I hear people make excuses about why their marketing isn’t working every day. There’s lots of IF’s and BUT’s thrown around in those discussions.

“If only this,” or “but that.”

…that’s a great idea, if only I had more time.

…I wish I could close more deals, but my website isn’t a custom design like his. 

Ultimately, it’s all an excuse. “If’s” do nothing more than create imaginary scenarios that get you nowhere. “But’s” are nothing more than assigning the blame to someone (or something) else.

Stop Making Excuses:

The next time you’re upset over why something isn’t working, ask yourself the following:

1. Why isn’t this working? What am I doing wrong? Is it something that I can control, and change? Or is it something that’s outside of my control?
2. (Now that I’ve identified the problem), what can I do to change it?

Then, take action.

Yes, it’s that simple.

No if’s, and’s or but’s… Just you working hard to identify the problem and find a solution.

[Photo Credit: Hugh MacLeod]

1. How easy is it to type?

Whether on a desktop keyboard or on your smart-phone? Are there any special characters? Is it possible/likely someone might mis-spell it?

If it’s too difficult to type, even on a touch-screen phone (like an iPhone), I’d consider choosing another domain all-together. Think simpler.

2. Say it out-loud. How does it sound?

If you tell someone to visit your domain name, can they understand how to spell it?

Sure, you’ll have business cards with your domain name typed on them, but when you’re having a casual conversation at a networking event or when you’re on the phone with someone, you’re likely to say, “visit my website, the URL is ___________________.”

It’ll either sound just fine and the person will be able to pull up the web address right, or they won’t because they don’t get it.

Again, aim for simple.

3. A keyword rich domain is great, but not at the risk of skipping points #1 and #2. 

DomainsBot is a pretty neat domain look-up tool. The site will let you search for a specific domain name that you are interested in or you can even search by keyword. If the particular domain/keyword that you looked up is taken, DomainsBot will show you alternatives such as .net, .org, .co suffixes and more.

If you can get a relatively short, keyword rich domain name, go for it. Otherwise, I’d prefer something brandable like:

pasadenaviews.com vs pasadena-ca-homes-for-sale.com

The second one doesn’t read quite as well and frankly, it’s a pain in the *ss to spell.

4. Before you register your domain, make sure it’s available on social media. 

It’s great that you secured the URL. Now you can build your website and brand your email with your new polished domain name. But if the name you used for your domain name is taken on all of the popular social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et cetera), you’re losing out. Securing your new brand name on each of the major social networks is a big part of the new media branding puzzle.

KnowEm is a great tool that lets you search names/keywords to see if they’re taken on over 500 social networks.

5. Buying and hosting your domain name. 

Once you’ve settled on a strong domain name that reads well, is easy to spell, and is brandable beyond the site URL and email (i.e. other social networks), you’re all set to go out and buy it.

The following is my choice for domain registration and hosting: Bluehost (aff link) – they offer 1-click installation of WordPress and are at the top of the recommended by WordPress.org hosting list.

Really, there are tons of companies where you can purchase a domain name and hosting. Here’s what you should be looking for in a hosting company:

• A company that allows you to purchase multiple domain names and offers unlimited storage and bandwidth.
• A company that has around-the-clock customer support (live-chat and 24 hour phone support for example).
• A company that doesn’t require annual contracts or agreements.

Lastly, be sure to set your domain name to auto-renew. You don’t want to forget to pay for your domain name one day and have an empty website (I’ve mistakenly done this before).

What else do you recommend?

Any other tips for choosing a domain name? Who do you host your domain(s) with and do you recommend them?

I was previously using the Generate Child Theme from StudioPress on this site, and I loved it. That theme was designed for effective lead capture and it worked great. It took me from zero to a few hundred email subscribers for my 7-part email course in the short two months that I had the theme installed.

I’ve tried the following list of services to increase email subscribers:

• Pop-up domination - which displays a nicely designed pop-up ad with your offer and email capture.
• Hellobar - which displays an unobtrusive call to action in a bar on the header of your site (I used this to direct people to my email sign-up page).
• ViperBar – which displays an email opt-in form on the header of your site.

