Lessons, Tips and Tricks for Selling Online Content

Part 1 of 2

Don McAllister owns a successful membership site that started as a humble podcast back in 2005. He built his membership entirely from scratch and eventually quit his full-time job to focus on the membership site as a business, ScreenCastsOnline.com.

Don has a tremendous reputation within the Mac community and in this 2-part interview he talks about how he built his membership site and continues to attract a loyal audience for his weekly Mac tutorial videos. Don breaks all the “rules” when it comes to membership sites, including not auto-renewing his memberships. But he has a specific reason for not doing so and it works for him.

4 ways to watch/listen/read:

1) Listen to the audio here (click on the triangle play button):

2) Download the mp3 file here
3) Read the transcript (below the video)
4) Watch the video:

Transcript:

Tim – Membercon.com: Hello everybody. Thanks for joining me at MemberCon.com for another interview with a membership site owner. We’re going to be speaking with Don McAllister. His website is ScreenCastsOnline.com. I’ve known Don for a few years now ever since back when I owned the podcast in New Media Expo and Don was one of the early adaptor podcasters that I learned about early on probably back in 2005 or so. So, we’re going to talk to Don about how he turned his site into a membership site and some recent tips and tricks that he’s learned about attracting new members. So, Don thanks very much for joining me on the show today.

Don McAllister: No problem Tim. Nice to speak to you as always.

Tim – Membercon.com: Well, when did you first start your podcast?

Don McAllister: Well, the podcast actually started back in the summer of 2005 so it was quite an early podcast. It’s one of the first podcasts really that came out. And when I started it, it was, a hobby podcast basically. I was generating content and I’m just throwing it out there for free probably for three or four months. So, it was very much a passion of mine, you know? It’s all to do with the Mac. ScreenCastsOnline is a video tutorial site and each week I would create a video tutorial using a screen capture technology. So these will be screen casts, hence the word ScreenCastsOnline. And I basically take people through, using the Mac, using the latest Mac software, and using the operating system. Really just sort of helping people through, how to get the most out of the Mac. And, it was something I really enjoyed doing.

Tim – Membercon.com: And so your target audience is basically anybody with an Apple product or basically a Mac computer?

Don McAllister: Yeah. Yeah. Really, speaking, although it’s quite interesting in that I do get, Windows users as well who are interested to find out what all the fuss is about the Mac. I mean, I was sort of caught away as well at the time because, the Mac sort of gained in popularity significantly over the last three or four years especially over here in the UK and in Europe. So, I still get lots of people who aren’t Mac users, but still are interested in possibly switching across to the Mac and really just want to see what it’s all about. And they just can catch some of the free content and start to understand what it is that makes the Mac so attractive and why it draws so many people in and people enjoy using the Mac so much.

Tim – Membercon.com: So, a lot of our listeners are probably in the position you were in back in 2005. You’ve got free content you’re creating. You realized there’s an audience for this. At what point did you decide, “I can monetize this. I can actually turn this into a business?”

Don McAllister: Yeah. Well, it was a gradual process. I did sort of have one eureka moment. But really the thing that seeded the idea was the fact that people started to make suggestions about sending donations in because obviously, I was working full time. I was working quite a few hours during the weekends putting the show together because it did take quite a bit of assets to put content together. a video isn’t easy at the best of times and sort of creating sort of like – well, at the time they run about 20 minutes, 25-minute tutorials. It was taking a lot of my time. So, people sort of did start to get a lot of benefit from the content and they sort of realized that I was putting much effort in. And I did start to get queries, some people saying, “Look, can we send you a donation to help out with your costs, etc?”

And I was sort of encouraged by that. It wasn’t something that I initiated. It was very much initiated by the audience. And so I did set up some, donations that people could donate some cash. And that sort of started me off thinking along the lines of well, if people are willing to pay donations, perhaps if I start to either create more content or deliver extra value in some way that there might be a way of formalizing the arrangement and actually starting up sort of like a membership system.

