WHY Tribal Marketing?
Transcription
WHY Tribal Marketing?
I’m About to Reveal How You Can “Flip the Switch” On a Hard-Wired Emotional Need –Shared By Every Person on Earth… and Blow the Top Off Your Own Personal GEYSER of Cash! Tim Schmidt TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org 5 Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the author has used his best efforts in preparing this book, he makes no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the content and specifically disclaims any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The advice and strategies may not be suitable for your situation. Neither the author nor his employer shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. All product names, trade names, logos and artwork are copyrights of their respective owners. None of these owners have authorized, sponsored, endorsed or approved this book. This publication contains material protected under the International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. For general information on our other products and services, please visit www.DeltaMediaLLC.com or call 1-877-677-1919. How To Turn One of Mankind’s Deepest Needs Into Cold, Hard CASH I’m About to Reveal How You Can “Flip the Switch” On a Hard-Wired Emotional Need –Shared By Every Person on Earth… and Blow the Top Off Your Own Personal GEYSER of Cash! Dear Friend, Just like Old Faithful in Yellowstone… I’ve perfected a business model that can uncork your own personal cash geyser. They call it Old Faithful because of its strength, its power and its reliability. And just like Old Faithful, it’ll be there… like clockwork… every day… month after month… without fail… blasting a steady stream of money straight into your bank account. I can hear you already… “NO business can be that steady.” But it can be once you learn the secret… once you learn how to tap into an uncontrollable human need… you’ll realize that… Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 6 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Human Nature DEMANDS what YOU have! And once you learn how to “flip the switch”, you’ll watch with your mouth hanging open as people “storm the doors” of your online business. It’s almost like – actually, it’s exactly like… they CAN’T STOP themselves! I know, you’ve seen and heard it all by now. Every internet marketer and their cousin has got the “one that can’t fail” internet business. Some of them are good, a lot of them are crap. But some have tapped into this secret of human nature – without even realizing it. I must admit, I learned this secret by accident as a last ditch effort to avoid financial ruin myself. But I’ve proven it works time and time again. And I’ve perfected the way to turn it into a system. Okay, now that I’ve got you “below the fold”, I can finally reveal what I’m talking about. I only want to reveal this secret to people who are serious about building a long-term, bullet-proof online business. And by “bullet-proof” I mean you can forget about words like recession. The fourth quarter of last year was my best so far. But get this… January of this year was almost bigger than the entire quarter of last year! Here’s a screenshot of our membership income for just ONE of my association businesses. Heck, this doesn’t even include our shopping cart income from our back-end products. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org That’s why I don’t want the one-click “Lookie-Lou’s” that think they’ve got it all figured out without knowing all the facts. Those people wouldn’t know a real online business if a flying saucer landed in their yard and a technologically superior alien race hand delivered it to them. But since you stuck with me, I’m gonna make it worth your while… BIG TIME. Because over the next couple of minutes I’ll show you how: • Hard-wired human behavior will give you way more free time to do what you want with your life. Meanwhile your business keeps gushing cash like Old Faithful. • You’ll make more money with less effort – forget e-books, standard continuity and “quick-fix” solutions that simply fizzle out over time. • You won’t have to “sell” people to have an online business that spreads faster than a fire in a match factory. They’re programmed to buy what you have! • You’ll never have to worry about “hit or miss” marketing strategies again… I’ll show you how to get your hands on a detailed formula to ALWAYS be in the right place at the right time. • You don’t have to start from scratch… You can plug a human phenomenon into your existing business to triple your bottom line profits. • You can easily follow my proven Tribal Marketing Trifecta. You can use these three rock-solid pillars to make your online business stand stronger than a Roman coliseum. How I Went From Losing 15,000 Dollars a Month To Making 2.4 Million Dollars a Year Not that I hope any of you are struggling right now as bad as I used to, but I hope you can at least relate to where I was. In the fall of 2005, I owned a small engineering firm called Schmidt Engineering. Stroke of genius coming up with using my last name, eh? And even though I managed to employ 4 people and provide a decent living for my family, we weren’t exactly “getting ahead”. I’m sure I was just like you… Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 7 8 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org • Working your fingers to the bone just to get by and provide for your family. • Even with 80 or 90 hour work weeks, you still can’t see the “beaches, boats, and Porsches” in your retirement future. • And that doesn’t even count putting your kids through college, etc. Can you relate? Have you ever felt that futile feeling? And you KNOW that something just has to change? So I did what any rational man in my position would do. I went into… magazine publishing?! Don’t worry… that’s not what I’m suggesting you do. If you’re laughing out loud at me, I don’t blame you. But it was something I always wanted to do… you could call it a passion. And after buying 3 books on the subject (and reading only half of one), I thought I could do it… But that’s when somebody (well, okay… it was me) ripped a huge hole in the financial hull of my business. I started taking on water – fast. And I could see the ship sinking right before my eyes. I was financing the whole thing from my engineering business, and things got ugly quick. I was hemorrhaging 15,000 dollars a month – sometimes more – and was nearly 100,000 dollars in debt. But that’s what brought me to the major “A-ha!” moment that’s going to help you make more easy money than you ever thought possible. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org How Could A Chance Decision Reveal a Powerful Secret Behind Human Nature? I remember it like it was just last night… I’m sure you’ve had your own pivotal moments like this. I was sitting on the front steps of our new house… my feet resting on loose gravel because I couldn’t afford to put in a driveway. My wife and 3 kids were upstairs sleeping – but not me. Even though it was 11:30, with all that was on my mind I couldn’t even think about sleep. And I made a decision, out of the blue, to turn my magazine into an association. And as I created my association, I uncovered an amazing fact about human nature. One that I learned later is backed up by real science (I’ll tell you about that in 30 seconds). But the amazing part is… My money-sucking magazine survived to become a national association with 30,000 members and a multi-media publishing company with over 50,000 customers! I’d be lying to you if I said this all happened overnight. It didn’t. But here’s the thing… I had to figure it all out on my own! I didn’t have a system… a blueprint that could show me exactly what to do. But thankfully… now YOU DO! With the system I’ve perfected: • You can save yourself YEARS of trial and error. • You can uncork a unique, one-of-a-kind cash geyser in just days. • You can do it all with little money. • You can follow a simple, proven, detailed formula that can’t fail. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 9 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org 10 I’m sure you want to know how you can get your hands on this cash gushing system. I’ll tell you how in just a second. But first… I’m gonna give you the secret… Discover the Hard-Wired Secret of the Human Mind That Can Make YOU Rich Let me be clear – this isn’t something that I made up. I wish it were… if I could patent this I’d be a multi-billionaire. But this is a natural phenomenon. It’s a built-in response shared by every human being on earth – and there’s nothing you can do to change it. As a matter of fact, it’s in your very DNA. And this is the secret… We all have the NEED to BELONG. Every one has it. And it’s the most important need that human beings have after health and safety. In other words, as long as you’re healthy and as long as you’re safe, your unconscious mind’s next priority is to find ways to belong. If you’re someone who’s into personal growth and reading about what makes us tick, this may not be a secret to you. But make no mistake, this need is powerful. Even if you’re not aware of it. In fact… Your unconscious mind will not rest until you BELONG to a “tribe” of some kind. No, I’m not talking about banging on logs with bones while we grunt at each Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org other… but there is an undeniable tribal instinct that we all share as human beings. Think you don’t have that kind of “raw instinct”? Take a look at your own life: • You work with a “tribe” of people at your job or business. • You live with your “tribe” at home. • You socialize in “tribes” that have similar interests. • You seek deeper connections with your “tribe” during religious worship. Nearly everything you do happens inside a “tribe” that you belong to. And if this need is missing, your mind will let you know it – in a hurry. Think about it: • If you’re away from your family for too long, you’ll ache. • If you’re away from your friends for too long, you’ll miss them. • If you’re away from your recreation buddies (golf, fishing, etc.) for too long, you’ll feel bored and restless. “…human beings are fundamentally and pervasively motivated by a need to belong. The desire for interpersonal attachment may well be one of the most far-reaching and integrative constructs currently available to understand human nature.” -- Roy F. Baumeister and Mark R. Leary, in a report published by the American Psychological Association, Inc. Like I said, I didn’t make this up. Abraham Maslow, the father of humanistic psychology, identified this “human hard-wiring” as a part of his hierarchy of needs. Just wait till you see the chart on the next page... Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 11 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org 12 As you can see, belonging is the most important need right after health and safety. How the Need to Belong Becomes Cash In Your Hand I’m going to put it to you in the best way I know how. Here are 7 FACTS that can turn the human need to belong into your own cash blasting Old Faithful: 1. Belonging is one of the deepest needs in the human experience. 2. When people come together, united in a common purpose, there is simply nothing more powerful ON EARTH. 3. You can tap into this power and consciously bring people together. 4. You can make their common purpose YOUR business. 5. Because no matter what you sell… no matter what you provide… the people that use what you provide have YOU in common. 6. Bring them together… and you create a FORCE. Now listen closely, because here’s where it becomes a life-changing phenomenon... Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org 7. When you unite that force in the purpose of sharing their desire for what YOU have… it is an unstoppable, never-ending stream of raving, enthusiastic fans and eager buyers of what YOU provide. Are you starting to see the picture? Now here’s the BEST part… You now have access to a perfected system that shows you – stepby-step – exactly how to turn the human need to belong into an unstoppable FORCE of hard-wired, automatic buyers. So, on the following pages, you’ll find some of the CORE PRINCIPLES of Tribal Marketing. Please be sure to take your time and really DIGEST this stuff. You’ll need to have a completely open mind so you won’t miss how you can integrate this stuff into YOUR business. I hope you enjoy this and I wish you success! All the best, Tim Schmidt Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 13 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org WHY Tribal Marketing? Human Psychology - Biological (Hard-Wired) Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. Belonging: It’s actually a survival mechanism. (WANT + hard-wired human NEED = Zealots. Belief is key. Humans want to believe. Belief is ALSO hard-wired into the human mind. A real tribe is not about products, services or STUFF… it is about connection. Imagine that… a continuity program that is NOT based on a monthly product you have to create, but rather based on a shared BELIEF. A true FAN is the product of belief. They’re hard to find, but the good news is that you don’t need that many to transform your business. Human Psychology - Societal (Soft-Wired) Customer’s are already familiar with associations. Association provides ultimate credibility. People tend to perceive a higher level of quality from an association. It is a LOT easier to generate publicity. The press and media are MUCH nicer to associations. For business related associations there is the “It’s just what you do” factor. Members are reluctant to give up an association membership (especially if its done right!) Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 15 16 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org WHY Tribal Marketing? Just Makes Business Sense Members buy 66% more than regular customers. Continuity stick rate is better. (mine is 26+ months) Tribal marketing makes MANY aspects of your business a LOT easier: Marketing, Customer Service, Content Generation. Tim’s TRIBAL Marketing Rule #1 No matter what the subject is for your membership website or association, you’ll probably be able to find a ton of information on this exact subject for FREE on the internet. This discovery may make you ask yourself, “Why would anyone want to PAY for the information that I’ll be providing?” Good question. But, don’t worry. This doesn’t mater! Here’s why. Most of the so-called free informaton is poorly organized and presented. Furthermore, there will always be a segment of society that equates quality and value with price. Thus, there will always be plenty of people willing to pay for the information they’re searching for if it is properly marketed, organized and presented! So, please DON’T be discouraged by the old “I can find this information for free” thing. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Here’s some interesting data... $7.0+ Billion $5.0 Billion $3.2 Billion $2.0 Billion 2005 2006 2007 2008 Paid-for content billings have continued to grow at a rate close to 50%. This has occured despite some people saying that everything on the internet will eventually be FREE! I’ve got nothing against libraries or the people that go to them. Heck, I’d say that library people are some of the finest people that exist. However, I don’t want them as my customers! I’d rather have the person who buys books from Amazon.com by the DOZEN... just in case he or she might read them some day! I want a hyperconsumer of high quality information! Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 17 18 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Check out this interesting data... US Affluent** Internet Users, 2006-2011 (millions and % of total Internet users) 43.7 million (24.0%) 47.0 million (25.0%) 49.4 million (25.5%) 52.0 million (26.0%) 54.6 million (26.5%) 57.1 million (27.0%) ** Defined as someone who uses the internet at least once per month from any location and whose annual household income exceeds $100,000. Source: Nielsen/NetRatings appearing in Piper Jaffray & Co., February 2007 Holy cow! Affluent internet users are on the rise! This is great news for anyone selling any sort of high-end content on the internet. These are people with more money than time and they will not hesitate to give their money to business owners who know what they want and know how to sell to them! By the way, I highly recommend Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Marketing To The Affluent Newsletter. Tim’s TRIBAL Marketing Rule #2 Never underestimate anyone and treat everyone with respect! Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org The DEATH of paid content? B.S.! The Death of Paid Content Has Been Exaggerated! will increase from €849 million in 2005 to €2 billion by 2010. By: Miles Galliford - http://www.subhub. com So if the large national newspapers with their huge audiences are not generating subscriptions, who is? There is a debate raging on the internet at the moment, about whether the move by some of the major national newspapers in the US, away from subscription to a free, advertising driven business model, is a signal that the days of paid content is over. This debate shows a lack of understanding of content publishing on the web. The reason that the national newspapers are failing in the subscription market is because most of their content is available elsewhere for free. If there is a free alternative, guess what, people will always take the free option. In the early days of the web, brand was enough to sustain many of the online sites of the national newspapers, but now brand is not enough. There are many credible sources creating content and the internet community is getting pretty good at ensuring quality floats to the surface and the dross is trampled under foot. So does huge national newspaper sites being forced to go free mean paid content is dead? The figures suggest not. In fact they suggest that the market has blood surging through its veins. According to the Online Publishers Association, paid-for content billed over $2 billion in 2005 and is expected to reach over $5 billion in 2007. In Europe according to a study for the EU, revenues The answer is highly focused niche websites. As Gary Hoover said at the recent SIPA (Specialist Information Publishers Association) Conference “In the information business all the money is in the niches”. At the specialist information end of the market, knowledge and expertise is still a limited resource and there are many reasons why people pay to get access to it. These include: ►► When knowledge is restricted to one individual or a small group of individuals e.g. share tipping and investment information - www.t1ps. com and Bull Market Report www.bullmarketreport.com ►► When knowledge is inextricably linked to one personality or celebrity e.g. Jancis Robinsons’ expertise in wine at www.jancisrobinson.com ►► When the editor has privileged access to source material e.g. insider industry information like www.beernet.com ►► The timeliness of information. If one website gets access to information quicker than other sites, people will pay for that time advantage e.g. the fashion trend prediction site www.wgsn.com Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 19 20 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org ►► A specialist website aggregates information which saves the reader time and hassle e.g. www.lvtbulletin. com provides analysis of court judgements that are relevant to landlords ►► Save people time e.g. business book summary sites such as www. bookbytes.com, www.redbooks.com and the site that provides preachers with downloadable sermons. www.preachingtoday.com ►► The website hosts a specialist community. Charging for access acts as a quality filter to ensure all members have a reason and interest in participating e.g. the many collectors clubs and niche industry groups such as www.restaurantowner.com What is driving this revolution is the combination of cheap and simple publishing tools, zero cost distribution via the web and the access to a global audience via the search engines. Suddenly individual experts can easily share their knowledge and become global celebrities in their specialist areas of interest. ►► People pay for exclusivity. Many paid-for websites are driven by people wishing to be a member of a small elite group. Its much the same as private members clubs or exclusive golf clubs in the real world. e.g. www.smallworld.com Chris Anderson has researched this phenomenon in his book “The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand”. He observed that: ►► People who are passionate about a subject often want to submerge themselves in it and are prepared to pay to mix with likeminded people e.g. fans of the T Bird car. www.tbirdfans.com ►► Training sites that give people access to information that will improve their skills or knowledge e.g. the photography site www. photographytips.com and the writers bureau’s writing course. www. writersbureau.com ►► Help sites that enable people to improve themselves or their health e.g South Beach Diet, www. southbeachdiet.com and What to Expect Pregnancy Club. www.whattoexpect.com “When you can dramatically lower the costs of connecting supply and