All three are great options, but neither worked as well as the Generate Box via the Generate Theme. That’s probably because it was less intrusive, and not so “all up in your face.” Now granted, the other options probably didn’t work so great because I failed to communicate the benefits of subscribing so I don’t want to discount them as useful options. Still, I liked the Generate theme best.

But I’m OCD and the StudioPress team keeps releasing awesome new themes that make me feel indecisive about which child theme to use on this site. So I’ve changed themes yet again…

Introducing the Balance Child Theme:

Features Include: 

• 5 Color Styles. I’m always a fan of red, thus the red color scheme around here.
• 3 Layout Options. I always use the content/sidebar lay-out option and the landing page template for the tutorials in my 7-part email course.
• Custom Background & Header Uploader. I love this because it makes it incredibly easy for the novice to upload a custom header/background without having to use an FTP client. StudioPress has some free (light) background patterns if you’re looking to play with a custom background. As for the header, as long as you upload an image that’s 960 x 135 pixels, you’re good to go. If you do upload a custom header, just be conscious of how long your tagline is as I had to revert to the dynamic text header here because my tagline was getting cut off on mobile devices.
• Featured Images. I think a blog post should always be accompanied by a strong, complementary image. Especially if you’re using a magazine (two-column) layout theme like this one.
• Footer Widgets. Website footers have evolved from a simple place where you host your copyright information to a section where you can host an extended set of navigation items, links, sources of contact information and more. A point I addressed in this post here. Even if you’re Genesis theme doesn’t come equipped with footer widgets, here’s a great step-by-step tutorial for how to manually add your own footer widgets section to your site.
• Mobile Responsive. In the last month, I’ve only had 14.68% of site visitors visit via their mobile device. My guess is that number could be a lot higher. And the Balance theme does look awfully sexy on a mobile device…just saying.

The Balance Child Theme is the perfect blend of a minimalist design with lead capture build in. It reminds me of the Minimum Child Theme (my favorite theme and the theme I use for Real Estate Blog Topics), except with more lead capture built in.

Favorite Plugins:

Here’s a short list of some of the plugins I’m using to organize, edit or otherwise enhance the site… It’s not a list of all of the plugins I’m using, just a list of the one’s that I think you might find useful.

• Ad Rotator – In short, this plugin allows me to display different chunks of HTML every time you load a page. So if you look at the ads on the sidebar when you load the home page for example, you’ll notice that they are displayed randomly and in a different order every time you load the page.
• Akismet – For spam protection. I activate this by default any time I do a new WordPress install. Akismet has protected somewhere around 44,025,529,554 instances of spam to date. That’s a lot of spam. I hate spam. I’m sure you do too, so get on it.
• Contact Form 7 – I use this plugin to generate the simple form on my contact page. If you want something higher level, and with the power to do more, check out Gravity Forms and this post to see all of the creative stuff that you can do.
• Genesis Simple Edits – This plugin allows me to edit 3 areas easily: 1.) the post-info byline, 2.) the post meta, and 3.) my footer.
• Genesis Simple Sidebars – From here on out, when you load a post on this site, you’ll notice that my sidebar is different than the sidebar on the home page. I’m loading a genesis ad first, then my email opt-in form with options to subscribe via RSS or connect via Twitter. I’m not sure how much else I want to add to the sidebar on individual blog posts but I’m sure I’ll test variations of this to see how it performs. But basically, this plugin makes all of that very easy to do.
• RSS Footer - This allows me to add content to the beginning or end of my feeds. Right now, I’m using it to display a StudioPress affiliate ad. I’m not sure it’s done to well to be honest, so I should probably change it up a bit. But this plugin makes it easy for me to interchange whatever content I’d like to display/advertise to my RSS subscribers.

Here’s what I’ve changed…

The Balance Theme works right out-of-the-box. To activate the welcome and lead capture sections that you see on the theme demo, all you need to do is activate widgets in the “Home Featured Left” section and in the “Home Featured Right” section as seen below:

You can use the “Genesis – Featured Page” widget to display intro text from the About page on your site or you can use a simple “text” widget to tell visitors what your site is about.

For the “Home Featured Right” section, you can use the “Genesis – eNews & Updates” widget if you’re simply using Feedburner to manage your email-to-RSS updates. Otherwise, a text widget with your email opt-in form will do (mine is hooked into Aweber for example).