I didn’t really want to go down the advertising route. I sort of approached people to do advertising and at the time, podcasts were very much an unknown thing. And I didn’t feel at that time that advertising was going to – it wouldn’t really generate anything significant. But, the membership sign up thing I thought well, if I can produce quality content and produce it regularly, getting that revenue would help me buy new equipment, etc. So, after probably ’cause I did it free for about four months and I’d started to take donations and then it was probably another three months or so before I sort of realized, well perhaps premium content was the way to go. And I sort of set up the membership system at that point.

Tim – Membercon.com: Did you have a full-time job while you had started this?

Don McAllister: Pretty much so. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a bit vague now ’cause it’s like four or five years ago now. But basically I was still working full time. But when I decided to go full time with the membership, I decided to drop the full-time job. Because there was no way I could do everything I wanted to do and keep a full-time job at the same time. So, it was a bit of a leap of faith. There was some questioning there, there was a block of a month or two, but I sort of made the decision I wanted to go with the membership scheme to go full time really and make a proper go of it.

Tim – Membercon.com: Uh-hum. Which is great. It was obviously a good decision and you’re full time at this now correct?

Don McAllister: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it worked really well. I mean it took awhile to ramp up. You know the first month or two was pretty scary because, these sorts of things they don’t take off overnight. It’s a very gradual process to build the numbers up. But I sort of tried to look at multiple revenue streams rather than just relying on the membership in case the membership figures didn’t go that well.

One of the eureka moments I had was to actually look at not just advertising, but sponsorship. So, to get a couple of vendors interested in me producing tutorials for them to put out on the show. See initially I couldn’t really get sponsorship because I was an unknown force. people really didn’t know me in the Mac community and they didn’t know my work. So, I went with affiliate arrangements initially. So, I’d do a show about a particular product and then I get a discount code for the viewers so that they could see the tutorial. they could understand the product. And at the end of that if they were still interested, they could then go ahead and purchase it at a discount plus I get some commission.

So by having both the membership and that sort of affiliate deals in the early days that, sort of cushioned me through the period whereby I could start ramping up. I also did sort of not so much consultancy, but production work for the companies as a paid job. So, there were two or three different ways I could earn some revenue. And that sort of eased me into the process of going down the membership route.

Tim – Membercon.com: And I like that because when we think of membership sites, we often think that that’s it. You’ve actually combined sponsorship and membership to create a bigger piece of the pie.

Don McAllister: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. And it was very much, a safety net really at the early days. I meant it’s at the point now where the membership numbers are significant and if I wanted to well, I can now decide whether or not I want to do sponsorship or if I want to do. I sort of stopped doing commissioned work to be honest. Because it was so labor intensive. It helped me through the early days, but now the membership has grown so that I haven’t really got the need. It’s great to get extra revenue in obviously if I want to, but I tend to push the work away now and just focus on sort of delivering the cold product, which is, the ScreenCastsOnline, which is the thing that I have memberships site built around.

Tim – Membercon.com: We’re you concerned at all when you went from the free to the paid model? Did you get some pushback? I think that’s a big concern for people who are considering that jump.

Don McAllister: Well, I was really concerned about it. I mean it was a leap of faith and a leap into the unknown because I really didn’t know how people would actually respond to that. To be honest with you though I think the fact that I sort of was giving up the day job as well sort of validated the decision in some people’s eyes. Because they realized that I was taking the risk in going full time. So, I got tons of support from people saying that, “We’re behind you. Great. you go for it.” I think literally I’ve had two e-mails from people who said, “Oh, you sold and podcast should be free,” which surprised me really. I didn’t get any more of a pushback than that, you know?

Obviously, there probably were people who just sort of didn’t, subscribe and didn’t make it known that they were displeased, but the actually pushback? No it’s very limited. Let’s say two e-mails at the most of people just expressing, their feelings that they thought all content should be free which obviously is bonkers, you know?

Tim – Membercon.com: Yeah. Absolute rubbish. Sure. To use an English term.

Don McAllister: Yeah.

Tim – Membercon.com: Well, how did you decide on pricing early on and is it the same as it is now? Because back then, you don’t have anything to really compare it to, to decide.

