5 Reasons Why People Will Join Your Membership Site

Getting members to sign up to your membership site is one thing; keeping them is quite another. Here are 5 ideas that will get members to sign up, stay and keep coming back for more.

1. Give Them A High-Value Free Sample

Visitors are coming to your site (and others) looking for a solution to their problem. If you can provide that solution at a reasonable cost. they will keep coming back again and again. But there is also a lot of junk out there, so don't give them something they can get elsewhere on the Internet; make your solution applicable, but also unique.

2. Create A Membership Network

People are generally sociable and like to connect with other like-minded individuals. Create a forum or even a private Facebook group where members can get together and discuss issues affecting them in your membership niche. It also offers you another arena where you can promote other products that may be of interest to them.

3. Offer A Guarantee

Before people are going to sign up for a membership, they want to know they can cancel at any time. Offer them up front a 30-day no-questions-asked guarantee that allows them to cancel at any time. It can be the incentive that pushes them over the edge and signs them up.

4. Ask Them How You Can Help

Stuck for ideas of content to create next? What better way than to ask your members what they would like to see. You'll get a ton of ideas and it will be easy to market to them being it is what they asked for. Survey Monkey allows you to create simple surveys for free. There are also paid versions of survey programs that you can get that contain more survey features.

5. Use A Drip Feature

There are basically two types of content delivery with a membership site - dripped and all-at-once. With the all-at-once type, members get access to everything in the member's area at the time they subscribe (usually at a paid level membership). In this type of membership, the only incentive to stay as a member is to get future content as it is added.

Under the dripped content feature, they can get the same member's area content, but it is drip-fed to them on a routine basis such as one a week. It is more of an incentive to stay to get the same content delivered over time instead of all at once. Both membership types are good and have their place depending on how they are marketed.

Creating a membership website is a great way to set up recurring, passive income. You build the website and create the content once, and you receive recurring weekly, monthly or quarterly payments. For an easy to follow guide, download my free checklist, How To Start A Membership Website, at https://jonallo.com/membership

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Competitive Positioning for Nonprofits

How to Create a Brand Positioning Statement

It's an important question every organization must ask themselves: what sets you apart from the competition?

Notice I said "organization." Don't think that just because you're part of a nonprofit that you don't need to put time and effort into branding! Nonprofits need to be aware of the link between a brand's strategic value and its organizational impact.

Here are a few things that can happen if you don't put the time and effort into creating this simple yet powerful statement:

* You'll probably be confused with similar organizations.

* Your messaging will be all over the place.

* Potential donors won't trust you.

It's true that big charities have the benefit of a marketing team: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a director of global brand and innovation, while UNICEF has a chief of brand-building.

Fortunately, even if it's just you, it's not overly difficult to come up with a positioning statement that will set you apart from your charitable competition. That is, if you're willing to do some research and deep thinking before you start typing.

What Is Brand Positioning?

First, let's cover the definition of brand positioning. It's the art of matching your marketing message with the beliefs, feelings and desires of your ideal customer.

You do that effectively by making yourself "visible" as the kind of organization an individual would be attracted to.

However, this statement isn't customer-facing like your tagline is. Think of it as an internal statement that supports ideas before you develop specific marketing messaging.

It's also important to remember nonprofit brand positioning is a bit different than for-profit branding. Here's why statements are different for a charity vs. for a for-profit business: you want people to donate to your cause, but you're not focused on messaging around the lowest prices like Walmart is, or on the biggest showroom selection like Ikea is.

Competitive positioning for nonprofits is more focused on the "why": what is your mission? Your product is the good you're doing.

For example, UNICEF's "why" is "to protect the rights of every child."

UNICEF isn't focused on undercutting their competition or saying they're the best charity out there. (Also, some charities wish to collaborate and support others in their efforts, not necessarily compete against them.)

How to Create a Non-For-Profit Positioning Statement

Now that we've clarified the difference, let's look at how to create your nonprofit positioning statement:

Define your unique selling proposition (USP).

It's great that there are so many nonprofits supporting various causes, but this means that people are faced with an overwhelming number to choose from. You want them to pick yours.

While you're not selling a product, you are selling a commitment-whether that's to provide clean water to villages or save turtles from extinction. Your USP is something unique that you have to offer.

Like a small business owner does competitive research before defining his or her brand, you need to do the same for your charitable organization. Conduct some research on similar charities and find out:

* Who's their audience?

* How are they positioning their brand?

* What are they doing well?

* What are they doing poorly?

Here's one of the ways that charity:water sets themselves apart from other similar nonprofits. They don't focus solely on the fact that they provide clean drinking water to underdeveloped countries. They highlight that they prove every project "with GPS coordinates and remote sensors to ensure water is always flowing."

Don't be afraid to be bold.