In my case, I edited the style.css template to center the “Home Featured Right” widget and added a width of 960px so it spans the width of the page. I did that for two reasons, really:

1. I didn’t know what to put or link to on the left-hand side, and
2. Frankly, I like the look of it as it is now, better.

Other than that, the theme works beautifully and with minimal customization effort (just like any other StudioPress theme).

Feel free to poke around and let me know what you think. If something’s broken, or doesn’t display properly, please let me know so I can get it fixed. Otherwise, I’m going to keep fiddling with the lay-out and sidebars on the interior pages a bit more…

And if you’re into minimalist design and want to build an email list, check out the Balance Child Theme, I think you’ll like it

Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by prospects organically. It encompasses everything and anything having to do with organically attracting attention to your service offering. This includes things like:

• Content Marketing: creating and promoting content through the use of blogs, videos, et cetera to increase brand awareness.
• Social Media Marketing: participating and engaging in social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, et cetera to earn attention and build an engaged audience.
• SEO: optimizing your web pages so that they’re found in search engines for relevant key terms.

…and more.

Inbound marketing is the basis of a new secret project I’m working on:

Sneak peek at a new little site I’m working on… Having fun w/#genesiswp twitter.com/Ribeezie/statu…

— Ricardo Bueno (@Ribeezie) February 20, 2012

The folks over at Hubspot put together a pretty neat infographic that explains the inbound marketing process from start to finish – from getting found, to converting visitors into leads and measuring your sales funnel.

Check it out:

[Infographic Credit: Hubspot]

Since launching Real Estate Blog Topics, I’ve learned that properly pricing a product can be tricky.

A low price says, “I lack confidence in my product and I’ll take what I can get.” While a high price says, “I’m confident about the value of my product and the premium price is worth it.” But set the price too high, and you’ll price yourself out of the market.

So where’s that happy medium?

Here’s a couple of things to consider when setting a price:

1. Don’t be afraid to charge what you’re worth. 

If you think you’re product/service is worth $97, then charge just that. But do so with confidence. Sure, some people will complain about the price. There’s always going to be someone who thinks it’s priced to0 high. But then, there will be others who see the value in what you have to offer and they’ll be happy to pay the requested price.

The key of course is to effectively communicate the value proposition in your offering. Remember, price is what you pay. Value is what you get. (Tweet this)

Personal Experience:

When I first launched Real Estate Blog Topics, I set an introductory price of $3.99 for the first 20 subscribers, then moved it up to $9.99. The current price is now $25 per month. What I found is that it was just as difficult, if not more difficult, to get people to op-in at the lower price-point than the current price. I think this had to do with the perception of value (or lack of) that the lower price ingrained in people’s mind.

2. Study the market for competing products and determine your point of differentiation. 

Are there other companies out there that have a service offering similar to yours? Find them, then ask yourself a couple of things:

• What do they have to offer that you don’t?
• What’s their process like? From purchase, to downloading/accessing the content, to customer service?
• What can you do better?
• What do they charge? And does your value proposition justify being able to charge/command a higher price?

3. Don’t offer discounts too often. 

If you offer a discount long enough, it no longer becomes a discount. It becomes expected. Take the local restaurant that offers a weekly special for 20% off. The retail store that offers a weekly special, or the car dealership that has a “sale” sign on display every day of the week.

A discount isn’t really a surprise anymore, it’s expected.

Companies like StudioPress on the other hand, offer a premium product that people are willing to pay for. At full price. They run a discount once per year (their annual Black Friday sale). But other than that, discounting isn’t in their business model.

Personal Experience: 

I’ve discounted the registration price on Real Estate Blog Topics once (on Black Friday) since increasing the price to $25/month. I’ve had people ask if I’d be offering a discount any time soon to which I’ve replied, “No, sorry.” A few of those same people who asked about discounting the price, were happy to sign-up at full price regardless.

Really, it’s all about communicating your value appropriately. If people see the value, they’re going to register.

4. Inject value into every step of the process. 

You can’t charge more for a crap product/service. So you need to inject value into everything that you do. From the moment a customer signs up, to every single interaction they have with your service thereafter.

