7 Memberium Marketing Mistakes That Make Me So Angry – Part 1

My team and I build Infusionsoft membership site.  We do a lot of marketing, but our specialty is working primarily with Memberium and other tools to market and build membership programs and online courses.

To do this well, I'm constantly studying, researching and reverse engineering other people's online marketing.  I have folders in my gmail inbox filled with other people's messages so I can go back to them.

Some I admire.  I think, "Wow! That was well done."  Others disappoint me.  I see the mistakes and have to think, "They just don't know."  They've worked so hard to get these out there then, because they don't see it, they hurt their chances of making the impact they need to make.

Let me share with you things I've see.

Advise #1 - Pricing Is ALWAYS About Perceived Value

Way too frequently I see business owners under price themselves.   There are a number of reasons why:

• They price themselves based on their cost of doing business.
• They mistakenly aim at the lower end of the market they believe is under served.
• They don't find themselves worthy to be priced like more established players in the market.
• They need money badly and price low to get money.

BIG MISTAKE!

I made this mistake when I first opened up shop.  I'm a logical buyer who studies everything in detail.  I learned that I'm a rare case.  Most people aren't as thorough as I am.  My problem is I was selling to me.

So I had to learn keep things simple.  I had to stop describing my solutions in gross detail and focus instead on the benefits the customer would be getting from my work.  A friend of mine shared with me that people don't want to buy a drill.  They buy the hole the drill can bore for you.  You have to focus on the benefit they get.

Unless you're a professional pricing specialist, find help from someone who has experience doing that.   If you don't have access to some experts or don't have the funds to pay for that someone, run your pricing by anyone who will help.   Then do it some more with other people.  Don't work in a vacuum.

If you are going to get a coach, this would be a top area where I would focus.  Pricing is so key to the success of a business that you cannot put too much emphasis on it.  It can make the difference between your business barely surviving (or not surviving at all) and thriving.

Advice #2 - Make Yourself Remarkable in Your Market

I run into business owners often who's message sounds just like every one else in their field.  You can't tell them apart from the Next guy.

If you follow my blog, you'll see reference this book,  Purple Cow: Transforming Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin.   (Click here to read my article specifically on  this book.)  Seth Godin's main point in the book is that you MUST figure out a way to get noticed.  He came up with the title for the book from his trip to France.  While driving, he and his family were amazed by all the cows.  Then after a few hours, they were just...cows.   His point is that to stand out among all those cows, you had to become a purple cow.  There is so much competing for your buyer's attention that you MUST find a way to become remarkable in your market.

As the owner of our business, we need to know what, if anything, makes us remarkable and different from others providing the same thing we do.  And if you don't know or don't believe you are remarkable, then either quit or work hard to it.  Your unique "remarkable-ness" is what will get people to notice you.  You must become your version of that Purple Cow.

Advice #3 - Old Ideas Continue Working

A lot of what used to work offline, works perfectly well today online.  If you as old as I am, you'll remember direct response sales letter.   It would be a long written letter that would arrive in the mail.   If you review the best online sales letters today, you'll see they follow formats invented back in the snail mail days when direct response marketing was being pioneered.

Record clubs from back in the 70's and 80's got people hooked with an inexpensive first sale and then racked in the monthly recurring revenue that followed.  I remember forms in magazines that would show you where to tape your four quarters.  You would get your first set of 12 records for $1 then they would send you a record a month charging you regular record prices.   This model is timeless.

Stay tuned for part 2 in a few days where I share the remaining four pieces of advice.