Think of creative ways to encourage potential donors to give to your cause. A website with a few lackluster paragraphs and a donate button isn't going to cut it. Neither is a bunch of copy that has the same messaging as similar charities.

Traditionally, nonprofits have focused on safe, neutral messaging; that's changed now. Just look at F**k Cancer, a health organization working for early detection and prevention of cancer worldwide!

While you don't need to use expletives in your nonprofit brand positioning statement, tagline, logo or other materials, think outside "we do good" messaging and be a bit edgy.

Tell your full story.

Don't make potential donors try and figure out why they should support your initiative. Spend some time thinking deeply about your nonprofit positioning statement as it relates to your story.

Did a family member deal with the disease you're raising funds to eradicate? Make it personal. Did you become passionate about animal rights when you adopted a pet from a shelter? Consider that angle.

Take a look at your About Us page for inspiration. Here's a local dog rescue's story that is part of everything they do.

Create a narrative around your brand rather than only focusing on what you do. It's especially important for charities to do this well, as many people are naturally suspicious of people asking for money.

Share the knowledge.

It's one thing to come up with great nonprofit positioning, but getting everyone on board is essential. Ideally, your team should be involved in developing your brand positioning strategy.

At the very least, they need to understand why it's there and how to use it. Everyone who's a part of your organization is a brand ambassador, so give them the tools they need to spread the word to potential donors, family, friends, the grocery store clerk...

Once you've created your nonprofit positioning statement, don't just forget it in the depths of a desk drawer or in a file folder on your PC. Refer to if often: when you're writing website copy, developing logo designs and reviewing materials someone else has created.

By using it to influence everything you create, you'll have a consistent message across all of your marketing collateral, leading to increased awareness, trust and donations.

Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.

As a result of working with Susan and her team, clients feel confident and relieved knowing their online marketing is in trustworthy and caring hands so they can focus on building their business with peace of mind at having a perfect support system in place to guide them every step of the way.

Visit http://www.ultimatewebsiteguide.ca and download your FREE "Ultimate Guide to Improving Your Website's Profitability - 10 Critical Questions You Must Ask to Get Maximum Results".

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How The Internet Came to Be and Why It Adversely Affects You

We all us the internet, whether we like it or not. Consider that there are over 8.97 billion mobile connections existing today, according to GMSA real-time intelligence data. That is more than the estimated population of the Earth, which is 7.71 billion, according to estimates done by the UN.

So how did the internet get its start? A number of factors came into play. The internet technically started in 1983. This was because ARPANET adopted TCP/IP. ARPANET was developed under the direction of the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). The TCP/IP protocol suite was designed in 1970s by two DARPA scientists.

The latest version of TCP/IP IPv6 can provide the internet with approximately 3.403 x 10 to the 38th power IP addresses. For all practical purposes this is close to infinity.These are unique public addresses. This would allow every device, whether it be your smart phone, toaster oven, microwave, automobile, everything that runs on electricity and anything embedded in your body, that is powered by electricity, could theoretically be connected to the internet. This means, theoretical speaking, everybody on the planet and all their electrically powered devices, could be monitored by the internet. This means everything that is considered smart, because they are using a microprocessor, BIOS, RAM memory and networking circuitry, hard-wired or wireless could be connected on the internet. Can you say 1984 is about to happen. You read the book and were probably made to read this one in high school or maybe in University. The premise of this novel was very horrifying.

Let's face it, everything we do is connected to the internet, Every time you buy something in the grocery store, the internet is involved. All banking transactions are recorded on some lonely data server, which could be located anywhere in the world. Even when you use cash, this transaction gets recorded somewhere on some server located on some server farm.

When you drive down the road and are recorded speeding on a traffic camera, this is also recorded somewhere using the internet, When you walk into a shopping mall, everything you do is caught on camera, using the internet to allow someone to monitor your every move. All of this is recorded and saved forever or at least until the server breaks down and not backed up. Everything you say on social media is recorded and saved on some data base and will never be erased. In fact certain social media giants allow us to their software, knowing full well that everything you say and record becomes their exclusive property. You know who these social media giants are. But we continue to use their software and allow it to reside on our computers, collecting our personal ideas and social comments. No wonder certain law enforcement agencies love these social media giants. Do you blame them?

According to some estimates there are 1900 operational satellites orbiting the Earth, launched by 40 countries. How many of these are spy satellites? Nobody really knows, except the countries who launched them. Think about this, the internet can be accessed by using satellites.You do the math. Certain search engines can give you access to satellite imagines that will show any village, town or city in the world, from the perspective of standing in a street. This is not in real-time, but is that far off with the advancements happening in computer technology and the internet.

So we can see the internet is adversely affecting us, as it can be and is being to used to monitor everything we do. Privacy is golng down the drain.