Think customer service doesn’t scale? Or that it’s not a point of differentiation? Think again… This is an art that Zappos mastered throughout their customer service department. With each interaction they had, they did their very best to correct issues and make every interaction they had with a customer, a pleasant experience. They eventually sold for close to a billion dollars.

Price Is What You Pay. Value Is What You Get.

The way I see it, people are willing to pay a premium when they see the value in what you have to offer. So it’s up to you to communicate that value up-front effectively. But it doesn’t end there, you have to deliver on your product/service through and through from that point forward.

Do that well, and you have a product that scales.

What do you think? How do you go about determining the price for a product/service?

I came across the following Q&A with Seth Godin in a magazine yesterday:

Q. How many social media sites should you use and what are the most important sites you should be using?

Seth Godin: This is a dangerous question, because it escalates the medium (social) above the purpose (communicating with permission). Use the tools that help you achieve you purpose. Too often we get confused about who we’re trying to please and end up pleasing no one.

Answering that question with a list of social networks to join presumes too much. It says that social media is a “one size fits all” sorta thing, and it’s not.

Instead, there’s a couple of questions you need to ask yourself before joining yet another social network…

1. Who’s your target audience (your customer)? 

Who is your ideal client? Single, first-time home buyers? Or high-end luxury home buyers?

Marketer David Meerman Scott calls this process creating “buyer personas.” It’s when you take a buyer profile, and writing down everything you know about that person.

• What are their needs?
• What are their challenges?
• What kind of content do they respond well to?

Once you properly understand each of these things, you can go about creating appropriate content that speaks directly to those buyer personas.

The more content you create that specifically addresses their needs, the more they’ll continue to read. The more they read, the closer and closer they get to making a buying decision with you. But you only get there if your content is relevant.

2. How are you going to reach your potential buyers? 

Where are they hanging out online? Are they reading blogs? Are they participating in social networks?

Before starting a blog for example, ask yourself the following:

• Who are you trying to reach with your blog?
• Is a blog the best marketing tool to reach them?
• What problems can you help them solve via your blog?
• What value (think differentiation) do you bring to the table?
• What search terms are people typing to find you? (This will help you name your blog and title your posts accordingly).
• What do you want people to do once they land on your blog? (Register, call you, subscribe, submit an inquiry via a contact form on a listing page, et cetera). 

But this doesn’t just apply to the blog, this applies to every other social network you’re thinking of joining. Like Pinterest for example (the web’s latest rage):

• Who are you trying to reach via Pinterest?
• Is Pinterest the best marketing tool to reach these people?
• What problems can you help your target audience solve via Pinterest?
• What value do you bring to the table? Why should they connect with you there?

If you can’t really answer any of those questions, is it really worth your time to join this social network?

Using Content To Show Off Your Expertise

What Seth Godin was saying is that social media isn’t just about the numbers (i.e. the more networks I join, the better). That’s a poor way to approach marketing.

Instead, you need to properly identify your target audience and articulate their problems. Then, find appropriate places to engage with them and use your content to show off your expertise and offer potential solutions.

So the question isn’t, what are the best social networks that I should join? The question is, what social networks are right for me and the audience I’m trying to reach?  

A mentor once told me, the formula for success is:

1. Clear Goals,
2. Hard Work,
3. Unwavering Focus

Most people fall short at step #2. Probably due in large part to a lack of focus. Or, simply a lack of motivation.

The thing of it is, goals mean nothing if you’re not taking the necessary steps to execute and fulfill them. What I’m talking about of course is execution. Execution is everything!

Put another way…

Sure, you have great ideas. But without the proper action, who cares?