demand, it changes not just the numbers, but the entire nature of the market. This is not just a quantitative change, but also a qualitative one, too. Bringing niches within reach reveals a latent demand for specialist content. Then, as demand shifts towards niches, the economics of providing them improve further, and, so on, creating a positive feedback loop that will transform entire industries – and the culture – for decades to come” Historically the distribution of knowledge and expertise has been restricted by the cost of distributing it via magazines, books and newspapers. Editors, literary agents and publishers were the gatekeepers who decided and controlled what was worth printing. Chris Anderson compares this to islands being visible above an ocean, where the waterline is the economic threshold for what is worth printing. The islands represent the publications that are popular enough to be Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org above that line, and thus profitable enough to be offered through the publishers distribution channels. However islands are just the tips of vast undersea mountains. When the cost of distribution falls, it’s like the water level falling in the ocean. All of a sudden things are revealed that were previously hidden. And there is much, much more under the waterline than above it. What we are now starting to see, as online production and distribution costs fall, is the shape of the massive mountains of choice where before there was just a peak. 21 are approximately 75,000 print magazines, newsletter. journals and newspapers in the UK and US, yet there are over 15m active blogs and millions of niche content websites. Conclusion The future of internet publishing is in the niches. Subscription and advertising revenues will continue to migrate down the long tail to the niche sites. Specialist publishers who are focused on creating the best site in their subject area in the world are set to prosper. The mass market publications will continue to see their audiences and revenues squeezed. This can illustrated by the fact that there This article © Copyright 2000-2008 SubHub Ltd and Miles Galliford, reprinted with permission. Tim’s TRIBAL Marketing Rule #3 Your Refund Policy and Why It Shouldn’t SUCK! (The Secret to the Perfect Refund Policy) Would you like to know the secret to the perfect refund policy that will save you time, money & frustration? Great. Give your customers a no-questions-asked, 100% money-back, life-time refund. I’m serious. This works like magic on many levels. First, it takes guts to offer this type of refund and therefore almost nobody offers it. Second, in most markets, the longer your refund period, the fewer returns you’ll get. Third, a “Bullet-Proof” refund policy like this will always boost sales. Fourth, a refund policy as bold as this actually acts as a magic bandaid when you make a mistake. If someone gets beligerent on our customer support forum, a whole flock of fellow members will come to my defense with statements like this, “Hey, if you’re unhappy with Tim’s products, quit your complaining and ask for your money back. Tim will certainly give it to you!” Fifth, the 100% money-back, lifetime refund policy shows that you believe in your products. Sixth, a refund policy as gutsy as this shows your customers that you trust them. You trust that they’re not going to be dishonest with you. Will some of them be dishonest? Sure they will... but it will be a very, very small percentage. You may not like this rule. But that doesn’t matter because I’m right. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 22 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org HOW Tribal Marketing? Tim Schmidt’s “Semi-Autiomatic” Association Niche Discovery Flowchart Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org So, now I’ll introduce you to “Tim Schmidt’s Association Niche Discovery Flowchart”. I created this because my brain get’s muddled very easily when I have to think about more than one thing at a time. Flowcharts and graphs really help me to visualize every aspect of a problem. This allows me to make better decisions every step of the way! You’ll see the flowchart on the next page. Please take a few minutes to check this thing out. The left side will help you through the topic selection process. At every step in the process I guarantee you’ll have the urge to bail on the process and just move forward with your “perfect” idea. Well, to help combat this urge, I’ve included a “Chance of Success” meter that will explain your approximate odds of success if you leave the flowchart early! Let us begin! ►►Step 01: Pick a topic. Any topic will do. We’ll know by step 6 whether or not your topic has legs! ►►Step 02: Are you passionate and knowledgeable about this topic? It is a good idea to select a topic that you are personally passionate about. It is handy to be knowledgeable about your topic as well. Chances are that in the beginning phases of your business, you’ll be creating much of the content yourself. And if you don’t know much about your topic, well that will make this very difficult! => Think your passion is enough? According to the Chance-of-Success Meter, if you bail now and start your membership site business with only your passion behind you, you might as well go to Vegas! ►►Step 03: Does the topic cover the WANTS of a passionate niche? Congratulations, you’ve decided to take your membership website topic selection to the next level! Now that you’ve got a topic that you’re passionate about you need to determine if your topic covers the wants of a passionate niche. This is a LOT different than addressing the needs of people. People will not buy what they need, they’ll only buy what they want. Is your membership site topic addressing wants of real people or is addressing a need that you’re projecting onto your prospects. This is the time to be brutally honest with yourself. If you’re unsure, it’s OK to proceed to step 04. But if your membership site topic is centered around some pet project that nobody seems to understand... well you might want to go back to step 01! => Think you got your topic nailed already? According to the Chance-of-Success Meter, if you bail now and start your membership site business without going any further, you might as well walk up to the roulette table and put it all on red! ►►Step 04: Are there existing internet forums and specialty magazines for your topic? Are there existing mailing lists avaibable in SRDS? Now that we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of topic selection, I’m going to use an example topic to help show you how this process works. So, our example topic is going to be... “Buying Physical Gold For Investment”. I can assure you that this topic passes steps 02 and 03. I am very passionate about buying physical gold and I know for a fact that people that are into are a little bit nutty. (I can say this because I’m one of them!) Our next step is research. We need to determine if there is an active market of people that Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 23 24 