3 Stupid Simple Sales Tasks Membership Sites Do Best

I see business owners all the time using their membership site exclusively for delivering content.  It's their e-learning platform for delivering members their course materials.  It's the place for communicating with them.   They fail to exploit all a membership site can do to improve a sales.

It's like they see their membership site as this low IQ employee they don't want to push too hard. They place low expectations on their site and don't want to lean too hard on it.  If you've already invested in this extremely, powerful tool, why not use it for all it's worth.  Add it to your sales arsenal and watch it make a huge difference for you.

Here are three recommendations we share with all our customers.  Use it to expand your thinking on ways you can put your membership site to working growing your list of potential clients and in generating more business.

Sales Task #1: Deliver Your Opt-In Lead Magnets

Don't miss out on your membership site's ability to deliver your lead magnet.  When you offer a video, report, white paper or other free give away, deliver it to the requester via your membership site.  I've heard people mistaken say, "That makes it a more complicated experience for the user."  That's not true.

Most people send you their lead magnet after the requester fills out a web form.  They enter their name and email address, hit submit and they get an email with a link to the thing they requested.    They go to their email inbox and there's the email waiting for them.  The requester clicks the link and watch the video, download a file, or take some other action to get it.

Here's how the membership site does it. They get the same email I described just now, but the link they use to get the lead magnet logs them into the membership site automatically and lands them on the page where they see the lead magnet.  The flow is exactly the same as before, but now you have your "lead" logged into your membership site.

"What's the big deal?" you might be asking.  It's a very big deal.  You now have a lot of information about the requester you can use to customizing their experience.  You can change what they see on the based on what you've learned about them.  You can now better promote yourself and your business to them.

Watch the video down in the next section an watch an example.  You got to see it to really appreciate it.

Sales Task #2: Build Your Sales Funnel in Your Membership Site

You now have a visitor that's unknowingly logged into your membership site.  They went there to get their lead magnet, but you know they are there so you can sell them something.

If you visit your typical membership site, there's going to be the place on the site where members go to access their content.  It's a list of their content.  If you were NOT wanting to sell anything else to your members, the content listing would only include what the member has already requested via an opt-in page or whatever they have purchased.  Since what you are wanting is to sell them, you show them all the items they cannot yet access.

I like designing the dashboard, as we like to call them, so each accessible item is available as an image.  You display these images using bright colors signaling they are accessible.  Items they cannot access and can buy are displayed in grey or with an image of padlock over it.

When you layout a page like this, you are dangling forbidden fruit in front of your members.  The will click just because they are curious.  Now you present them with a sales page telling them all about it.

Watch the video below for an example of a typical dashboard.  You'll see the image for a lead magnet along side two tripwires.  The tripwires are inexpensive items they cannot access yet and are up for sale.

Sales Task #3: Stack Your Membership Site with Upsells and Cross Sells

The example above is simple.  It illustrate using your membership site to give access to your lead magnet and promote you tripwires.

The video that follows shows Nathalie Lussier's 30 Day List Building Challenge which is a great example of membership sites used for delivering a lead magnet.   Because her lead magnet is a 30 day challenge, visitors keep coming back to the membership site daily.  That gives you a chance to make a lot of offers to them.

Notice that the site is selling them, but it's not intrusive. The site is enticing in that it gives member options for determining how to best use the available information.  It offers a questionnaire assessing where you are currently so it can recommend how best to proceed.

Click here if you are interested in seeing the 30 Day List Building Challenge in action for yourself.