How To Get Things Done:

1. Get specific about your goals and develop a strong desire to accomplish them. Thing is, motivation is a big determining factor on whether you’ll have what it takes to achieve your goals. Without a strong desire to excel and get closer to achieving your goals, you’re going to get nowhere fast.
2. Prioritize daily. The problem with being a creative is that your mind wanders from working on one thing to starting on another. That’s what I struggle with. It’s easy for me to get distracted. So learning to prioritize daily by using a simple To Do list and having a routine for what needs to get done now, helps. Learn to prioritize daily. What are 3-5 things that need to get done today? Once you’ve gotten those things done, you can move on and work on other things. Don’t wander until those 5 essential items are checked off of your list.
3. Break things down into small, achievable tasks. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by a large project so the secret is to break things down into smaller, achievable tasks. That leads to little victories. It feels good and it builds momentum.
4. Stop thinking and start doing. This never fails… Once a day, someone will tell me, “I’m thinking about _______________.” And my response is always, “Stop thinking about it and just do it already.” After all, how are you going to know if it works or doesn’t work, if you don’t try? Eventually, you need to stop thinking about doing and just take action. Inaction takes you nowhere.

What are your goals for this year? What are you working on? What have you accomplished? What’s keeping you from getting closer to achieving your goals? How do you stay focused?

[Photo Credit: marc.thiele]

I went to the local outdoor mall yesterday and wanted to share a couple of varying shopping experiences and how they relate to customer service, sales and how it got me thinking about the over-all experience we provide our own customers in our day-to-day businesses.

For the record, I’m not particularly fond of going to the mall. In this case, I already knew what I was going there for:

1. I wanted to check out a copy of Hug Your Customers by Jack Mitchell at Barnes & Noble at the recommendation of Ryan Rodenbeck from SpyGlassRealty.com (a current Diverse Solutions client).
2. I wanted to look into buying a blue Hurley hoodie. And yes, I was very specific about the color. I own a yellow one and a black one now. And I used to own a blue one that I’d take with me whenever I’d go snowboarding (I’ve been snowboarding for about 11+ years now).
3. Lastly, I wanted to look into buying a new pair of running shoes. I hate looking for shoes. I remember the days when shoes were simple. Today, I feel they all have a funky design, and they’re heavy. Maybe I’m crazy, or just overly picky. But in this case, I looked online and I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted.

Stop #1: Barnes & Noble

I was greeted twice upon entry, and not in a pushy way either like a sales rep rushing you at a retail store. The cashier looked over to say “good evening sir, welcome to Barnes & Noble” and the Nook rep said “hello, welcome to Barnes & Noble.” I nodded, said “hello” back and headed to the Business & Sales section of the book store – I already knew where it was as I visit the store often enough.

I wasn’t quite sure where exactly the book would be and frankly, I didn’t even check if they had a copy in-stock before visiting the store. I figured I’d grab something to drink from the cafe and if they had it great. If not, no big deal as I’ll just find something else to read.

After walking two or so aisles over, a Barnes & Noble rep approached me and said, “good evening sir, can I help you find anything in particular.” I said “sure,” and we tracked down a copy of the book. I sat down and read through about half of it (I cheated and skipped the chapters that didn’t sound all that interesting). About an hour later, I was finished with the book and I returned it to it’s proper location.

All in all, I found what I wanted, it was a pleasant experience and I left the store with a smile on my face.

Stop #2: Tilly’s

I’ve walked past this store before and for some reason, always assumed it was a girl’s clothing store. I didn’t know they carried menswear.

On entry I was greeted by the cashier who looked up to say “hello, welcome to Tilly’s” and another sales rep who was organizing some clothes. We chatted briefly about the weather out (it was drizzling outside) and she said “if you need anything, just give me a holler.” I took her up on her offer and said I was looking for a Hurley sweater and asked where I could find those.

She walked me towards the back of the store and pointed out 3 racks of clothes. “What we have is going to be in here, I know it’s all kinda scattered so I’ll help you look for them. And we also have some in the front, so give me a sec while I run over there and bring a few back for you to look at.”

After about 30 minutes of browsing and small talk I didn’t see anything I liked; at least nothing from Hurley. I said “thank you,” and on my way out caught a sweater hanging on a rack across the way. “Ooh” I thought. I tried it on and thought, “hey, this doesn’t look bad.” She replied, “you know, I know that’s not what you were looking for (I initially said I wanted a Hurley hoodie, not a zip up sweater) but that looks really good.” To which I replied, “nah, you’re just being nice, you have to say that.” She replied, “No, straight up. I got that one for my boyfriend last week. I like it. And it looks good on you.”