Best Regards

Privacy is going down the drain because of the internet. However if your computer is showing signs of age or even worse it decides to die some repairs will be required. You mostly likely will want to keep accessing the internet. Click here to discover how you fix your laptop with the costly repair bill, or worse having buy a new one

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Complete Guide To Control The Bounce Rate Of Your ECommerce Site

A little bounce rate is quite normal. But, when your site experience higher of it, it's scary. You are obviously losing a considerable number of visitors who could have otherwise stayed and ordered something. So, what's making them move out of your site so sooner i.e. within 5 seconds? Yes, a bounced visitor is someone who has left the site within just 5 seconds of visiting without making a move to any other page or pages. For this reason, bounce rate is considered as one of the chief success metrics by the retailers. The lesser it is, the better.

Besides, the bounce rate is also taken as a parameter by Google to rank the site and hence higher rate can take your site down in the search engine results. Consequently, a climbing bounce rate is an alarm to the eCommerce merchants. There are many effective ways to keep it under check and push visitors to step ahead in the conversion funnel of your site. Here they are.

Optimise the position of every CTA (Call-to-action)

The only thing that can drive a visitor from any of the web pages to the checkout point is a CTA or Call-to-action tab. So, check whether the CTAs of your site is positioned appropriately at the most obvious places which visitors can see instantly and take decisions about checkout. Besides, you need to optimise the place of CTA to help visitors know who you are, what products you have and so forth. Put slogans and quirk descriptions. Make the CTA tab bold and vivid. In every way, make the CTA honest as well as convincing.

Maximise the loading speed

Isn't it evident that your website has more bounced customers because it loads slowly? Visitors expect a site to load in a couple of seconds and hence they will immediately back out and switch to any other site shown on the search engine results if it loads too late. Find out the root causes of your slower load speed, like heavy images, more scripts, increased HTTP requests and so forth. With the help of your eCommerce developer, optimise them for unhindered speed.

Work on the content

Sometimes, visitors leave because they do not get clearer information or the ideal description that they wished for. Also, they are not going to read too much. Review and modify your content, keep it precise and make it as helpful as possible to the targeted buyers.

Put things that would engage visitors

Another useful way to check the bounce rates is to engage the visitors at the first instance. Place a provocative banner in the landing page, use a catchy title, showcase your benchmark products in bundles, put videos, and do whatever else needed to grasp the interests of the visitors. Putting up interactive elements on the landing page would entice them at once to click ahead for checking up the products.

Oversimplify the navigation of the site

The better visitors can understand the navigation path of your site, more likely they are to stay. Just after visiting your site, they should be able to understand where's the menu, how to search a product, where to click for placing the order, and everything else about the navigation.

Put your top offers at the visible area of the page

You can play with the urgency notion to hook your visitors. Place the best deals with time-bound on the banner or top area of your home page that is visible to everyone even before they scroll down. Displaying limited time offers can bag your website many customers spontaneously because a lot will think of losing the offer soon and hence proceed to buy.

Bounce rate is inevitably a deceptive key performance indicator (KPI) which signals how your website is performing in capturing the attention of visitors. Adhering to these above tips will help lowering it a lot as they are brought to you hereafter prioritising the visitors' behaviour that causes them to leave a site.

Rob Stephen is an expert Magento developer in Sydney at GetAProgrammer, a top-ranked website and eCommerce development company having inherent specialisation in Magento development services. He likes to share his eCommerce development ideas and knowledge in his free time. You can see more of his excellent writeups on the LinkedIn page.

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Your 2019 Guide on How to Use Video in Email Marketing

It's not news that video is at the forefront of marketing these days.

From creating videos for your website to hosting Facebook Live sessions, this marketing tool has transformed from a nice-to-have to a must-have if you want to effectively engage with your audience and build a loyal following who will be more apt to purchase from you.

Video-based marketing is a great way to stand out from the multiple messages people get in their inboxes every day, not to mention how effective it is on social media.

This article focuses on using video in your email marketing. Keep reading for the technical parts of utilizing video in your email marketing and the creative aspect for some inspiration.

I've talked about using video many times in the past, but in case you're still not convinced or didn't think to use video in your email marketing efforts, it's time to pay close attention. According to a study done by SuperOffice, including video in emails led to open rate increases of six percent (the average open rate across industries is about 25 percent).

Some other benefits of video marketing:

• It saves time. You can create short, engaging pieces of video much more quickly than it will take you to write an 800-word blog. It also gives info to your viewer in an easy-to-understand way.

• It can help SEO. Your Google search ranking can improve if your footage is viewed and shared by enough people.

• It's cost-effective. You don't need CGI effects or animation to make something great. A video can be much more affordable to produce than a blog or ad.

• It grabs attention. Especially when added into your newsletter, a video captures your audience's attention and compels them to want to watch.

First, the Technical Part of Video Email Marketing

Before you start brainstorming ways to use video in email, you need to know how it plays in different email clients.

