Lessons, Tips and Tricks for Selling Online Content

I was on the phone today with a friend who has a membership site. We occasionally get on the phone and discuss strategies and techniques that are working, along with what’s not working for our sites. I could talk for hours about that stuff and find that just talking about what we are doing brings me new “a-ha” moments and I try to steal as many of his good ideas as I can.

One of the topics that came up was the percentage of our email subscribers that sign up for the email list but never confirm. It’s the curse of the double opt-in. A visitor comes to your site, puts in their email address and then never clicks on the confirmation link in the email that follows. There are a variety of things you can do to make sure that number is as low as possible. I’ll show you what we do in a moment.

It had been a while since I checked that percentage so I thought I’d share it with you for several of our sites. Below are graphics of two of our email lists. One from our membership site Trader Interviews and another from one of our niche sites where we sell e-Books and other online content:

As you can see, in the last 30 days, 17.40% of the subscribers are “unverified”, meaning they never confirmed their email sign up by clicking on the confirmation email link. 5.70% have unsubscribed. Both numbers are surprising to me. The former because I thought that number was actually lower and the later because I thought it was much higher. (See my post, “High Fives For Unsubscribes” for my opinion of unsubscribes.)

I’ve done all kinds of searches to see if those numbers are in line with other services in the industry but have come up short. All I can do at this point is try to lower those numbers and use our own history as the benchmark. Please leave a comment if you know where I might find this information. I’ve found that most site owners don’t share the information, which is understandable. I’m not comfortable showing my actual numbers yet, which is why they are covered – maybe I will be down the road.

For the niche content site that isn’t a membership site but has individual information products for sale, here’s how it looks:

Eerily similar on the “unverified” number, even though the two sites are in two completely different niches. But perhaps not so surprising considering we do the exact same things to try to get them on the list and confirmed.

However, the unsubscribe rate is much lower on this one. My sense is that the “attention span” of this industry is longer than the first one, but that’s just a hunch. I’ll need to dive into that number a bit more to see what may be going on.

Much has been written and debated about the double opt-in vs. single opt-in method. Industry best practices say double-opt in is the more ethical way to run your list. No one is added to your list who has not expressly given permission to be added. I’ve run both types of lists and I can tell you that while double opt-in lists will grow more slowly, the quality is much higher and conversion rates on sales to those lists are much better. Remember, I’m not in this to build huge lists. I want lists of action takers and buyers. If they can be huge too, well, awesome. But in my experience, the larger the list, the less responsive simply because a larger list is less targeted.

More niche = more passion = more action takers.

What we do to increase the opt-in as much as possible is be as clear as possible about what they do next. Tell your potential subscriber EXACTLY what they need to do next every step of the way.

In our case, if they subscribe using a form on a regular page, they get this graphic immediately after they hit submit:

If they enter their email in the lightbox, they see this:

It looks a bit like an error message and requires them to click “OK” to make it go away. I was a little concerned about it at first but our “unverified” percentage went down when we implemented it because the subscriber is told exactly what they need to do to get the carrot we offered for their email address.

Double opt-in is more work – no question. But do a few things to make sure the subscriber knows exactly what to expect, and you’ll grow an action-taking list that performs.

Now we need to figure out how to get that “unverified” number down to 10%. That’s my goal for next month. How low can we get it to go? We’ll see.

Tim email marketing, taking action double opt-in vs single opt-in email marketing

As more and more content creators realize that selling unique and useful content via membership sites and subscriptions is the way to go, the competition for dollars and attention will increase.

We all have a unique opportunity window now to be early-birds to the party so don’t wait! Any excuse you are using to hold off on launching your membership site, e-book or subscription product just delays putting dollars in your pocket.

Taking action is important, but proper execution will make the difference between a couple new members a month and a couple per day.

That said, I’m seeing a lot of bloggers sabotage their efforts from the beginning. The problem is that they “half-ass” their sales copy and even bury their product near the bottom of their site. It’s almost as if they are apologizing to their audience for wanting to make money. I see this more often with bloggers who have been blogging for peanuts (i.e. Google AdSense ads or low-cost 125×125 buttons) and have finally decided to charge for their content. They are scared to death that someone isn’t going to “like” them anymore or they might have a few people unsubscribe from their blog or newsletter because they are trying to sell something.

There are two separate issues here.

1. Many bloggers view even the most subtle sales copy as “hype” – which is why their aversion to anything sales-related keeps their blogs as hobbies instead of turning into true businesses. Copy that sells in a straightforward, “story-like” way isn’t hype and bloggers need to understand the difference.

2. I started making money with my membership site the day I realized that I should be happy whenever someone unsubscribes because they are helping me keep my email list full of prospects and not freebie hunters. I pay for every subscriber on my email service so I want people who aren’t going to buy to remove themselves as quickly as possible.

Bottom line: it takes a shift in thinking, but the moment you realize that buyers on your email list are far more important than the pure size of your list, you’ll start making money. I’ll take a list of 200 buyers over a list of 20,000 “fans” any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

As long as you are delivering a quality message, give yourself a high-five every time someone unsubscribes from your list because they think you are trying to sell something to them. It’s one less person you are wasting time on who will never buy.

Your job as content creator is not to get as many “awesome post!” comments as possible. You can’t build an online business with adoring fans. You build it with paying customers.

Tim creating content, starting a membership site, taking action effective website copy, writing good sales copy

I just finished watching a terrific discussion on Tony Robbins’ site with Frank Kern and John Reese.

I consider myself pretty cynical and very skeptical (thinks I’m working on), but this is probably the first time I’ve felt “called out” by those attitudes and it was a wake up call for me. And while Tony wasn’t talking to me personally, of course, in some ways I think this video was meant for me.

You may feel the same way after watching:

http://tonyrobbinstraining.com/320/interview-with-frank-kern-and-john-reese/

Tim taking action Frank Kern, John Reese, Tony Robbins