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Think you’ve got a goood membership site or association topic? It’s a good idea to see if there are any existing internet forums that cover your topic. Be sure to see if they’re active forums! For example, this forum has well over a half million posts in the general discussion forum. are into this. A quick search in Google yields a whole bunch of physical gold related forums. Heck, I found one forum whose general discussion forum had 66,939 threads with 695,732 posts! http:// goldismoney.info/forums/index.php As my research continued, I found a magazine called Coin Connoisseur Magazine. I also found a magazine called Coins Magazine. This brings us to an important point. The coin collector is not really our perfect prospect. But, most people who buy physical gold, but it in coins. So, there might be a good market we could tap! Finally, a quick search SRDS Media Solutions - http://www.srds.com (Standard Rate and Data Services) shows there are quite a few high-end newsletter lists for people subscribing to gold investment newsletters and magazines. At this point in our research, it appears that we have enough evidence to move on to the next step. => Don’t forget to check the Chance-of-Success Meter, if you’re thinking about skipping the nexst step! ►►Step 05: Does the topic market have a history of spending money on products and/or services in your niche? This is where our research will start to get tricky. Ideally, we’re looking for evidence that our potential market likes to buy information. Well, here’s what I’ve found for our “gold” topic. I found people subscribing to a print newsletter called “Gold Newsletter” at $396 for 24 issues. This is a good sign! There was also quite a bit of advertising on the site that sold this subscription. This tells me that the site gets some serious traffic! Okay... more good news. I just found a website that had listings for no less than seven high-end, niche newsletters, all focused on physical gold as an investment. The least expensive subscription was $149 per year. => Okay... so far our topic is starting to look pretty good! But don’t get carried away! The trusty Chance-of-Success Meter, will tell you exactly what “might” happen should you decide to ignore the rest of my steps! ►►Step 06: Can you build a list of prospects within this niche? If you’ve made it this far in my flowchart process, congratulations! Most people never make it past step two or three. This step is probably the most critical step in this entire process. If you can’t build a list, you’ve got nothing. First you’ll have to decided how large of a test list you’ll build before you actually do anything with it. I say your goal should be to build a list of 1,000 prospects. How do you do this? 1.) Buy some PPC traffic and send it to a landing page that offers a free report of some kind if the prospect is willing to leave their contact information. (NOTE: this is a very generic lead generation forumula. Be sure to visit my website for more detailed methods of lead generation!) 2.) Place some small Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org can afford to spend on creating a list of test prospects. Here it is... Here’s is a great example of a lead generation landing page. Your market may or may not like this style, so be sure to test! print ads in the niche magazines you discovered. These ads should also offer a free report. (Again, please see my website for more detailed information on this relatively complex topic!) 3.) There are actaully a whole bunch of additional ways to inexpensively drive pre-qualified traffic to your customized website landing pages. (Video Submissions, Forum Posts, Ezine Articles, Press Releases... each of these would really require and entire chapter to cover completely. Please visit my website for more information on all of these fabulous ways to attract customers like flies to fly-paper!) Okay, now that you’ve got prospects coming in you need to figure out how much it’s costing you. Why? Well, if you’re spending $11 per prospect and you plan on converting 5% of propspects to customers and your business model is such that you have an estimated $221 lifetime customer value... well you’re not going to make much money! Heck, I’m going to make this very easy for you. I’ve created a nice little spreadsheet that will help you calculate exactly how much you ►►Step 07: Survey your list. So... based on your “crystal ball” calculations, we’ve calculated that our break-even lead generation number is $5.45 per lead. Let’s assume that we’re able to buy some payper-click traffic and we generate 1,000 prospects for an average of $2.47 per lead. This is not bad. It’s not great... but it’s a place to start! Step seven says we have to survey the list. Hold on... not so fast. Before we survey our list we have to get a little cozy with them. What do I mean by this? Well, we have to build a relationship first! This is most effectively done by spending a few weeks providing valuable information to the prospect. It also helps to deliver this valuable information in an entertaining manner. This is yet another relatively complex step that I’ll have to gloss over here. But I’ll try to give you at least a little taste of how to do this. If you’re contacting your prospects via email. I’d suggest sending them a series of 7 to 12 email messages. Each of these messages should contain some truly valuable information. Furthermore, start to tell your prospect about... well, YOU! For example, for our “physical gold investment buyers” my first message might include an annotated list of the top websites to buy physical gold from. Plus, I’ll tell a short story of what happened in my life that caused me to start to get interested in buying gold. See...? I’m giving valuable information AND I’m making a personal connection with them! This is REALLY powerful. Like I said before, do this 7 to 12 times and your prospect will now be looking forward to your messages! NOW it’s finally time to send a survey. I’d recommend a survey that Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 25 26 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org This is how much you’ll charge for your site. How long you think each customer will remain a member. If you have back-end products, enter the avg. transaction value here. This is the amount of members you can convert to a back-end sale. This is an estimate of how much revenue each customer will bring in over their lifetime as a customer. If you spend this much per lead you will break even! This is NOT GOOD, so be sure you spend a LOT less per lead! How many leads you’ll convert to customers. *** Want to download a FREE (and much more complete) version of this spreadsheet for your own use? Just visit www.UltimateBlackBook.org right now! You’ll also find a whole bunch of other great FREE bonuses as well. goes something like this. “Dear Prospect, I’ve been receiving a lot of requests lately for some more detailed information on a bunch of different subjects. Will you please help me out and rate the following ideas for some special reports tailored