Without question the number one, most asked question received about membership sites is this: How do I get members to join my membership?
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Introduction
I’ve broken a case study/strategy down into two simple categories that we’re going to cover today…
Initial Members. Ongoing Members.
After all, that’s what you want, right? People to join NOW and people to CONTINUALLY join as time passes.
So, let’s talk about how to get this to happen…
Capping Your Memberships, Part 1: Initial Members.
Let me tell you a quick story about two Internet Marketers.
I tell you this story to give you a marketing lesson that I have learned (from them) experience to be incredibly profitable.
I want you to pay attention and see if you spot a theme here.
A few years ago these two guys launched a membership site.
We sold out 1,500 memberships in a few days at $29.97 per month.
Not long after that, they launched another site that what very similar to the first site, and sold out 1,000 memberships at $29.97 per month, likewise in a few days.
When they launched their training site It sold out 1,000 memberships at $27.00 per month in less than a week as well.
Do you spot the pattern?
The theme I want you to notice is this –
Sold out … within a few days.
There is something incredibly effective about CAPPING the number of memberships that you make available. Nobody wants to miss out.
Especially when it’s something they are very interested in.
That’s the best combination for sales anywhere … demand and limit.
You simply won’t
find a better recipe for getting people to take action NOW and join a
membership site. Period.
So, what I want to encourage you to strongly consider is this –
Limit the number of memberships available
So why place a limit on units sold?
“If you don’t set a limit, you’ll sell 500 copies in a year. If you do set a limit, you’ll sell 500 copies in a week.”
The point is this: a limit on a desirable product makes consumers take action now.
(Who hasn’t scrambled all over town looking for a PS3 or iPad2 when they were launched or some similar item at Christmas time? Demand. Limit. Action.)
What they have personally done with 3 of the 5 membership sites that they have personally owned, is place a limit on the number of spots they make available.
And all three times they have sold out … very quickly … without doing a big “launch” with my buddies.
Whether it’s 250, 500, or 1,000 (or some other number), you’ll likely get a lot more subscribers early on by placing a cap
As an example, here is a screenshot of the verbiage that internet marketers like to use…
Notice the red “update” in the screenshot.
That’s another very powerful way to get visitors to join … as you sell memberships, update the site with the shrinking number to let visitors know that time is running out.
Now, some people already know about limits and plan to do this.
But, there’s a second part to this process that I want to mention.
Capping Your Memberships, Part 2: Ongoing Members.
After the memberships have sold out, it’s time to remove your order link so no one else can join.
But –
That’s not the end of your sales!
Not by a long shot.
When you sell out, place an opt-in form for an “announcement list” for those who visit the site and are interested in getting a membership spot when they become available.
As good as your membership is, there WILL be people who drop out for a variety of reasons that are completely unrelated to your site or its content.
This announcement list prevents you from “wasting” traffic to your site with them leaving empty-handed.
Instead, you grow a list from that traffic of highly interested prospects who you allow to join your membership when spots become available.
(More on this in a moment)
Key: After the visitor joins this announcement list, have them redirected to a RELATED offer of some kind. Many will order!
But, that’s not even the point. That’s just bonus money. J
The point is to use this announcement list to get ONGOING members for your site.
Here’s how you do it…
At some period between 48-96 hours after the visitor joins the announcement list, have an autoresponder message go out informing them that a spot has opened up for them to join.
At this point, they are still hot for your information.
And, at this point, you likely will have had some cancellations just by the law of averages.
Again, let me
refer to an example of an email that goes out 48 hours after someone subscribes
to the announcement list…
[Mmebership XYZ] {!firstname}, there is an opening for you if you join today
Hi {!firstname},
Just wanted to give you a quick heads up about MembershipXYZ.site.
I’ve had a few cancellations for various reasons which have opened up a few spots.
SIDEBAR: Just to let you know, the cancellations generally have nothing to do with the content of the site, but rather different unrelated issues. Illness forced one person to cancel. Another got sent overseas on active duty. One husband canceled because his wife had already joined earlier in the day!
Anyway, there are a few spots available.
Not enough for me to send out a mailing to my entire list and certainly not enough to get my affiliates involved in promoting.
But, since you’re on the pre-announce list, I thought I’d let you get one of the spots.
To join (or re-familiarize yourself with the details) visit http://www.MembershipXYZ.site/openings.html
I’m looking forward to having you as a member.
Best of success,
Your Name Here
(Feel free to modify this message for your own use, providing REAL cancellation reasons that you’ve been given that have nothing to do with your site.)
What you’re going to share in this autoresponder email can be the ABSOLUTE TRUTH.
Whatever reasons for the cancellations, stated there in the autoresponder – you DO NOT need to make up stories.
New spots open up weekly, but not enough to send out a mailing to everyone on your lists.
Nor is there enough to place an order link back at the main page.
Nor are there enough openings to get affiliates to promote.
But, there is just enough to automatically notify people on the announcement list of availability and send them to a secondary order page.
Note: And if you find that you are “caught up” and sold out in memberships again, you can either place a “sold out” sign on the secondary order page or you can move your autoresponder from 48 hours to 4 weeks or some date in the future.
The bottom line is this: you get demand for INITIAL sales and you also give yourself ONGOING sales.
I encourage you to set up a cap as I’ve described it here. It should prove to be very beneficial to you both short and long term.
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