their two cents.
3. Email Newsletters:  Ensure you always place a link to your product or site in your signature of your emails newsletters.  People not only need to know who is writing them, but also, where that information is coming from.  This is a method of building trust amongst your readers and followers, in addition to building direct traffic.
4. Blog Commenting:  Select a variety of blogs that you like to read, and ensure you provide quality comments.  You can also link back to your blog.  This combination will not only get you respected in the community, but also provide you valuable backlinks.
5. Guest Blog Posts: Find and select a variety of blogs you like to read and contribute to them by being a guest poster.  Many blogs are starting to do this more now, not only to increase quality & unique content on their blogs, keep them up to date, but it will allow them to increase revenue and share in that revenue, as well as get their sites ranked faster.  So, there is mutual benefit in guest posting on blogs.
6. Free Giveaways:  Create a high quality ebook, report, video or even piece of software. Create a section on your site where it can be downloaded and accessed.  Give this product away for free and let them know that they can give it away for free.
7. Create and Distribute an Email Newsletter:  Start a newsletter, it can even be a physical one as well.   You can give it out for free, or even sell it.  But if you have good ideas, and have something important to distribute in this format, then this is another avenue which will attract readers and promote your site.
8. Directory submissions:  Boost your rankings by submitting your sites to various directories.
9. Post & Ping:  After publishing your blog post, use pinging directories to get your sites indexed fast.
10. Create Social Avenues: Create a Facebook page, create a YouTube account, and other social media accounts that all link to your product, site or service.  Ensure you provide quality content on them, and promote them the same way you do your site.

Increase Brand Awareness With A Mobile Site and Mobile Apps

As an online business owner, you are always on the lookout for new income streams of revenue as well as improving your existing streams of revenue. One market that is extremely hot is the mobile phone market and app market. You should be sure to understand that these are two separate markets, however, they are two markets that have a high level of synergy.

The greatest thing about these two technical markets is that even without a lot of technical acumen, you as an online business owner in the Internet Marketing field can tap into these two markets, and it is definitely something you want to do specifically if you want to enhance your brand awareness.  I will be providing a series of articles specifically to introduce mobile marketing and mobile apps.  I will be looking for your support in comments in what specifically you want to learn about and to focus on, so be sure to provide some insights of what you see as trends, what your concerns are, what you would like to learn and know about in regards to mobile marketing and mobile apps.  This is the first in the series in the Profit Lab, discussing successful methods that are working now and reviewing various marketing strategies and providing you the tips that you can implement today.

MOBILE MARKET

If you have a blog and are regularly providing content to your readers, you may want to look into expanding your brand.  Creating your blog or website to be readable on a mobile phone will not only enhance your brand, but give you more readers, and even make you more distinguishable in the search engines.  Whereas, your mobile site can also be marketing online as well as via mobiles.  I will be focus on the wordpress themes for mobiles in this case.  There are advancing and improving themes that will instantly turn your site into a site that is readable on a mobile phone, specifically there is a wordpress theme that will create your site into a iphone themed site.  Additionally, there are wordpress plugins that will instantly allow you to mobilize your site, add unique advertising so that when mobile users see it, you can also generate revenue from simply someone using their phone.

MOBILE APPS

In 2008, Apple launched it iPhone App store to developers all around the world.  If you had an idea for an app, you could simply develop it, make your store submission, and generate 70% of the profits on app sales.  After launching the App store and the 3rd party development partnership, Apple announced 500 million downloads, and this was only 6 months from launch.

One app was developed by Internet Marketer, Joel Comm, where him and his company launched the iFart app.  This was widely successful and generate a ton of revenue for his business.  There was also the Ocarina app, which turned the iPhone into a musical flute.  This app was downloaded over 400,000 times at $0.99.  That’s a $396,000 payday!

There are resources online and toolkits one can use to create an app.  The goal is to create a quality app, that will be useful to the end user, and that has the potential to go viral.  More importantly, you want to do something that will also enhance your brand.

The successful methods to examine is that if you can combine the concept of create a mobile app, in conjunction with creating your website or blog to be mobile ready you have just boosted your brand two fold and increased the value of your product or service.  If you decide to sell your business, you can use Flippa to sell your online site.  Just think of the value you are bringing to the table with:

1. A Blog or Product Site
2. A Mobile Ready Themed Site
3. A Mobile App branded to your site/product

Having these 3 items prepared for sale will make your product/service for sale extremely unique and will demand a higher value in the market place.

