Lessons, Tips and Tricks for Selling Online Content

In this second half of my interview with membership site owner Jeff White (see Part 1 here), we discuss pricing, joint ventures and partnerships and marketing of a membership site.

If you’d rather read the transcript, you’ll find it below the video (click on the “Read full post” link or click on the title of this post).

If you’d like to download the mp3 of this interview:
download or listen to the mp3 file. (to download, right click and then “save link as”)

Let me know your thoughts about the discussion in the comments.

Transcript:

MemberCon.com: One of the things that I’ve kind of struggled with and even in just in our first couple of weeks here with membership is how to become more consistent in terms of members. I’ll go a couple of days where I get a few members everyday and ours is $99 a month too, so not the cheapest but certainly not the most expensive in our, you know, the trading subscription sites. And then I’ll go four days with nothing and I’m thinking, “What in the world!” I mean, have you kind of figured out a way to make it more consistent or is this just what membership sites have to deal with?

Jeff White: I think that ebb and flow is just…I think that’s part of the process and I think each business is going to be slightly different from the next in regards to what causes that, what causes this high tides and low tides. For me, I know when the stock market is ugly. A lot of people are going to shy away from it, and so things will slow down when the market gets really ugly and it really doesn’t ever seem to correlate with my own trading with regards to performance maybe that I’m putting up on the website of recent, how good are we doing recently. It never seems to overlay the way I would think with that performance and instead it seems to be when the market is ugly, stock newsletters are just in less demand, and so…I think that’s to be expected. It is a little bit frustrating but one thing that I have found is that when I’m putting out free content on a very regular basis. I do get more foot traffic on the site and there are more people who, therefore, take the free trial and that does certainly help to build up membership as well, and so that’s one thing that I found even when conditions in my market aren’t very good such as when the stock market is down and fewer people naturally want a stock newsletter. It’s better for me to go ahead and give out more of that free content in order to prompt some of that traffic to arrive.

MemberCon.com: Yeah, that…I’m glad you brought that up because that is the question I’ve been struggling with as well as how much of this stuff do I give away. If I give away too much, it’s almost like I’m…they’re getting something on a regular basis and they’re not incentivized, I mean,–

Jeff White: Right.

MemberCon.com: –can we find a good balance there?

Jeff White: You know for me, I think that I have and really, it kind of pulls down to one real basic principle for me which is the free step that I want to give away is going to be conceptual. I’m willing and able and happy to share general concepts that I practice. And so, what I then do with the paid content that I provide is give the specifics that, I want to give that application of that expertise. And so, if I take general concepts and right blog articles about that or put together free videos about general concepts, then I’m giving away stuff that is helpful with people that is pretty timeless stuff. But if they want to know exactly how I’m doing those things tomorrow, then they’ll need to go and get the paid newsletter in order to gain that. And so, that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to give the real tools to the people who are paying for it, and I’m willing to give the general idea to the people who are just stopping by for free.

MemberCon.com: What’s working for you best right now in terms of marketing and the best use of your dollars, is it your own list in building that? Is it creating videos and using tube mobile to spread them all over the world? Can you talk about what you found as effective right now?

Jeff White: Right now, I have found that it is video and I’m doing a lot of free videos. I actually set up a…I guess you can call it a video blog. And I set up a separate site with a .tv domain, and so it’s thestockbandit.tv. And what I do is put out free videos that are generally about five minutes in length, and I’ll put them out about four times a week. And so, I do get a very steady flow of ideas for that…for those free videos and that really, generally, comes from my inbox. Sometimes it comes from an idea that pops into my head that day or something that I encountered in a market and I can take a look back and teach through the rear-view mirror, but I get plenty of questions from people regarding various topics and what I’ll tend to do is just keep running a list of those that come through my inbox and I’ll just create a free video to answer a lot of those questions, and that’s what I found to be not only the best use of my time, but certainly money. It’s very inexpensive to put those together. And so I, you know, in that case, I have the domain for it, I have software to put those videos together, and it’s really just a matter of my time piecing that video together and then uploading it and then I’ll notify my email list that that new video is up. And so, I’m working my list in that regard, but it’s only of a notification rather than sending them lengthy emails to read.

MemberCon.com: So joint ventures were the topic two years ago. Everybody was about joint ventures and partnering with other people who are in the same space. It got kind of disastrous there. Everybody had a, you know, using everybody else’s list and I was wondering, “Where are these new buyers coming from if everybody is using everybody else’s list?” But, have you tried any of that, in partnering with people that have kind of similar sites but maybe a complimentary product that you’re not competing but still maybe the right audience?

