He poured the pennies again, but this time, he put a funnel over the cup.  Many of the pennies still missed, but he filled that cup with pennies in just a couple of seconds.

The analogy is simple: if you capture as many leads as possible, you’ll make more sales and more money.

When people come to your membership site – whether it’s a sales letter or content focused membership site – you want to convert them to something.  If it’s a sales letter, you want to convert them into a paying member.  If it’s a content focused membership site, you want them to register for a trial offer or even a free membership level.

By adding a lead capture system to your membership site, you’re placing that “funnel” over your cup and getting more paying members.

That visitor might not yet be in the buying mood when you present your offer.  Maybe he has lots of browser tabs open and he’s “researching” who he should buy from.  Maybe he only has a limited amount of time and closes his browser before he’s done reading your sales letter or browsing your “teaser” content.

Whatever the reason is, you can easily miss a sale.  But by collecting a name and e-mail address on your site, you can get people on a list and follow up with them day after day.

There are many autoresponder services that will handle this for you.  In addition, you can write follow-up e-mails that will automatically send them MORE e-mail after a certain amount of time.

You can send a welcome e-mail when they first sign up… then maybe another message tomorrow, and another the next
day.

If there are some extra benefits they might have missed out when they read your page… you can remind them when you
send these follow-ups.  Give them one of the benefits in the message you send out on day three, and another benefit on day five…

You could try hard selling, and hit them with a sales pitch in every e-mail, or you could try a low-pressure high-content follow-up series… and offer an ethical bribe in exchange for opting in.

They want that free report, or free software, so they give you their first name and e-mail address.  You send the free report via e-mail and then you can start sending them more content, or more sales pitches, over time… so even if they didn’t buy RIGHT NOW, they’ll buy eventually.

Is this legal?  Of course… most autoresponder services will save the first name, e-mail address, IP address, URL, time and date of every subscriber… so you are protected. You have proof that someone asked for this information.

You ALSO have a one-click unsubscribe function at the bottom of every e-mail, so if someone wants to stop getting messages from you, they click on ONE link and are gone forever.

An awesome service that handles all of this is Aweber, here is their link: www.Aweber.com

They handle everything for you… the opt-ins, unsubscriptions… you just sign up, create a list, and they give you some cut-and-paste code that you can paste on your site… and instantly add a form.

Then you write the follow-ups you want to send, and when people signup, they automatically get these messages.

You can place this signup form on a pop-up, like one you create using www.ActionPopup.com … so you can place this on your membership site – whether its using the “teaser” content model, a direct sales letter or even a Free membership level.

That’s the long and the short of how to grow your membership automatically.  Get an autoresponder if you don’t already have one, and place the signup form on your site – preferably in a customizable pop-up, to get people to signup to an autoresponder series, which will funnel them back to your order button even if they didn’t become a member right away.

Harry Houdini Was A Lousy Magician

Historians of magic are in total agreement about this: Houdini did hackneyed mechanical tricks, showed little evidence of talent, and had almost none of the suave charisma that the great magicians of his era had.

And yet when I ask you to name a famous magician, odds are you’ll say, “Houdini!”

So, how did he do it? How did a lousy magician become such a spectacular success?

Simple. He wasn’t a magician.

Harry Houdini invented an entirely different sort of vaudeville attraction. He was not a magician at all, but an escape artist. Crowdsdidn’t line up to watch him cut a lady in half. Instead, they were fascinated by his taunting of death, by the way he used himself as the most important prop in the act.

One of his breakthrough performances took place in England. Houdini was challenged (by a renowned locksmith – something you don’t see very often) to free himself from a new kind of escape-proof set of handcuffs. At first he hesitated, but, motivated by the cry of the public, he accepted the challenge.

Afte half an hour in a tiny, isolated chamber onstage, Houdini came back before the audience and asked that the cuffs be removed so that he could take off his heavy wool coat (he was sweating from the heat) and then replaced. The crowd angrily refused – Houdini would not be permitted to trick them. Unflappable as always, Houdini used his teeth to extract a razor from his coat, which he then dramatically shredded to pieces in front of the crowd. With a grimace, he returned to his chamber. An hour later, he emerged triumphant, holding the opened handcuffs over his head.

When Houdini made the decision to focus on escapes instead of magic tricks, it was considered professional suicide. There wasn’t a market for escapes acts. There wasn’t a demand for it. It had never been done before. No one knew what it was worth and no one could tell him how long or how demanding his act should be.

