Lessons, Tips and Tricks for Making Money With Interviews

Rob Booker is a content superhero. I recently spoke with Rob, a friend of mine in the trading business, who creates content and sells it online in that industry. In this two-part interview, we discuss first how he balances giving away free content vs. selling his classes and information, and how he creates urgency and excitement about upcoming classes.

In part two we talk about how he published an E-book for the Amazon Kindle platform.

But first, our discussion about how he markets his content.

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:

Related Links:

- Rob’s website

Transcript:

Tim Bourquin: All right everybody, hello and welcome to MemberCon. Another interview here today, I’m going to speak with Rob Booker. And actually, I’ve spoken with Rob at our other membership site over at Traders Interviews, but he’s also an entrepreneur outside of all the things he does in the trading realm. And so, I wanted to talk to him specifically about one thing today and that was the way he sells content. He just told me about a book that he’s selling on Amazon for the Kindle called, “Forex Strategy 10: Low Risk/High Return Currency Trading”. We’re not going to talk about that obviously, that part of it, but just about selling the content and his ideas for getting the word out there. So, Rob thanks for joining me here.

Rob Booker: It’s good to be here Tim.

Tim Bourquin: So, Rob lives nearby me now and is here in the office which is cool, I don’t have to do the interview over the phone. So, you’ve always had this kind of thing in the middle where you are a trader and you do all that and you’ve got your following there, but you’re an online entrepreneur too and you like to sell content, to put stuff out there. Most guys aren’t into it as much you. You read our MemberCon blog.

Rob Booker: Right. Right.

Tim Bourquin: So, how did that happen? How do you — kind of are in the middle there?

Rob Booker: Well, I’ve gone from trading for myself to being a CTA, which is a Commodities Trading Advisor, so I manage for families and friends and I’m licensed by the National Futures Association. As you know, trading and the world of the markets can be a really lonely endeavor especially early on when you feel like you don’t know very much. So, like some other people, including you and others, I started writing a blog maybe even before the term had been popularized, which turned into a regular column which turned into a newsletter service which turned into a membership site which turned into a huge ball and chain around my neck — no just kidding.

Tim Bourquin: Having to always update it?

Rob Booker: Yeah. And it became an excellent way for me to repeat the concepts that I believe in with respect to trading. It helped solidify those beliefs. It’s so you know everything that I gave out in the subscription site, I felt like I was getting back in spades and it just sort of took on a life of its own. So, it’s been about six years now that I’ve run the membership site, publishing eBooks, content, actual published books, and selling subscriptions right on the website to members that have been around for years and years.

Tim Bourquin: Have you found a good balance between offering the free blog content, offering free eBooks like I saw on your site that you offer and transition those people over to actually become buyers or something?

Read more…

creating content, membership pricing, selling content online free content vs. paid content, how long should a free trial be?, internet marketing, online marketing

A: A lot shorter than you think it needs to be (and by the way, it probably shouldn’t be free, either).

The question of free or low cost trial will be the subject of another post, so for now let’s just discuss the length of the trial. It’s also right up there with the most common question, right behind, “What should I give away to build my list?”

Emile and I haven’t done as much testing in this area as we have with pricing (we’re in the middle of a pretty big “trial-length” test right now on one of our sites). But I’ve talked to a lot of membership site owners about this subject. I’ve also talked to quite a few of our current members and members who canceled during the trial.

Most people think they need to offer a one month / 30 days so that the trial user has time to really dig into the content and determine if it’s right for them. However the user experience is usually much different.

So here’s the shocking truth: nearly all of the members of our membership sites I’ve talked to that canceled during the trial made the decision to do so… during their first visit behind the membership wall and that usually means within 30 minutes of becoming a trial member.

It makes sense though doesn’t it? As much as we’d like to believe that new members will investigate every nook and cranny of our content filled awesomeness, it is their initial first impression (that happens within minutes) that dictates whether they are going to stay on as members or cancel before the trial period ends.

For the vast majority of premium content site owners, a one-day trial will be more than enough time for them to decide.

Now, that said, right away I’d argue that our online trading site is one of those exceptions. We offer trial members access to the most current four audio interviews. These run about 35-40 minutes each and it’s not realistic to think that new members will sit down and listen to all four in one day. Even a few days may be pushing it. So we run a $1 trial that lasts seven days. On the 8th day, they are charged the full-month fee and become regular members.

Site owners who have longer-form content will probably need to give their trial members more time to decide.

But there is another problem with 30-day trials. Aside from being totally unnecessary based on the above, longer trials reduce the urgency a new member has to check out the site. When a new member has a month to evaluate the site, they may come in very briefly to see what’s going on, but often decides that they’ll “really check it out thoroughly tomorrow.” Tomorrow becomes the next day, then next week, and before you know it, thirty days has come and gone.

So they say to themselves, “Well self, I didn’t have time to check out that site. So I think I’ll cancel for now and I’ll just sign up again later when I do have time.” There goes your trial member.

Making your trial shorter forces your new member to go in, consume your great content (it IS great, right?) and maybe even take some action based on what they’ve learned. The bottom line is that if they don’t take action based on their membership, you probably aren’t going to keep them on board past the trial.

If you’re offering a long trial right now, consider shortening it greatly and continue to do so until you see conversions going down. You’ll find a sweet spot in there somewhere that is long enough to give your new members time to truly evaluate your content, but not so long that they put it off until another time.

I’d love your thoughts on the subject!

creating content, membership pricing, selling content online free trial, how long should a free trial be?