She wasn’t pushy. She was helpful. She helped me try and find what I was looking for and she complimented me. In sales, this is the part of the pitch where you make the potential customer feel confident about their purchasing decision. She did that very well. And I walked out with a brand new $70 sweater.

Stop #3: Finish-Line

Of the three stops, this was the one I was certain I was going to make a purchase on. I’d looked up a pair of shoes on-line prior to visiting the store. I wanted a simple $50 pair of running shoes.

Upon entry, no one. An empty store. But no big deal, I knew what I wanted so I headed towards the wall where the running shoes are to find the pair I was looking for. I admired a black and white pair of Jordan’s and thought, “damn, those are sexy!” (I own a grey and white pair of Jordan’s already).

I found what I wanted, looked around… No one.

No problem. I stood there and checked messages on my iPhone. They’re probably in the back grabbing something, I’m in no rush.

10 minutes later, I’m done checking messages, battery is at 12% and I just want to purchase this pair of shoes (if they have any in stock) so I can head out and get to the gym before it gets late. I walked towards the register, no one. “Hello,” I yelled… nothing.

17 minutes in, feeling impatient, annoyed, and neglected, I left the store.

If a store is busy, like the Apple store for example, I’ll wait, no problem. I get it. It’s out or your control and I’m happy to wait. This store was empty with not a customer in sight. Why do I have to wait?

What’s the Point?

How you greet and treat customers upon entry to your store, matters. You don’t have to bum-rush someone to get them to buy something from your store, you just need to make them feel welcome.

Furthermore, customer service matters more than sales. When I was at Tilly’s, the sales associate wasn’t just tossing one item after another at me with a sales pitch. I was looking for something specific, and she helped me by showing me what they had in their inventory that matched the description of what I was looking for. Because of her attitude and willingness to help, I walked out having purchased something entirely different than what I initially wanted. (And I told her that too. “I wasn’t going to buy anything other than that Hurley sweater I was looking for by the way… Thanks for your help.”)

At stop #3, no one was there to say hello. No one was there to help. And heck, I even knew what I wanted but no one was there to charge my card for the money I was ready and willing to pay.

Who’s Minding Your Digital Store?

Kris Berg and Jim Duncan are two real estate agents I know who are using on-line chat systems on their websites to greet site visitors when they land on their site. Jim is using a system that I’m familiar with – SnapEngage – it renders a simple notification on the lower right-hand side of the site that prompts a welcome message. As of the time of this writing, I don’t have a screenshot as it’s off-line but it’s really not intrusive at all. It’s akin to the greeting I got when entering Barnes & Noble or Tilly’s – a simple “hello, welcome and let me know if you need anything.”

So let me ask you this, what are you doing to greet site visitors? How are you presenting opportunities for interaction with those site visitors?

Furthermore, what’s the response time when someone submits an email inquiry on your website to ask for help? I submitted a few inquiries for a freelance project a few weeks ago. Response times varied between 1-2 days all the way up to 6-7 days. I’m sure you can guess who didn’t get the project.

If someone needs a question answered on say, a property listing that they found on your website, and they want to speak to a real human-being about it, is your phone number readily available on your site? Can they call you directly and speak to you right away? Or do they hit an automatic voicemail message or phone directory prompting them to enter an extension? (Sadly, the latter happens far too often.)

Who’s minding your digital store? What can I expect my shopping experience to be like on your website? If it’s anything like store #3 on my list, you’re in trouble…

A co-worker of mine who happens to be in love with Google+ shared this extension with me: Google+Tweet.

It essentially integrates a full featured twitter client inside of your Google+ account. Once you sign in, it looks like this:

Features include:

• Your Tweet stream inside of Google+. Access your twitter stream, view mentions, retweets, direct messages and favorites.
• A URL shortener via bit.ly,
• You can follow, un-follower users and view profiles,
• Upload photos through Twitpic,

Toggle one button over, and you have your Google+ stream.

It’s kinda cool actually. I like Google+. And these days, I usually Tweet from the web rather than using a Twitter client (though I prefer hootsuite when I’m trying to follow a chat like #blogchat). This way, I have two networks that I like to access regularly, in one browser tab.