Who could have imagined that Houdini would succeed by spending more than an hour and a half doing just one trick, in a closed room, out of sight of the audience? Where is it written in the magician’s manual that the best way to become famous is to fake not only the outcome but the event itself (Houdini made those handcuffs himself and paid the locksmith to challenge him in the first place – it only took him a minute to open them when the time came.)?

Sometimes, making an original choice when there seems to be no choice at all is daunting. But this is often how the brave succeed while the masses are consigned to failure.

This story spoke to me today. It made me think how can I make an original choice that not only serves my market, but also grows my business. If you’re planning on starting or even growing a membership site what challenges are you faced with? Is there a way you can make an original choice?

We’re pleased to reveal that due to a super secret special contact, we have some news on some exciting new features:

First off, is the ability to backup your Wishlist Member settings. This includes all of your membership levels, error page settings, sequential content delivery – everything. You will have the ability to Backup and Restore settings, as well as Import settings from one membership site into another.

Next, is something that will really help you build your mailing list – especially if you have a Free membership level. Under the Membership Levels tab, each membership level now has an Advanced Settings link. When clicked, it will expand to reveal a new set of options:

As you can see from the image above, new Registration Requirements enable you to inhibit SPAM registrations with the Captcha image, require a double opt-in before allowing Free members access to content and finally, to require every Free member to be manually approved. These Registration Requirements are only valid for non-payment membership levels.

Another new feature to point out above is the Level Order box. This comes into play when a member belongs to more than one membership level.

If a member belongs to more than one level, you can prioritize the redirection settings by “ranking” the levels with a number (1 lowest, 99-highest). The user will assume the redirection settings of the higher level.

Finally, a couple new options have been added to the Settings tab. First off, the reCaptcha settings are specified in order to facilitate the new Registration Requirement setting mentioned above.

The last item we will reveal is the Administrative option: Notify Admin on Exceeded Logins. This works in conjunction with the existing Default Login Limit setting.

More features will be revealed later this week, including the much anticipated release of the InfusionSoft shopping cart integration.

Some of the anticipated shopping cart integrations may include:

Getting members onto your mailing list is critical to an effective content consumption strategy. I have worked with clients who, when a new member did not opt-in right away, just gave up and didn’t pursue getting these members on a list.

One strategy that I teach my clients is this:

When using a service like Aweber, once a person’s email address is entered onto a list, that email can not be re-added to the same list if the person never confirmed their subscription.

What I teach is various methods to will force your unsubscribed members to want to be on your list, once that desire is strong enough, I then present them with another Aweber opt-in form directly inside the membership. The key is this, this internal Aweber opt-in form is for an entirely new subscriber list – just for the ones whom I have finally convinced it is in their interest to be an email subscriber as well as a paying member.

As you can probably tell, this entire process requires a predefined new member strategy that is tightly integrated into your content strategy (you do have one don’t you?).

Here’s one final thing I will share with you: once a member joins this secondary opt-in list, I publicly congratulate them and somtimes I even offer them an unannounced surprise bonus.

There are really 2 ways a mobile app can help your membership site:

1. A Free App – by utilizing a Free mobile app, you can use this new platform as a way of distributing Free content in a new medium. Just think about it: you produce a free video with some interesting tip about your market, that video is distributed via the mobile platform and drives new, targeted traffic back to your site to consume even more info.
2. A Paid App – paid apps can be just for your paid members. It can even be a way of getting members in for a defined period in a particular membership level – just for mobile members! Utilizing specific RSS feeds within your membership, your paid members can access member-only content – videos, post, articles and audios.

In addition, you can also bring together your entire social media presence into a single app aimed directly at your market. By this I mean all of your activity on the BIG 4 of social media – YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter and even iTunes!

You’ll be able to build strong brand recognition for your membership site and you’ll be attracting a very profitable market of over 80 million iPhone users who are used to spending money using their device.

The Mobile OS and Device War

The introduction of Google’s Android operating system and the fact that Google decided to make their mobile OS completely free to device manufacturers has enabled Google to “hit the ground running” so to speak. (Something the Big G didn’t do with its Chrome browser)

The new Droid phone from Google | Verizon | Motorola – is the new threat to Apple’s iPhone platform. Now, aside from the OS, I think it’s a real shame they (Big G) decided to launch this with Motorola as the hardware choice. My past experience with Motorola is the quality of their build is lacking – but anyway, back to the Android OS.

This new OS from Google was built from the beginning with Apps in mind – in fact, you could say Android was built to become the iPhone killer!

The big question is -will Google get its mobile OS on enough “cool” devices for people to take it to critical mass? Time will tell.