Jeff White: I have not done that yet but I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit lately. I think it’s a couple of different sites that has slightly different trading timeframes than I do. So, one of them is a shorter term than I am, and one of them is a little bit longer term than I am. And so, I’ve wondered about if we were to come together, if we may not see a big gross in our subscriber basis, but I think an advantage of that would be that we would gain more exposure to each other’s list and at the same time, I think that people would identify best with the server’s provider that they feel…serves them…let me rephrase this.

MemberCon.com: Sure.

Jeff White: I think that people would identify best with the person that has a style that most closely matches their own. In that way, we’re maybe not serving a lot of new people, but we’re serving the right people, and that’s the whole aim. That’s what is most satisfying in running in all my businesses, getting those emails to say, “Thank you so much for the things that you have taught me,” or “Here’s what I did with this information that you gave me.” And so, serving the right people, I think, is a huge benefit and I think that less sharing or just networking in that regard can be very helpful to get in front of the right people and, of course, they can build your brand awareness in the minds of new prospects, but I really think that the biggest benefit is you end up serving the right people as opposed to just more people who may leave quickly.

MemberCon.com: Have you experimented with any Pay Per Click or Google Advertising?

Jeff White: Very little. I’ve done a little bit of that, but I really have not been able to see a big difference in the bottom line, and so that’s not been something that I’ve done in a consistent bases. What I found works the best is time, and that’s going to be tied to Google and the organic search. I think that SEO or search engine optimization is a very popular topic and especially was a couple of years ago. But I have found that what helps me gain the most of my traffic is just from natural searches in Google. With the Pay Per Click ads, what I found was, as soon as I stop paying for ads, people stop coming to my site and that’s the problem. And so what I wanted was something that was sustainable and low cost or free. So what I did was I spend a lot of time learning about search engine optimization, making sure that each page of my website is geared toward a certain phrase that I want people to search for in Google. So that way, you don’t just optimize your home page, you build a number of free pages on your website so that people can essentially enter your website from a number of different pages. So I don’t look at my home page as the front page. I look at every public page on my website as a possible front door. So if someone searches for a particular term, they may land on the page and then visit my home page but they don’t necessarily visit my home page first.

MemberCon.com: And that’s a good argument, I guess, for more free content because the more free content you put out there, the more Google has to search and index.

Jeff White: Absolutely, which I think is a another major advantage to having a blog which is, of course, you’re going to get a steady flow of people who want that free information but at the same time, it has some big search engine benefits because you’re linking back to a site telling the search engine robot and the spiders that are crawling the web for Google that, “Hey, this is an important website, you need to go index this page.” And especially as you’re using the right term, then you start to naturally come up higher in the rankings for the search results when people visit Google and they type in a select phrase, and you are not having to pay for the Pay Per Click ads. You’re going to be there and you’re going to laugh for a very long time and it doesn’t cost a thing. You just have to spend time cultivating that and Google does require some time. They never specify what it is, but a brand new website that’s optimized perfectly is not going to rank real high in Google. They want to make sure that you’re sustainable from what I can tell. And so, I think you plant the seed and you nurture those whether it’s through search engine optimization or through a blog or the combination of those things, and then you just let time go by and as you start to track those keywords that you’re aiming for, you do start surfacing higher and higher up and then you’re on the top 10. And really, you’ve got to be on that first page of search results to my opinion in order to really get traffic from Google.

MemberCon.com: Where do you go to find out good information about running your site? Is there a specific site for member site owners that you go to or just general SEO? Can you give us a couple of places you like to visit?

Jeff White: Sure. There is a search engine optimization group at Yahoo. That’s a free SEO group. I learned a lot in that group.

MemberCon.com: Anything coming up on your radar that you think is different or new that you’re trying now, that you’re not sure what the results may be, but it’s something you’re given a shot to and trying for year 2009?

Jeff White: You know, I think my effort to put up free videos is something that’s going to require some time to really tell. I know that right now, it’s helping with my existing list that I’m notifying of these videos, but I wonder in the future if search engines will start to index more videos and if those may start popping up higher in the search results as opposed to text-based pages where you’re entering a lot of words that search engines can crawl. I’m wondering if there’s a way to do more video tagging so that the search engines will notice that this is a video page related to this topic and then rank that higher.

