Archive for the ‘Random Thoughts’ Category

(c) 2008 by Ian del Carmen

The point of membership sites are to provide a specific service or type of content to people who agree to sign up and pay a monthly fee to access the members area. There are also membership sites that offer FREE access, but still make tons of money from advertising revenue, due to the immense amount of traffic they get to their website. An example of one such membership site would be Myspace.com. It is a multibillion dollar company and it offers a 100% free membership to anyone that wants a Myspace page.

They make their money from advertising revenue, by placing ads on their site that pay money every time someone clicks on the ad. Anybody can add these types of ads to their website, membership site or blog without having to be a super popular site. These ads are from Google, yes the Internet giant. It’s program is called AdSense and Yahoo and MSN also have their own similar programs.

Other examples of membership sites that are paid for are ones like Match.com; where you pay a monthly fee to have access to their database of single people who are looking for a mate in your town or abroad. There are many shapes, forms and sizes of membership sites and continuity programs out there like ones that charge a recurring fee for a tangible product like a CD home-study course that gets shipped once a month and the money is automatically deducted from a credit or debit card.

Membership sites are extremely profitable business models with very low overhead. They are easy to start up and you can have as many members as you can recruit over time, and the income is residual. Even with a $5 a month membership, you can make thousands of dollars a month if you have only 400 members, which would be $2,000 a month automatically, for producing the same amount of content you would if you had just 10 members. That means when a few years go by and the site has 10,000 members… it would be a $50,000 per month income generating business. Not bad, eh?

The easiest way to have your membership site is to invest in turnkey systems like Membership Wholesaler. Take a look at Membership Wholesaler here.

There are many simple, fail-proof ways to earn money, and one of the best ways is through internet marketing. When you learn basic internet marketing skills, you’ll wonder why you haven’t already jumped on the bandwagon. When you think about it, the only things you’ll need to make money is an idea of what you want out of life and the knowledge and energy to put your ideas into motion.

Basic internet marketing techniques can teach us how to acquire wealth, and an important factor is to provide something the public needs, whether it is a product, a service, or information. Every business has a goal of making money, and every business has something to sell. You will need knowledge and a product before you begin your internet marketing. You may need money upfront to start your business, although the outlay could be small if you are selling information or services as opposed to a tangible product. You will need a web site for advertising and informational purposes. If you have the ability to do it yourself, all the better.

Like any other business, internet marketers need sales leads. Retail merchants who set up offices or shops are able to buy lists of potential customers, or they may ask their employees and acquaintances to provide them with lists of names to get their business started. The world of internet marketing also will need marketing leads. Internet marketing is a very competitive market, and a large portion of your time will be spent generating new marketing leads to drive your sales.

New services and products are introduced over the internet every day. Some of the reasons for these new developments can be attributed to market conditions, new technology, improved search engines, or totally new concepts. There are even products that will help you develop your internet marketing leads and attract new customers.

One of the most common ways to attract new customers is to develop an email list. Although email marketing may not be as effective as it once was due to software that filters out “spam,” it does still work. One of the best features of email advertising is that it is a free method of getting the word out that you’re in business. The response to emails is still good when it does reach the intended party.

An important part of email marketing is that it can be repeated over and over. You can start out with a small list of marketing and sales leads for your online business, and then build from a few email recipients until you have established a loyal customer base. In addition to generating email marketing leads, you may want to consider a couple of other methods of advertising your business.

Another internet marketing technique involves utilizing pay-per-click (referred to as PPC) advertising, whereby participants are paid a small sum of money every time someone clicks on the site. An excellent way to inform others about your business is to join one of the many forums related to internet marketing. You can post information, ask questions and receive answers from other internet marketers, and it is also a good way to gain name recognition.

When you begin your internet marketing projects, be sure to establish enough marketing leads to sustain your business and make it profitable, and develop a good internet marketing strategy early on in your planning stages.

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(c) 2008 by Ian del Carmen

In this post, we are going to discuss continuity programs as they apply to internet marketing, membership sites and e-commerce. Basically, a continuity program is when a customer makes a commitment to purchase a series of products over time. It works out great for both the customer and the merchant, because the client can receive their products automatically without having to reorder them or go searching for where they got the first one. And the merchant can build a substantial list of repeat customers.

We have all participated in buying something in this manner. Health products, vitamins and beauty products normally are auto-shipped every month and the charges are automatically deducted from your bank or credit card. Food items that are gourmet or specialty can also work with a continuity program. Typically there is a lower introductory price or free trial period, then the customer gets billed once a month upon receiving their product(s). Of course, they can always cancel their subscription/membership and not continue to be billed every month.

There are a multitude of ways that you can offer your products. Open ended models are ones where the customer knows that they will be billed monthly and automatically receive their goods. Close ended models also work well, for example, a customer will receive one part of a product (like an encyclopedia) per month, and when all parts of the set have been delivered, the agreement and the billing ends.

Remember, selling pieces of something one at a time can turn out to be much more profitable in the end. Let’s say your product is $399. People might never be willing to shell out that much for your product, but if they can be automatically billed $39 every month or six weeks, they will most likely go for it if they like your offer!

Continuity program marketing is a win-win situation for both the seller and the buyer who want to stay loyal to the product/service. It is also an excellent way to build customers for life, who will potentially be with you month after month allowing you to build a substantial residual income.

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(c) 2008 by Ian del Carmen

Having a membership site or a continuity program website is perhaps one of the most profitable businesses you can run. Basically, people sign up to be members of the site in order to access information, videos, instructional material, PLR content, etc. for a monthly fee. This type of site is so profitable because you can produce the same amount of content that you would normally — no matter how many members you have.

Let me explain what I mean by that. If you have a site that offers a paid monthly membership (for let’s say a dating website or a PLR content website), your website functions the same as it would with 100 members as it would with 10,000, only you’d make a lot more money with 10,000 members!

There is also a difference in the amount of bandwidth you will need for your site if you have a lot of members. The amount of space you will need on your hosting plan will be the only thing you may have to upgrade.

Let’s say you offer a monthly report or newsletter and people pay $7 a month to be a member. Even if you have a million members, all you have to do is write that ONE newsletter every month and you would be earning $7 million dollars a month! That is of course if you had a million members. A thousand members or even ten thousand members is a very achievable goal especially on the internet, with a global reach.

The overhead is the upkeep and maintenance of your website as well as continuously providing quality content or services. Membership sites are profit machines and many of the big league internet marketers are going in that direction with their businesses. There are membership sites popping up everywhere, wonder why? Because they are extremely profitable and can even be monetized if you offer a FREE membership. Look at sites like Myspace and Facebook, they are multi-billion dollar companies and they both are membership sites that offer FREE memberships. The money they make is in the advertising revenue.

Remember what I am saying here… membership sites are ultimate profit machines.

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