Archive for Membership Sites
Top 10 Membership Models
Posted by: | CommentsI have a membership site for my online guitar lessons. This site has to have content that is protected, requires a login and takes payment (or integrates with payment system like Paypal).
Here’s a great video from Stu McLaren on 10 Membership Site Business Models.
I use Model #1 the Publisher Model and use Wordpress (free) and Wishlist Member plugin to protect my content.
Online Income – November 2009
Posted by: | CommentsWell I was all set to report a disappointing November income because the sales of Learn and Master Guitar had decreased and I’ve been focusing on add new beginner videos lessons to my Online Guitar Coaching site (which is a membership site).
However, when I checked one of my affiliate sites for membership sites I found that I had made $407.71 in November! I haven’t added any affiliate links to Ryan Deiss’ site recently so it could be from an older blog post or sidebar link. But actually, Ryan does a lot of ‘back-end selling’ where he sells lower priced items to get people into his funnel, then upsells them later. Some of the products are recurring so I might have to try marketing them some more!
Another thing to note is that for the Learn and Master guitar affiliate sales I didn’t do anything new this month. So the existing YouTube videos and blog posts are still working for me (and should for a long time to come). So you put in the work and hopefully over time you get the rewards off of the single effort.
So we have:
$313.22 my guitar product/membership sales
$9.98 back pain site
$37.94 adsense you tube videos
$407.71 Ryan Deiss continuity products
$1.89 amazon affiliate sales (guitar books, ets)
$19.80 share a sale Learn and Master (they have 2 different affiliate products)
$29.10 Wishlist Products (membership site plugin for wordpress)
$1 Sponsored Tweet! (advertiser paid me to do a tweet about Microsoft!)
So the grand total in November 2009 was……..$820.64 there’s been no money spent on advertising these affiliate programs…just sweat equity! This is a new record, yahoo!!!!
Online Income – Case Study October 2009
Posted by: | CommentsIn the month of October, I accepted a part-time work from home IT contract. Unfortunately, while I made a good chunk of change from this, I didn’t put as much effort into my websites.
The results were $398.99 for the month of October, so about $200 less than the last couple months, mostly due to less sales of Learn and Master Guitar.
This came from $57.89 from Google Adsense (YouTube video ads) and $341.10, mostly from guitar lesson related sales (Metal Method, Learn and Master Guitar and my own guitar lesson products from Online Guitar Coaching. No sales from Amazon and internet marketing materials (Ryan Deiss was minimal as I did nothing to promote them).
On the positive side, other than making WAY more on my IT contract (5 figures for about 5-6 week of half day work), I got re-inspired to add some new continuity programs – these will be some fixed-length modular courses (eg. Blues guitar level 1) that might last for 6 months as a membership program. Others will be ongoing such as a live video streaming guitar lesson each month, Guitar lick of the month, Song of the month (where I transcribe and analyze a guitar song and/or solo).
So I’ll be testing some new product offerings and seeing which ones are more popular. I’ve also focused on creating and expanding a Facebook fan page – and getting people to sign up by offering them a free live guitar lesson.
Another cool tool is the Wibiya toolbar that you can find at the guitar coaching site I mentioned -shows up at the bottom and I hope it increases the Facebook fans and I can also send them notifications on new webinars, sales, offerings, etc. Lots of exciting cool stuff happening!
How to Crush It
Posted by: | CommentsDo you have a hobby you wish you could indulge in all day? An obsession that keeps you up at night? Now is the perfect time to take that passion and make a living doing what you love. In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, readers will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, Crush It! is the ultimate driver’s manual for modern business.
As you know part of my monthly income comes from having a membership site for guitar lessons. 
If you pick up a copy of the Wishlist Member plugin for your membership site (the one I use) during this month of October, you can get a free copy of Gary Vaynerchuk’s newbook called “Crush It”. The second gift is an exclusive interview with Gary. Later this month they will be interviewing Garyin person and during the interview they’ll dig deeper into Gary’s strategies for creating anonline following and how it relates to membership sites.
You can get more information about the Gary Vaynerchuk Special Offer on their home page (click the image).
Awesome Wordpress Plugins
Posted by: | CommentsIn this interview with Chris Garrett, Stu McLaren describes some very useful wordpress plugins that you can use, especially if you have a membership site. Some were even new to me and I’ve been using Wordpress for years, so I’m excited to install them myself.