Don McAllister: Yeah. That’s right. Well, I sort of took the approach. I mean it’s something that I struggled with for ages, you know? It’s so hard to know how to price something, as you say, especially if there’s nothing to base it on. So, I sort of took the decision early on to try and price it low, probably too low in retrospect. To price it low with the idea of, well the lower the price was the more people would take up the membership and then, I’d make the money upon numbers. So, I wanted a ridiculously low level of I think the original one was $25 for six months. Which, when I think about it now that’s like six months’ worth of half hour video tutorials at $25 dollars. It’s really low.

Tim – Membercon.com: Yeah.

Don McAllister: So over time I’ve sort of pushed that, but it’s low now. I mean what’s happened over time is obviously as I built up this back catalogue tutorials one of the propositions now when someone joins as a member is they get immediate access to the back catalogue. Well, that’s over 200 shows now. So, that in itself has a value. So, the initial joining fee is still only $57, but that’s for three months membership. But that includes access to the back catalogue.

And going forward, I’ve sort of kept the renewal late low because once people have become members again I didn’t want to start sort of messing things around by sort of increasing the charges. People are already joined. So, that’s still relatively cheap. That still is $25 for six months. But that’s only for existing members. There’s this premium of $57 you have to pay to join up. But again, people still says that’s too cheap. Yeah. I’ll probably push that up gradually over time. But it’s very difficult to strike a balance to know, where the sweet spot is really for people.

Tim – Membercon.com: That’s something I didn’t know that you get access to everything. I mean we, and just from my own experience, had a little trouble with that finding that people may either (a) get overwhelmed with all that content or just join for the initial period and then grab everything and then leave. Have you found any of that?

Don McAllister: Yeah. It’s difficult to track to be honest. I’m sure that does happen. Yeah I’m sure it happens, but, the rate of people dropping off is relatively low. So, once people tend to join – there are people who just want to, get the back catalogue and that’s it and then they will probably leave.

Because it’s quite a contemporary show and I never really record it more than a week or two weeks in advance, it’s always new stuff and it sort of transformed as well as it went into a bit of a recommendation engine as well. So the call membership sort of follow the show both for up-to-date information on the latest software as it comes out, and they can keep abreast with what’s happening and get up to speed with things quickly. But it’s also I get lots of feedbacks from people saying well, “I haven’t got time really to sit down and check it out all the new software as it comes out. So, what I tend to do now is wait for you to cover it and then I can assess it from watching a half hour video and then decide if it’s for me or not.”

Tim – Membercon.com: Interesting.

Don McAllister: So, it’s various things. It’s training but it’s also a recommendation engine. And it also, helps people with their busy lives so they don’t have to worry about checking everything out. They can just wait for me to do it and sort of come in on the back of that.

Tim – Membercon.com: And then after that three months of their initial membership it looks like it doesn’t automatically renew. They probably get an e-mail to renew?

Don McAllister: Yeah. I terribly went with the option of not allowing recurring. I did start initially with, when people join they could sign up as either a nonrecurring membership or a recurring membership. But I found that, even though it was plain as day that, this is what they were signing up for, I’d still get feedback from people saying, “You’ve just taken money out of my PayPal account. What for?” Because they haven’t realized that they’d signed up for a recurring membership the very first time. So, I decided really to stop doing that and again sort of turn it around into a bit of a sales point in the, when you join as member it’s not an opt-in, you have to opt-in after the initial membership period to start renewing. I think that sort of gives people if you buy something at $57 you sort of always like to think, “Well that’s going to be $57 for every six months or whatever, and do I really want to do that?” But if you know that you’re just paying for the initial payment period and then you have to opt in after that to remain a member, I just saw that as the easiest way to manage for me. And I think it probably is probably more attractive to people as well.

Tim – Membercon.com: Yeah. And you offer a seven-day money back guarantee? Do you find that that puts people over the edge?

Don McAllister: Difficult to say. It has been taken up a couple of times, but again that’s based on people’s misconception. They might have thought there were more shows about a certain product that were available and when they looked at the catalogue they realized that it’s much more of a mixture of tutorials. That tends to be, the main reason why people might call them. But again, I’ll be surprised if over the four years, I’ve had more than a dozen, refunds I’ve had to do, within the seven-day guarantee no risk thing. So the take up on that is very, very low.

More in Part 2…

Tim creating content, membership pricing, starting a membership site Don McAllister, membership site videos, ScreencastsOnline.com