MemberCon.com: Good point and I’ve seen that a lot. I think a lot of SEO people are saying, “The moment I put a YouTube video on my page, it helped for whatever reason.” And it’s more anecdotal evidence, I think, that they just say, “For whatever reason my page pops when I put a video on there?” So–

Jeff White: Interesting.

MemberCon.com: –whether or not that’s because YouTube is owned by Google now or just because Google loves multimedia, text, video, audio, a bunch of different things on a page–

Jeff White: Right.

MemberCon.com: –and certainly something to consider. Let me ask you just then about the…as we finish up with the logistics of running this site. I think you and I use the same software. We use aMember to run our sites, anything else you use to do that?

Jeff White: Well, I actually…I have two separate membership sites. One of them I do use aMember and I’ve been extremely satisfied with that. It’s a great product and it offers a ton of functionality. It’s not the most basic software to install, but it certainly offers a lot of different plugin choices and some great ways to run and manage a membership site. My other membership site is one that I pay a private developer to program, and he structured the database and he structured the registration forms and set up the paying up processor and all of that. And so it actually cost me more money to have that done and it has lower functionalities than the aMember does. So in the future, any changes that I would make to my membership site would involve aMember because it is cheaper and it is more functional and it’s much faster to get that completed than it is to really pay for it, a custom programming job.

MemberCon.com: You know, one of things I noticed, you just started doing was offer a one off product which is your StockBandit University. Do you recommend having just single purchase one time things to buy on your site as well, or is it too early to tell?

Jeff White: You know, it’s…I really do think that this is an experiment for me. I’ve never had a single purchase product. It’s always been the membership and the, you know, recurring new fresh content on a regular basis. So this is an experiment to me. So far, it certainly is worth it to me. It’s something I’m very glad I’ve done. I do plan to offer more of these in the future. I think you’re able to hit multiple price points by doing that as well. I think you’re able to share your expertise in different ways. For me, I’m putting out fresh content to monthly subscribers in my newsletter for the following day, and so that’s going to change very regularly, but my one off product is one that is going to include some principles and some strategies and topics that are going to be in place and will not change for, you know, a year or two or three years, something like that. And so, I think that that enables me to probably hit a different segment of my market that I’m not currently reaching, and it also enables me to share my expertise in a slightly different format.

MemberCon.com: All right, last question here is pricing and we kind of touch on it already and maybe I’ll just insert this and that discussion there, but how did you decide on pricing? Did you look around and see what else is out there? Did you just pull out your head, which is basically what I did, and did you test any different pricing levels to see how it worked?

Jeff White: Yes, I did test pricing, and it was very interesting. Initially, I approached this as something that I’m not established. People don’t know who I am. I have already looked at some of the bigger websites in my industry and I know what they charge, and so I should probably try to undercut them on price. So that was my initial approach and most of the bigger names in my industry were charging anywhere from 79 to, you know, $200 a month, and I started out at 39.99. So, I wanted to give that a shot and see if there is any demand and…so I did start to build my subscriber base at that, you know, $40 price point. Well, I did it for a little while and found that I felt like it was worth more than that and I wanted to also experiment on price so I changed it from 39.99 to 69.99. I saw no decrease in membership. I also saw no decrease in new demand. And so I tried that for a little while and then I thought…and I also added some new features as well. And so from there, I felt like I need to bump it up one more time which is where I currently am at 99.99. So, again, that changing price caused no changes with my membership base with the demand that I was seeing, with the number of free trials that were being offered and I take from that a couple of different things. First of all, I think that people perceive too inexpensive of a cost. Cheap is oftentimes equated with lacking value. And so that was something that I certainly want to stay away from, but I don’t know that that scales all the way up to $5000 a month product. So I do think that people will avoid the lowest price products because they perceive that the least amount of value in those. It does, I think, as a product offer, I think it exhibits a lot of confidence to bump the price occasionally. I think there’s also a school of thought that says, “You could keep your existing members at the rates they initially signed up for and it may help with your retention rate.” So the second thing I learned about changing the price structure is really based in the features that are being provided. I think a very basic service that’s really focused in on one feature should find their price point and generally stick with it, but if you begin to offer more features then I think it’s certainly fine to bump the price level according to that. If you’re putting in more work, if you’re providing more value for your members, then I think they will expect to pay and you should expect to receive a little bit more money each month. The balance comes in with at what point do you become a little bit too focused on features and not focused enough on providing good value. One thing that you’ve got to do no matter what industry you’re in, no matter what you’re trying to sell people, you’ve got to be good at what you’re doing or else, first of all, people won’t find it; but second of all, they certainly won’t stay around. And so if you’re in a feel that you definitely know and that you are an expert in and that you’re very good at, then buy all means to it. But I think it’s even once you are to that point, it’s very easy to start thinking that more is better and that many more features to your site is going to add a lot more value. What I found is you can add too many features to where people don’t exactly know where to go once they enter your member area. There may just be some information overload there. So I think it is a fine line to determine when a new feature is added and, of course, which features to retain anytime you go back to the drawing board and determine what’s working best and what is helping the fewest amount of people and perhaps costing you the most amount of time.