Have you created a mobile app or site yet?  Leave a comment below and provide some insights on what you think about the mobile market and mobile apps.

How To Increase Profits With A Resellers License

Have you ever had a “license to print money?” You may think that a license to print money was just for governmental agencies such as the treasury.  However, you can boost your revenue with a Resellers License. There are multiple ways you can make money with a resellers license.  As an internet marketer, implementing a resellers license strategy into your business model is not only one way to give back to your customers and followers, but also a profitable method to increase your bottom line.

The Resellers License business strategy is the concept where you contract with a company or individual giving them explicit permission to sell your products or services to sell them to a 3rd party.  Essentially, the strategy is basically a “licensed affiliate” – who is aimed at promoting and marketing your specific product or service under a set of guidelines.  However, usually under the Resellers License, you allow for 100% of profits to be generated solely by your licensees.  There have not been any basic ground rules or set standards for the reseller license business strategy, and this is one of the downfalls in Internet Marketing, where some marketers either don’t fully specify a guideline or implement a high quality strategy.

In my opinion, the reseller license strategy is a bit different from the concept of content licensing.  Whereas, in content licensing, you are selling your content on a subscription basis for a fee.  Customers would have the right to use that content based on the standards and guidelines set out in your terms and conditions.  As a product owner, licensing your content can be very profitable, whereas, you can package and sell your content in various ways, such as article reports in a specific format, as an ebook, convertible formats such as PDF, Powerpoint, sell as audio or even video.  Content licensing is usually pre-made content or content and media that has already been produced and proved successful in some event of venue such as a successful and verifiable product launch, or a membership site, or even simply on an public access website.

In regards to the reseller license strategy, I feel that it is different than content licensing whereas, you are not selling a subscription based license, but more offering a full working, business model with revenue potential for free!  This is just one business model that ProfitDoctrine will be implementing in the future.  You may be wondering, why would you give away a revenue producing product for FREE?  Well this depends on how the strategy is implemented in your business.  Our goal here at ProfitDoctrine will be to:

1. Create a short term, subscription based training course
2. Launch a high quality informational and educational training product
3. Generate and assess success stories from customers
4. Take the training course, study materials, assessments and develop it into a book
5. Create a sales letter and site portal for the new book
6. Give the new advanced book away to members with a lifetime resellers license

This model will provide its members an instant way for them to generate revenue using methods and strategies that are already proven to be working, as well as provide the members with a product that is already generating revenue.  Essentially, the resellers license is a business in a box and a license to print money!  These are the steps and methodology that ProfitDoctrine will take in implementing the Reseller License business strategy.  I think this is a great way to be able to give back to my followers and members and give them an opportunity to implement the ProfitDoctrine principles and practices that they have already learned in Internet Marketing.  This gets my members up and running quickly and I can provide instant support and training as a service to all my licensees.

Other marketers have used similar reseller type strategies, but I don’t think they really provided out in detail why or even kept up with providing a quality product.  The goal is to ensure that the product you provide is of high quality and that 100% of the profits can be generated by its members.  Now, when implementing this strategy, I have outlined the base concepts.  Obviously there are some technical aspects to this. You can learn more about the technical aspects and how to develop a quality reseller product and set up the site when you sign up for ProfitDoctrine Premium.

Successful Membership Site Trends and Ideas

There has been a trend in Internet Marketing in regards to creating a profitable membership site. There have been information products launched about building successful membership sites, blogs writing about the best membership site business models, and downloadable reports about membership site tips and strategies. There are many opinions on the way a membership site should be operated, even down to what is the best software to use when creating a membership site. Some of the trends I see are a bit disturbing and some trends are an advancement and beneficial in the Internet Marketing community. A membership site overall is an excellent model to be able to create a stable, and long-term income in building your online business. But more importantly, with a successful revenue generating revenue site, you have more of an ability to provide quality and service to your customers.