There are over 30 major email clients, including Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail and Yahoo Mail, and some of them don't support the requirements for using email with video.

Traditionally, marketers would use HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language) to code HTML video directly into an email, but recipients with certain email clients aren't able to play it. Many popular email providers will only show a fallback image, and your marketing message will be lost in the crowd.

Fortunately, some of the popular services like MailChimp, Constant Contact and AWeber make it easy to share across all providers by using a screen capture image of your video and linking it to your original content on your blog, YouTube, Vimeo or similar sites.

This gives the appearance there's actually video in your email and avoids technical issues with your email provider.

Instead of having to learn HTML5, there are also 3rd party services that can create a video snippet for you to include right in the body of your newsletter. In fact, I did this in a recent newsletter of ours!

Check out Playable to embed a short video in your next newsletter. Playable will replace the video with an image of your choice if the email service provider doesn't support the video technology.

>> Learn more about the features of our favourite email providers.

No matter what eNewsletter tool you use, it's crucial to test your campaign before you send it out. You'll need to have accounts on all of the popular email platforms so that you can see how your footage works in each of them.

Sound like a lot of work? Trust a professional marketing company that's been helping clients create successful eNewsletter campaigns since 2003.

Next, Make Sure You're Mobile

According to Hubspot, mobile opens accounted for 46 percent of all email opens. That means you have to ensure you're keeping smartphones in mind when you're email marketing with video.

Fortunately, eNewsletter providers such as MailChimp and Constant Contact let you test and see how your messaging will look before you send it out.

It's still important to keep the file size as low as possible so the video doesn't need to buffer to start playing. Mobile devices don't have the fastest download speed.

A good tip is to take a 10 second snippet of your video to use in the newsletter. That snippet can then link to the full feature on your blog.

Also, always make sure autoplay is off, especially on mobile. Most people don't appreciate having something start playing (often noisily) as they sit in the office or on a bus; they prefer to click on Play themselves.

Now, On to the Creative Part

With the technical stuff out of the way, let's look at how you can actually create content that will engage your viewers and get you more visitors to your website.

You need a plan with clear objectives or else you're just sending content out into the world and hoping it will be seen and loved.

Why are you creating this campaign? To generate leads, brand awareness, followers... ?

Once you've identified your objectives and goals, you can start thinking about actual email, and the content you want to produce.

As mentioned, host the full-length video in a blog post, landing page or even on social media and then plan to incorporate a "sneak peak" of that video in your email marketing campaign, linking to the full-length version.

Here are six tips and inspiration to get you started:

1. Use the word "video" in your subject line to make your message stands out.

2. Promote an event. Let's use a law office as an example. We created a short video using Wave.Video for one our clients, A Family Law Firm, to promote an upcoming seminar they were hosting.

3. Offer tips. When it comes to email marketing with video, users want short, digestible clips. A "Top 5" or "4 ways to improve" will get more attention than a 2-minute creation of you trying to explain a product.

4. Create a series. This is a great way to keep people engaged with your expertise, as long as what you're providing is valuable to them. Stay away from a five-part series on your latest offering. Instead, solve a problem.

Using the law firm video marketing again as an example, you could set up a list-building campaign and do a four-part video series on ways to prepare for a separation or divorce:

• Part 1: DIY or hire a lawyer?

• Part 2: Filing the necessary paperwork

• Part 3: Dividing assets

• Part 4: Supporting your children

5. Make tutorials. Your product or service solves a problem, so how can you showcase this to your clients? Educate your viewers with a short explanation around how your product or service will improve their lives, using real-world examples.

6. Think outside the box. Now, we don't all have the budget outdoor company Patagonia does; however, look at how they've integrated amazing footage into their email campaigns. It doesn't focus on their surfing gear, but it's relevant to their customers.

Whether you're a life coach shooting some footage while you're on vacation or a wellness provider offering viewers a glimpse of your dinner prep process, get creative and get shooting!

Email marketing with video can be incredibly powerful, increasing your open rates, engagement, leads and sales substantially.

However, not every email should contain one. If you start using this marketing tactic every time you send out an eNewsletter to your subscribers, they'll stop paying attention. Think of it as one way to stand out from the crowd, but don't neglect your other tactics.

Crafting an eNewsletter campaign with video (or without), choosing the right email provider, testing and monitoring open rates and engagement is a tough job. And, it needs to be done well or else you'll end up alienating and losing subscribers.

Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.

As a result of working with Susan and her team, clients feel confident and relieved knowing their online marketing is in trustworthy and caring hands so they can focus on building their business with peace of mind at having a perfect support system in place to guide them every step of the way.

Visit http://www.ultimatewebsiteguide.ca and download your FREE "Ultimate Guide to Improving Your Website's Profitability - 10 Critical Questions You Must Ask to Get Maximum Results".

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Susan_Friesen/260293

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