Have you wanted to create a successful membership website, but weren’t quite sure where to start? It’s okay, you’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs are quickly discovering that they’re able to benefit from a powerful content delivery solution that complements their existing sales and marketing strategy.
Configuring a membership site for your small business isn’t difficult with Infusionsoft. I’ll share a three-step guide on how you can create a simple and effective membership site using CustomerHub.
A “membership site” is a website intended to deliver protected or paid content behind a secure login. Call it a pay-wall, gated content or a secure content delivery system – it’s the same thing. This tutorial is intended for beginners who haven’t yet explored membership sites for their businesses.
One of the most common pitfalls that people fall victim to when launching a new membership site is to implement advanced membership strategies and overly complex systems at the onset. I’m talking about things like evergreen content delivery, one-click upsells, multiple permission levels and more. These features can offer serious benefits for a mature membership business, they are generally tricky to carry out and cause friction for a newbie looking to prove out a membership model for their business. If you’re starting a membership site for the first time, I recommend to keep it simple!
Luckily, Infusionsoft users can take advantage of our supported membership site product named CustomerHub, which integrates seamlessly with Infusionsoft. It was designed specifically to keep the process simple and the setup easy so it can scale with your business as it grows!
Follow these easy steps below to launch your very own membership site using CustomerHub by Infusionsoft.
STEP 1. Sign up for CustomerHub. You can do this by going to your Infusionsoft master navigation menu, clicking on ‘Infusionsoft Account’ (under Admin), then going to the View Plug-ins page and adding CustomerHub to your Infusionsoft account.
STEP 2. Set up an Infusionsoft Membership Welcome & Upsell campaign. Pictured below, I show you how to configure the follow-up sequences from inside of the Infusionsoft Campaign Builder.
This campaign allows leads to opt in to watch a free video (protected by your membership site), then to convert them to a customer and keep them as a long-term member. You can look at the sequences in the campaign below to see how it all works:
In this sequence, you’ll add the contact to your membership site, apply a tag (free member), and send them their login information via the welcome email. Three days later, you will apply a new tag (member upsell offer) and send them back into the membership site to watch a video designed to upsell them to a paid member. If they buy, they’ll be added to the paid member sequence below:
This sequence will first verify that the contact is added to your membership site (in case they sign up using a different email address or refer a friend), apply a paid member tag, send them their login information again a second time, then follow up three more times to attempt retaining them as a long-term member.
This is all the setup required in Infusionsoft to facilitate your membership process. Not months, weeks or days – only a few hours.
STEP 3. Set up your CustomerHub site. Follow the steps below to complete the setup of your CustomerHub site.
- The first time you log into CustomerHub, you’ll land on the setup wizard. Simply follow the step-by-step instructions to complete your setup.
- Create a free video page. Upload your free video and set permissions for the page based on the ‘free member’ tag in Infusionsoft.
- Create an upsell video page, add your upsell video to it and set permissions for the page based on the ‘member upsell offer’ tag in Infusionsoft.
- Create a paid member content page and add your paid membership content to it. Your paid membership content can be a variety of content including videos, audios, downloads and more. When you’re done, set permissions for the page based on the ‘paid member’ tag in Infusionsoft
Here’s what the end result might look like after your page structure is set up in CustomerHub:
That’s it! Now you’re ready to launch your new CustomerHub membership site!
Once you start getting some traction and are ready to use some advanced techniques you can check out the CustomerHub training videos in our Help Center or sign up for premium CustomerHub coaching from us.
To learn even more best practices when using CustomerHub, I invite you to attend a webinar this week, Your Blueprint to Generating Consistent Cash Flow with a Membership Site, which is scheduled for February 27 at 9AM PST.
Photo Credit: lecates