NEGATIVE MEMBERSHIP SITE TRENDS

Yes, you may have heard of the six-figure launches, and the seven figure launches that have been happening over the past year.  As of today, there have been approximately 9 product launches with a price point of $1,997 in only a time span of 6 months, specifically in the internet marketing niche – and the year is not even over.  It’s great that there are new products created, however, a disturbing trend that is happening is that products are being launched without even having the full course content  or materials in them.  Now, it’s one thing to have the product training set to start on a specific date after customers purchase, however, one negative trend that is ever increasing is that  many consumers are noticing that what was stated on a sales page, and in their order forms does not match what was in the actual product.  Customers are finding out that:

• Product Delays:  Product Information & trainings are not available during the time frame they purchased them.
• Product Inconsistencies:  Information Products that were ordered don’t always match what was sold on the sales page
• Pricing Issues:  Increased buyers remorse after learning that the product sold is not updated material, or a version 2.0 with just some added webinars, or price is not a fair market value.
• Outrageous Claims:  Sales claims that their product can do a specific result, when it wasn’t that product that produced the result
• Poor Customer Service:  Product owners not fully responding on a timely basis or responding to their questions and concerns in a full, thought out answer.
• FTC Compliance:  Some marketers are out there still not adhering to the FTC regulations – specifically in the areas of Free plus shipping offers, Results claims and testimonials.  (Note: FTC regulations went into effect Dec. 2009.)  You can download a copy of the guide here:

These are just some of the negative trends I see that are continually happening.  This will be the first of a series of articles where I will go into more of these negative membership site issues further.  But to give a brief overview of what the root cause of these issues, specifically on the issue of product delays, one reason could be due to that many gurus and product owners focus on the concept of creating the product content as you go, while at the same time teaching “creating information products fast“, and “create information products in 24 hours“.  Product owners are developing the product either at the last minute, creating the product on a month-to-month basis, or having high ticket products where the main meat of the product is an virtual chat, or real-time webinar.  These methods can definitely have some drawbacks, whereas, many customers are focused on getting started quickly, and want to utilize the training on their terms and schedule.  Many marketers do not make it clear enough in their sales copy what exactly a customer will receive and when they will receive it.

A prudent and satisfied customer should be able to easily audit the purchase they made.  From a purchase a prudent customer should be able to match what was in the sales page to the actual ordered content, from the claim that was made to operational methods outlined in the product/service, all with easy to find methods and processes of cancellation and refund, to specific and detailed customer support.  It’s not just boasting about “quality content” that will make a satisfied customer.  The customer of 2010 and 2011 will be satisfied when what is “stated” matches what was “purchased”, and that if questions are asked, they are given VIP treatment at all times, and when questions are not asked, there is some engagement to gain an understanding of the customers experience.

POSITIVE MEMBERSHIP SITE TRENDS

There are also positive membership site trends that are also happening.  These trends not only improve the customer experience, but also, allow for product owners to create better information products and provide higher quality service.

• Social Proof: One trend I see happening a lot more is the use of social proof.  Many launches that are happening now are utilizing (although latently) social proof tools such as Facebook like buttons, and commenting.  These tools combine with a successful product launch allow you to see sometimes in real-time real people “like” what they see and buy.  Additionally, you have real people on Facebook commenting on their product purchase.  This takes the concept of testimonials to a new level.  I’ve discussed a recent product launch that used the social proof concept during a live launch with AffiliateDotCom.
• Advancing Technology: By December 2010, we will see the advancement of WordPress 3.1 with more features and functionality than it already has today. WordPress as a CMS is one of the premier blogging and content management systems platforms in the world today.  Now, you can easily and quickly create a network of sites with the new Multisite functionality, create unique style blogs, custom themes and frameworks, the sky is the limit.  Combine WordPress with a strong membership plugin, such as Wishlist Member, you are sure to have the ingredients to develop a quality membership site.
• FTC Regulations: The FTC Regulations have definitely shaken up some online business models, and this is certainly for the betterment of the industry.  Marketers who were misrepresenting results and their products via false testimonials, adding Oprah to their endorsements, conducting false scarcity tactics, and the whole concept of Free plus Shipping will continually to become void.  The FTC provided guidelines for not only consumers to be aware of but also directed at online marketers who were performing deceptive practices.  Many marketers have followed these practices.  But I think one way to enhance these practices and principles is not only to abide by them, but also improve them.  At the end of the day, the regulations bring out a much needed focus on the concepts of transparency, business quality and ethics.

Be on the look out for my next article in this series regarding membership site trends and ideas in Internet Marketing. If you know or have seen any trends in membership sites you have joined or contemplated joining, please leave a comment below and share your experiences.