MemberCon.com: Right. I think I totally agree with that because we found that when we try to add too many things just trying to explain it all. It’s like, you know, you’ll never know what going to be the most important thing to somebody, but if they get in there and there’s so much in there that they don’t know what to do or where to go, that can hurt your retention as well. It’s almost–

Jeff White: Absolutely.

MemberCon.com: –too much, even if it’s–

Jeff White: Yeah.

MemberCon.com: –the greatest information ever, if it’s too much then they’re not going to keep renewing.

Jeff White: Right. I think that’s, you know, just kind of…you can call it featuritis where you just kind get that disease. You feel the urge to add more and more stuff. And that doesn’t necessarily make it a better site or make it a more valuable place for your members to visit. So for me, I think it’s absolutely fine to experiment. But just because you’ve tried one thing or just because you’ve added a certain feature doesn’t mean you’ve got to retain that forever because you may come to realize that it is not the most effective use of your time or of the member resources and you may be better suited to just focus and do a better job on your core message or the core thing that you’re really offering to people.

MemberCon.com: All right. Well, we’ll probably be breaking this up into two parts, since it’s been a good long interview, but if anyone listening wants to check Jeff’s website, TheStockBandit.com, to see how he’s marketing it and working to get members, you can do that. And, you know, one of the things that Jeff and I were talking about before we’ve started recording is what, you know, where is this all going to go, and to be honest, I have no idea. I just know that I have a lot of questions for people and so maybe I could kind of, in a very selfish way, ask a lot of questions from different people and…I don’t know. What do you think, Jeff? I mean…there seems…one thing that you did mention is that membership sites seem to really be exploding right now for some reason.

Jeff White: I really think it’s a great business model for the web. It’s something that’s going to align you most closely with your target audience, the people that connect the best with you. And then once you’ve got that relationship, you can continue to teach them or to give them exactly what they’re after and you can just give and give as an expert in that industry and you’re catering to the people who need you the most and who are searching for you the most and it’s really a great model. I’m enjoying it thoroughly. I’ve been doing it for five years now, and I don’t see an incoming insight, and it really does seem to be something that’s exploded across the web. I’ve seen a lot of different people move from a free ad-based model to a membership subscription-based model.

MemberCon.com: Yeah.

Jeff White: And I think they will continue to see more and more of that as time goes by.

MemberCon.com: That’s exactly what we did, I mean, we just realized we were never going to make real business revenue on advertising. It was just so saturated. There seemed to be a ton of businesses built on free ads or free content on ads, we just never could make the numbers work.

Jeff White: Right. I think that the content can actually become better once you’re being paid for it than it was you were giving it away for free.

MemberCon.com: No question.

Jeff White: Because obviously it means much more to you and you’ve got much more incentive to do a great job for people, and I really think that it raises the bar for you as an information provider to give it your very best and stay on the cutting edge of your field and continue to offer the best value out there. Whereas, if it’s simply a model that’s paying you based on the number of eyeballs that hit that website and the ad revenue that you can generate, then you may put out media for content that is OK for people but not wonderful, not exact…and not the kind that’s really going to generate a crowd that loves what you’re doing and really appreciates what you’re offering.

MemberCon.com: Right. Yeah there were…to try and compete with the content websites out there in our space which is like TheStreet.com and some others that are doing a lot of free content, it was just…I would never get that many page views, and I found myself, “Well, maybe I could get some more page views if I put out this piece of content” which maybe is not the best thing that you’ve ever done. There was just something about that that I didn’t like, so I figured, “Well, if I can do this for members and just put it out, when I want to put out and not have to worry about.” I mean, traffic is so important because you got to have enough traffic to convert, but it’s a different model altogether.

Jeff White: Yes, absolutely. I think it then just becomes about quality and not solely quantity.

MemberCon.com: All right, Jeff. Well, hey, thanks for your time today. I appreciate it.

Jeff White: Thank you, Tim. I sure enjoyed the conversation.

Tim site marketing, starting a membership site membership site marketing