The Truth About Membership Sites

I receive emails and phone calls throughout the week from individuals who have joined programs and need advice on how to market or advertise online.

Often the case is that the person making contact has joined a program designed specifically to address the questions they are asking me. In the back of my brain, I'm often thinking, "What's not right with this scenario?"

A program - membership or otherwise - must have a few fundamentals to be considered legitimate online. It must give you something in return for you giving someone money. It's that simple. There must be an equitable exchange - information, software, products - something that says you are getting value for your money.

As you explore all your various choices online, when it comes to picking a membership (or product or service), ask yourself (at a minimum) these two questions:

1. What is the program selling you for your money?

2. Other than promoting that program to others will it also show you how to make money online for any business?

I can tell you what happens, because the picture is painted ever so clearly to me by my mail companions and phone callers - they do not know what they joined!

The second scenario is they did not have any set plan to begin with. Instead they think that taking the "easier" route of using someone else's stuff to promote will be their ticket to online riches. No business plan, no real strategy. Unfortunately, more often than not, nothing could be further from the truth. That program, membership or not, is not your business, it belongs to someone else.

Another possibility is the person really has no current viable idea for starting a business online and, instead, opts to promote that program as if it were their own. Therein lies the problem. You become an affiliate of the program, not the sole proprietor.

When you elect to sell to others, ethically shouldn't you know what it is in the first place?

As I talk or write back and forth with someone, I can tell from the conversation whether someone is - harsh as it may sound - lazy or hard working and determined.

Personally, I can tell from talking to someone or emailing back and forth when someone is doing his or her job or trying to take the easy way. Unfortunately, by taking the easy way they create further difficulties for themselves. How can you sell something to someone when you don't know what you are selling?

If the allure of making money is the only reason for parting with your own, think it through carefully. If you're not one for researching so that at a minimum you can put your own carefully crafted advertisements together, and you think promoting it will be a walk in the park (and you don't have an active mailing list) your job will not be an easy one. Do-able only if you're willing to work very hard promoting something you know nothing about.

In a nutshell, you join programs and memberships, even those whose sole purpose appears to be making money just for spreading the word about it because you are smart enough to know that morally you have an obligation to find out what it is you will be telling others about. If you can't explain in a simple email or phone call what it is you've joined, you are not ready to share it with others. You can't sell what you don't know.

People can sense the difference.

Article Source: http://www.exclusive-article.com

We take marketing seriously and believe you should, too. Find real resources to grow your business. Discover why our online membership program stands head and shoulder above the rest.
Don't reprint the same version as everyone else. Get your own unique content membership article here.

Please Rate this Article

Not yet Rated