I’m still playing around with it to see how I like it. As of right now, the only thing I don’t see is a way to access my Twitter lists which I use often. But otherwise, so far, so good.

Whatcha think? You gonna give it a spin?

I launched Real Estate Blog Topics last year. I took an idea, ran with it, and refined it along the way.

At first, it started out as a simple sales page here on my blog. Then eventually, I built a site around it and sometime in March, I’m re-launching it as a full-blown membership site consisting of a mixture of expert audio interviews, video tutorials, live Q&A’s and the content in it’s current form.

In the meantime, here’s a few of the things I’ve learned along the way…

10 Things I’ve Learned from Running a Paid Subscription:

1. Just because it’s easy to launch, doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to maintain. Launching Real Estate Blog Topics cost me a total of $11 (for the domain name) and an idea. An idea that I’m continuously working on perfecting day after day, week after week with inspiration from folks like Thom Chambers from In Treehouses, Colin Wright from Exile Lifestyles & author of Exil.es, Adam King from the Humanity Blueprint, being a member of the Third Tribe and more.

2. Do 1 thing really well. Find one thing that you’re exceptionally good at and focus on delivering that one thing. For me, that’s helping others understand the business side of blogging and inspiring them to take action.

2. Focus on perfecting the service/product. When I first launched Real Estate Blog Topics, I was using a service called Letter.ly to manage subscriptions and payments. To their credit, Letter.ly is a great service and they made this easy. But REBT was nothing more than a landing page on my domain and a link that took people off my site and onto Letter.ly to sign up. In short, it was messy and I was losing subscribers in the process (I know because I got a few emails asking me if there was an easier way to sign up).

Today, Real Estate Blog Topics sits on it’s own domain and you get more than just an extended email weekly, content is delivered in PDF format so that you can print and/or download the content to read and learn at your leisure. The sign-up process is managed by MailChimp and Amazon Payments.

Next month, that will all change…as we become a flow-blown membership site. More on that later…

The Lesson here is to focus on delivering a valuable experience from the moment people sign-up to every interaction they have with you via email.

3. Inspire people to take action. I’ve thought about adding a membership forum for people to ask questions and engage with one another. I’ve ultimately decided against the idea for two reasons:

a.) It’s going to take time to manage. Time that I don’t necessarily have at the moment. Though I suppose I could contract someone for support in this area. At this point, I’ve received more than a handful of offers to help with something like this.   

b.) It’s going to distract people from taking action. Ultimately, the goal of REBT is to inspire people to take action and implement the various strategies, tactics and ideas discussed in each issue. By adding a Q&A forum, my concern is that people are going to be distracted from that goal.

4.Don’t be afraid to set a high price. When I first launched, I set the price at $3.99 – that was a giveaway. I told myself I was “testing the market to see if there was interest.” People either jumped at it, or scoffed at the offer. Later, I raised the price to $9.99 and then again to $25 (a price I finally settled on). In doing so, I learned a few things:

• Price too low, and people won’t buy. They just don’t see the value. Some people will subscribe (everyone likes a good deal after all), but they won’t be as committed.
• It’s just as hard to sell a high priced product as it is to sell a low-priced product. Some people will always shop based on price. Somewhere along the way, I decided that those aren’t the people I want subscribing to Real Estate Blog Topics. If you see the value, your’e going to make the commitment and pay the monthly subscription. I shouldn’t have to lower my price to convince you to join. To earn subscribers, you’ll need to effectively communicate your value proposition. In other words, here’s what this is, and here’s how it’s going to help. If that clicks with your buyer, they’ll buy. If it doesn’t, they won’t but that’s ok.
• People won’t do the work if it’s too easy for them to ignore. At $3.99 it was easy for people to ignore their weekly “Action Items” – it’s a small, painless write off. At $25 per month on the other hand, it’s an investment and a commitment. A commitment from me to deliver value, consistently. And a commitment from you to do the work.
• People are willing to pay for it if they see the value. At first, I was afraid to raise the price because I wasn’t sure if people would buy. Not only did I raise the price, I also introduced a yearly subscription option that included a free personalized blog review (via video) if you signed up for the year up-front. Not only do people still continue to purchase at the current rate of $25 per month, but 3 people purchased the same day I introduced the yearly option (this was on Black Friday) and 5 people have purchased at that rate since then.