The BIG 4 Mobile Makers

We all know about the success of Apple and its iPhone platform. However, by comparison, Apple’s puny little 80 million users is a small slice of the global market of mobile devices and the mobile OS scene.

Nokia is the world’s largest mobile/cell phone maker. Their own proprietary OS platform is called Symbian and is a strong contender in the world of mobile OS’s. The Nokia platform is the richest in followers and has even been “hackintoshed” to run the Mac OS 10.3 system. In addition many “gear-heads” are now turning to Maemo – a Linux based OS for Nokias.

Here’s a recap of the Big 4 Mobile Players:

1. Apple iPhone running the Apple OS
2. Nokia running Symbian
3. Motorola (and others) running Google’s Android
4. HTC running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile  platform

Looking Ahead

With the advent of “the common membership site” (everyone will soon have one) integrating mobile devices into the realm of continuity and paid for content is the next logical evolution.

Not only will mobile device manifacturers be able to sway the cool, hip and gotta have it technology gizmo seeking public, but niche content publishers will be able to ride-the-wave of coolness with the exclusivity of member-only content and private access communities.

We’re already planning on generating membership apps for the Nokia Symbian market and want to help memebrship site owners launch their premium content into a whole new world of mobile coolness!

Remember, we also give 1 hr Free consultations on how we can help your business position its membership site, paid content and private community to its greatest advantage!

Benefits of a members forum:

1. One of the things you want to accomplish ASAP after your membership site launches is member interaction. Having a members’ forum is a great way to help facilitate that interaction – not only with you and your staff, but with other members too.
2. Having a forum gives you a way to identify highly active and helpful members who you may decide to turn into forum moderators so they can contribute even more, get recognition and do some of the work you or your staff would have to do anyway.
3. If implemented correctly, a segmented forum allows you to create areas of the forum that only members who blong to a particular membership level can access. This allows you to create even more added value to your premium levels of membership – whether its for a specific course or even a coaching group.

When to launch your forum?

Starting your forum from day 1 of your membership site is probably a bad idea. Until you have reached a particular threshold with your membership, you will probably do more damage than good by launching a members’ forum.

When to launch your forum is a critical decision that is best determined when you create your membership site launch plan and strategies. Your forum is just one aspect of successfully launching (or relaunching) your membership site and if done correctly, can quickly generate hundreds of paying members.

How to get help with your forum?

WishList Member Coder is able to provide expert membership site consulting on an as needed or project basis. If you want to make sure your membership site reaches critical mass and maximum velocity, talk to us about how we can help you get there fast!

Well, the answer is Yes.

We’ll explain why you would want to do this and how to do this in the rest of this article.

WLM is compatible with multiple shopping carts which gives you a bigger choice when integrating an e-commerce solution with your membership site. However, the question is, can you can give your potential members more choices?

It’s a given fact that some people (in fact, a large majority) prefer to make online payments with PayPal because they trust their payment details are secure as well as their identity. Yet, you can’t run an affiliate program through PayPal.

Multiple Payment Options

However, if you could also accept payment via Click Bank (one of the internets largest resources for affiliates and affiliate products) your customers would then have a choice. When a new member goes to join your membership site, you could present them with multiple payment options: PayPal or Click Bank.

For that matter, you could even have a 3rd choice with something like your own, personal branded checkout process using 1ShoppingCart.

Is One Choice Too Many?

Whatever payment solutions you decide on, be warned, split-test your options! Some internet marketers and sales psychologists preach that for every additional choice you give your potential customers, 50% of them will not make any choice at all!

Out of 100 potential customers, this equates to:

• 1 choice = 50 people will make the choice, 50 will just leave
• 2 choices = 25 people will make both choices, 75 will give up
• 3 choices = 12 people will make all 3 choices, 88 will give up along the way

This is why you need to split test offering multiple payment options.

Common sense says that if a potential customer only sees 1 payment choice AND they don’t trust that option, then you’re not making any sales anyway!

Multiple payment options is about 2 things: Trust and Convenience

Your potential customers MUST trust at least one of the payment options you provide them.

Secondly, if they trust multiple payment options, they will usually go with the one that is more convenient for them. Note, this could mean the choose something like PayPal because its convenient for them to protect their identity too.

How to Setup Multiple Shopping Carts

Setting this up is easy. In the WLM plugin dashboard, click on the Integration tab. Next, make sure the Shopping Cart sub-tab is selected (default), and select your first Shopping Cart system you want to integrate from the dropdown list.

After you have followed the instructions and entered any appropriate details (press any “save” buttons you see), just simply select another Shopping Cart to integrate with from the dropdown list and repeat.

Its as simple as that!