Kajabi – A Business Owner’s Nightmare

You won’t find us promoting Kajabi from Andy Jenkins here. We’ve actually had a number of clients contact us asking us what we think about Kajabi. Well, we’ve watched the video, we’ve read between the lines and we’ve looked at the service Kajabi is offering as any business owner should look at it – from an investment perspective. And we can say with confidence – “We Are NOT Impressed!”

Kajabi is being promoted as a “Marketing and Content Management” platform. So let’s look at that in detail.

In the video, Andy tries to “Wow” us with “Kajabi This and Kajabi That” – however, we’ve seen “smoke and mirror” promotions before. So let’s look at the “features” in detail.

Memberships & Mobile Devices

One of the big questions with membership sites is this: How Can an App for a Mobile Device Help You and Your Membership Site?

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!

How can a members forum help my membership?

Membership sites are all about creating a following. Having a community of like minded individuals all discussing and consuming content around a specific topic is a great way to create a successful following. Yet, not all membership sites implement a forum successfully.

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!

Multiple Shopping Cart Integrations?

One question some of our clients have is: can multiple shopping cart solutions be integrated at the same time?

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!