5. Strive to meet and exceed expectations. When I was subscribed to Thom Chamber’s paid newsletter (now known as The Micropublisher), he delivered a new edition every Monday morning. Most times it arrived early (often times on Sunday). On rare occasion it arrived later in the day. Anyway, it’s what I was promised when I subscribed and it’s what I came to expect. And sometimes, the anticipation ran high as I checked my inbox to see if a new edition had arrived yet.

That’s the same type of anticipation my subscribers must have in regards to a new edition of REBT hitting their inbox. Promise to deliver when you say you will. Focus on delivering high value and they’ll not only remain loyal, but they’ll tell their friends about what you have to offer (and that’s the best kind of referral you can get).

6. Do whatever it takes to make customers happy. At one time, email delivery was spotty for some of my subscribers. Emails were either getting sent to spam or not being delivered at all. I couldn’t tell whether my email address was blacklisted or if emails were simply getting caught in spam folders. In either case, I resent each edition of REBT for the week along with the latest 3 issues. I set up a new Google Apps account with a dedicated email address for Real Estate Blog Topics on it’s own domain and then proceeded to refunded charges for the month. Why? Because it was the right thing to do and I wanted to keep my subscribers happy. It’s instances like this that I can attribute a low (almost nil) cancellation rate to.

7. An email list is the fastest way to sell something. Real Estate Blog Topics is currently set up as a simple landing page and a few other common pages for navigation. There’s no blog. Which means it’s slightly harder to drive traffic to the site without paying for advertising. My solution to this was to build and utilize a mailing list. So I created a 7-part email drip campaign – The Real Estate Blogging Blueprint – as a way to capture people’s attention and up-sell them on REBT Pro (if it’s right for them of course). No hard sells. Just high value content up-front, and a “oh by the way, if you need more help, check out Real Estate Blog Topics…” To date, this has converted very well.

8. Measure everything. I know how many people I have in my email list, the open-rate for that email list, and my conversion rate any time I’ve sent a pitch email to try and get people to sign up to Real Estate Blog Topics. I know how much traffic the site is getting daily/monthly and the average conversion rate. Because I don’t have a forum built into the site, I track engagement based on email replies, and open-rates & downloads. Each weekly edition of REBT is sent via PDF that you can download from the site. On average people open each weekly email 4-6 times throughout the day and are downloading each weekly lesson.

Each of these numbers helps motivate me to set and work towards new goals. It also gives me insight into what’s working and what I could potentially improve on.

You can’t just sit there and keep hitting the refresh button to see if anyone new has purchased. You have to pro-actively measure your efforts and set goals for yourself to keep moving forward.

9. You gotta spend money to make money. I’ve spent more money on information products, ebooks and membership sites in the last six months than I ever have before. I consider it active research, training and education. Frankly, it’s nice to learn from people’s varying perspectives and then to be able to put those ideas into practice. That’s the key though, putting it into practice.

I’m also spending money on relaunching Real Estate Blog Topics Pro in the coming months (more info on that here). I’ve purchased Wishlist Member, Get Premise, and Click-Bank (which charges a one-time product activation fee) to help me turn REBT into a full-blown membership site consisting of extended video tutorials, monthly live Q&A’s, expert audio interviews and more.

Sure it cost money. But at some point, you simply outgrow what’s available to you through freemium options and it’s time to step it up. In this case, I absolutely consider it a worthwhile investment.

10. It’s hard work. Running a membership site (even a “simple” subscription) is hard work. I dedicate my Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings to writing/editing/refining each week’s edition of Real Estate Blog Topics. Sometimes, I’ll write till midnight or 1:00am on weeknights. And now that I’m re-launching and including audio, video and live Q&A’s, that means even less time for procrastination. But like I said, it’s absolutely worth the investment of time and energy.

Don’t launch something just because you think it’s “easy.” Often times, what you see is the finished product someone launched and you think, “oh wow, that looks great. They make it look so easy.” What you don’t see is the amount of hard work, time, and planning that it took to get them there.

Over to you…

Do you currently run your own membership site or paid subscription service? What lessons have you learned in the process?