specifically for people who are interested in buying physical gold for investment purposes?” Sheesh... before you send this survey out, be sure to study basic statistical survey concepts, so you don’t screw this up! Crappy survey’s are a dime a dozen. Be sure to do it right. NOTE: You may find in your survey that your membership site idea may best be situated as a back-end product! Don’t fight this. Just give your market what they tell you they want! ►►Step 08: Test launch or pre-launch. Based on your survey results you’ve got a pretty good idea of what your market MIGHT buy from you. If you did as I told you and studied how to do a survey, you probably even have a rough idea how much money your market is willing to pay for the products they told you they’d buy. Now it’s time to do a test launch. There are many, many ways to do a test launch. The only TRUE way of knowing whether or not your prospects will buy what you’re offering is to have the test launch go all the way through the credit card transaction process. Now if you want to take as little risk as possible and you don’t want to even create the membership site or products your testing, you can simply create a sales page for your product and a “fake” transaction Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org page. The customer enters their creditcard info and presses the “buy-now” button, but you don’t actually capture the information. If you ask me this is a WIMPY way to go! Heck, you’ve gotten this far so I say you just build out your membership site and/or product and throw caution to the wind. Plus, there’s a good chance you’ll wind up angering some of your best potential customers if you run them through a transaction that really doesn’t occur! Another great way to bump your test launch is to offer a special “beta-testing” deal to folks who join in the beginning! ►►Step 09: Based on your survey and test launch, build it out. Now you’ve got a bunch of customers who have joined your “beta-version membership website”. Ask them for feedback and adjust your designs & concepts if necessary. 27 ►►Step 10: Hard launch. Now it’s time to ramp up your lead-generation process and sign up as many members/ customers as possible! Congratulations, you’ve got a membership website that has a GREAT chance to become a huge success. Well, at least if you continue reading the rest of this book. Don’t worry, I’ll answer most of the nine zillion questions you probably have rolling around in your head! Congratulations, you’ve got a membership website that has a GREAT chance to become a huge success. Well, at least if you continue reading the rest of this book. Don’t worry, in the upcoming chapters, I’ll answer most of the nine zillion questions you probably have rolling around in your head! How to set it up? - Which Type and Model There are three main TYPES: Trade Association, Professional Association, Special Interest Association. (Within special interest there are consumer & business associations) There are 2 main MODELS: Integrated Business Model (the association is the business), 3rd Party—Secret Arms Length Model. For profit, not-for-profit, LLC, S-Corp, C-Corp, sole proprietorship… Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 28 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org How Do You Create Belief & Belonging? Must have a killer “Back-Story” that is real. You must share your history. Your association must have a clearly defined “PURPOSE” that you actually LIVE by. Must have an IMAGE that members readily identify with. (This is where the selection of the association name and logo are critical. This is a very important step… must give a sense of credibility.) Your images need to communicate authority, leadership and confidence. You must integrate a Protocol/Routine into your association. Something your members expect and grow accustomed to. This can be something YOU (as the leader) do or something THEY do. Clearly identified Non-Believers. You can’t have a yin without a yang. Must have an enemy. If you try to go after everyone… you’re toast. Create an “Insider’s Language”. If you know the lingo then you belong. You NEED a Leader. The leader doesn’t HAVE to be you, but is sure helps! Being a true leader can be somewhat daunting & scary (especially for a geeky engineer like me!) But, the good news is that being a leader is scary to almost everyone, so you won’t have much competition. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org But Tim, my business is different... Yep, I hear this a lot, “But Tim, my business is different.” Well, as Dan Kennedy would say that’s a bunch of BS! In fact there MAY be a small group in this very room with doubts about how to integrate this into their business. So… I’ve decide to come up with some really “far-out” examples of how this can be done in some of the craziest niches. But first I want to expand your mind a bit… we’re NOT just talking about associations. Here are my favorite synonyms for association: Alliance, Coalition, Federation, Guild, League, Order, Society, Syndicate, Tribe. Heck, here are a bunch of sample associations I came up with JUST for this book. Association of Independent Day Traders League of First Generation Millionaires National FOREX Trader’s Association Society of Christian Entrepreneurs Professional Network Marketers Association Association of Ethical Email Marketers Association of Professional Affiliate Marketers Small Business Services Alliance Association of Work at Home Women Society of Green Entrepreneurs Internet Fitness Marketing Association Video Marketing Association Strategic Domain Acquisition Syndicate League of Zappos.com Fanatics Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 29 30 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Here is a partial list of the “Association/ Membership” Based benefits you can offer your prospects. (NOTE: Most of these cost almost NOTHING to provide!) Access to “members-only” articles, videos, etc. Mission statement - code of ethics Members-only forum Product testing & evaluation (People love the idea of getting the chance to test and/or get something for free.) Monthly email newsletter. Use of member logo. Membership certificate. Membership card. Monthly give-away for members only. Access to members-only internet forum. Be listed in a national or regional directory. Press Release templates. Advertising & Marketing templates Business planning templates. Industry Reports. Help to get YOU started. Membership discounts on internal products. Resource Library Certification program Product discounts on external products. Print newsletter or magazine. Group insurance. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Business Planning & Strategery: The engineer in me couldn’t help but include this section in these notes. And while this information doesn’t have that much to do with Tribal Marketing, it is still REALLY important. M ost people skip the business plan stage of their business or they do it completely wrong and for all the wrong reasons. If you search for business plan templates or services on the internet, you’ll find a whole bunch of text-heavy outlines whose primary purpose is to impress investors or bankers. Let me save you some time and heartache. People don’t want to invest in your business and bankers will only lend you money if you don’t need it. I’m serious! You should create a business plan for one person and for one reason. The person your business plan is for is YOU and the reason you create your business plan is to help you visualize what might happen in the future. So forget about lengthy market descriptions and executive summaries. Throw all that crap away! All you’ll need is a gigantic spreadsheet. A big spreadsheet will allow you to quickly create a multi-year, cash flow scenario that can be easily adjusted with a few keystrokes. You’ll be able to add worksheets that will allow you to calculate best-case and worstcase scenarios. You’ll be able to forecast revenue, expenses and income. Plus, if you have a great big computer monitor, you’ll be able to look at all these numbers at once. Trust me, a well-built spreadsheet is the ultimate planing and visualization tool. At this point I feel the need to let you in on a little secret. Here it is. You’ll spend a few hours or maybe even a few days building your ultimate “business plan” spreadsheet. You’ll look at all the nubmers and smile. You’ll glance at the profit estimates and your smile will widen. But here comes the secret... NONE of the numbers on your business plan spreadsheet will come true! I’m 100% serious. I think there is some sort of law of predictive nature that says, “If a business person writes a number on a spreadsheet cell whose date is in the future, this number will not come true!” Don’t get scared. The good news is that a lot of the numbers will be BETTER than you predicted while some of the numbers will be worse than you predicted. You may be thinking, “Then Tim, if none of the numbers on our spreadsheet are going to be accurate, then why on earth should I even bother creating this thing?” That is a reasonable question. Here’s the answer. While the “future” part of your business plan spreadsheet will never be dead-on accurate, the “past” part will. And in tandem, you will use both parts as a tool to estimate the future! We will go much deeper into this concept in Chapter 09. For now, your business plan spreadsheet should contain the following critical categories... (Note: For you accounting geeks, this is a very simplified outline. You can download a free sample business-plan spreadsheet template from my website.)(Note: If you’re an accounting geek and now you’re offended that I just called you a geek, well too bad. I’m a geek too and it’s okay for geeks to call ‘other geeks’ geeks.) ►►Revenue: This category lists all forms of income. Your spreadsheet may have some of the following sub-categories. Subscription Revenue. Conversion Revenue. Renewal Revenue.Advertising Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 31 32 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Revenue. If you (or maybe your rich uncle) have to pump money into the business for a few months , then you should include a sub-category for this. You might want to call it “Ownership Loan” or something like that. Add up all these sub-categories and call the sub-total: Total Revenue. By the way, each month should have it’s own column. (If you’re already confused, check out the pictures of a sample business plan spreadsheet somewhere in this chapter!) ►►Expenses - Variable: You may or may not need this category for your business plan spreadsheet. This category is in mine because I have multiple print publications that some of my customers receive. Therefore, I have expenses that vary with the number of customers. That’s why they’re called variable expenses! Some examples of variable expenses that pertain to a print publishing business are printing, postage and fulfillment. If you’re a really smart marketer, you’ll put your lead generation advertising and marketing costs here as well. (More on this later!) ►►Expenses - Fixed: These are the expenses that do not change with respect to your monthly business volume. Now, over time as your business grow, these expenses will change. But we’re looking at monthly snapshots here. What specifically am I talking about? Well, if you’ve got employees, your payroll and health insurance expenses are certainly fixed. If you lease and office then all those expenses are fixed as well. Some people will put marketing and advertising costs in the fixed expense. (Heck, I used to do this!) This is not smart. You should know EXACTLY what each advertising and marketing dollar gets you in terms of new prospects. Thus, you can tie at least your lead generation advertising and marketing costs to new customer. Therefore, these expenses should go up in the variable expense category! ►►Operating Profit (Loss): This is the difference between all your revenues and all your expenses. ►►Cash Position: This number is simply a running monthly total of how much money you’re making or losing. This number is very valuable from a forecasting perspective. You can look at your cash positon forecast and know exatly when you have to stop pumping money into the business! The neat thing about a business plan spreadsheet is that it is a very simple document to create and maintain. Here are a few more complex spreadsheets that you might want to include as additional worksheets on your master business plan spreadsheet. The first one is entitled “Lead Generation Costs & Customer Value Analysis”. This is a handy spreadsheet for calcualting critical numbers like “Average Income Per Lead” or “Total New Customer Income Per Advertisement Dollar Spent”. The second spreadsheet is entitle “Pricing Analysis and Monthly Income Forecast”. This spreadsheet works great for testing different membership, subscription and product prices. While there is a lot of guestimation that goes into a spreadsheet like this, you can still get a lot of useful information by comparing different pricing scenarios. In conclusion, I highly recommend the use of business plan spreadsheets. Their regular use will give you a healthy understanding of how your business works! Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. All numbers in the spreadsheets you see here are completely fictional. All numbers in the spreadsheets you see here are completely fictional. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 33 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org 34 How To Build Community Within Your Tribe! I f CONTENT is the “Nitro” of a good membership website, then COMMUNITY is the “Glycerin”. And when you combine Nitro and Glycerin you get DYNAMITE, baby! Sorry, I realize that was probably the goofiest metaphor you’ve ever heard, but it is 100% true! Good content will make keep your customer happy for maybe six months. If you’re lucky, you can keep niche customers happy with good content for up to a couple years. But after two years, your customers will know everything that you know. Which is why you need an automated community building machine located deep within the workings of your membership website. by making a big list of all the critical, ideal and desirable components of membership website community. ►►Members Only Forum: This is the most basic building block of a membership website community. A lot of people will ask me, “Tim, why would a person PAY money to belong to a internet forum when there are already free forums on the exact same topic.” Good question. First of all, the form is only a small component of why your customer initially joins. Secondly, a paid-forum tends to be much more civil than a free forum. Wait... not much more civil, rather a thousand I am getting goosebumps just thinking about how much I LOVE this concept of automatic community generation. If you develop a healthy This is the secret formula to building a membership website that will run like a community among the finely-tuned, swiss-made watch! Valuable content will keep your members talking members of your website, and an active community will keep your members around forever! you’ll have members that times more civil! I asked the members will never leave. I’m serious. They will never of one of my membership site forums leave. They will be customers for life. if I should open the forum up to the public. Wow, they were ready to string Please don’t underestimate the power me up! Be sure to use either vBulletin or of this principle. Most lifetime customer phpBB as your forum platform. These valuation calculations that I perform are are, by far, the most feature-rich forum based on customer lives of 1.5 to 2 years. applications available. Furthermore, (This doesn’t mean that my customers are your customers are already familiar dying. It just means they’re my customer for with the way these applications work! 1.5 to 2 years!) Having customers for life The only downside of having a forum simply changes everything. on your membership website is that it MUST be moderated. Even a group The Un-official Definition of of the most docile, responsible paid Membership Website “Community” members will get out of hand from I think I’ll handle this un-official definition time to time. The good news here is Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org that it usually isn’t very difficult to recruit some of your existing members to be moderators. ►►Photo Sharing: Allowing your members to share photos is yet another excellent way to foster community. If your membership website is focused on a niche that involves “stuff”, then the ability to share photos will be exceptionally powerful. People love to share photographs of the “things” they’re passionate about! Both vBulletin and phpBB have photo sharing plugins. You can also install a third-party photo sharing package like PhotoPost. The nice thing about the PhotoPost product is that it offers additional community-building features! (See the next item.) ►►Classified Advertisements: Many membership website forums will have a natural proliferation of posts regarding the sale of items between members. When this happens, it’s a good idea to install a classified advertisement system. I’d recommend using the software by PhotoPost. Software like this is specifically designed for community, classified sales. Trust me, your members will appreciate it! ►►Personal Blogs: A growing amount of the newer “community” membership websites will allow each member to “host” their own private or public blog. This is yet another powerful form of user-generated content. You’ll be amazed at how many of your members have quite a bit to say. ►►Internal Messaging System: An internal message system will increase and enhance the quality and amount of communicatin between your members. Why not just rely on regular old email? First, most internal message systems will allow a member to contact another member without revealing their personal email address. Second, an internal message system allows your members to communicate with each other The most popular commercial forum software platform is called vBulletin. In my opinion it is the best for many reasons. One, this is the software that most humans are used to. This is pretty important. Two, vBulletin is a commercial product that you buy, thus they have customer support! Three, the software is built in PHP and used MySQL as its database. This makes the software easy to customize, host and find programmers to hack it up. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 35 36 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org instantly. They don’t have to leave the browser they’re using for your website. This increased simplicity will actually increase the amount of messages that are sent. Most forum packages have an internal message system built right in! ►►User Ranking System: This is a community building system that works by appealing to your member’s ego. Members are assigned a rank based on the volume of certain activities that you assign. For example, when a new member joins, they haven’t made any forum posts, blog entries or article submissions. Thus, their ranking may be something like “Private”. After the new user has submitted 25 forum posts and 2 blog entries they are promoted to a rank of “Private First Class”. When they get to 75 posts, well now they’re a “Specialist”. As the owner of the your membership website, you can set this up any way you want. (You certainly don’t have to use military ranks!) The bottom line is that people LOVE recognition and this will provide an ongoing and natural boost to your site. ►►Rewards Points System: Wow, I love rewards programs. I can’t believe some of the crazy stuff I’ll do just to get American Express rewards points. I’m sure there is some deep and complex psychology going on here that I admitedly don’t understand. But I do know this... Rewards programs work! You can reward your members for buying products, creating content, moderating forums, or whatever the heck you want. ►►Product Rating System: If your membership site topic is product related, a product rating system will be something your members will love. The members on your site will truly become friends. And the best person to review a product is someone you know and trust. Heck, you can even have your members review the products that YOU sell! A good product rating system will also give your community a whole bunch more to talk about. And the more your community is talking the better. Here is an intersting review script: http://www.reviewsscript.com/ Insider User Community Tips: What You NEED to Know About the Double-Edged Sword of an Active User Community An active user community behaves like a living organism. It can be healthy and it can be unhealthy. Furthermore, if your user community is currently thriving, it will tend to get better and better. But, if something negative happens, a negative snowball effect can take place very quickly! An active user community is a doubleedged sword because in order to reap the benefits, you must put a fair amount of resources into it. It’s kind of like a garden. If you water it, keep it weeded and give it some love, you’ll harvest a bunch of good food. If you ignore it, it will get nasty. Yes, the garden comparison makes a lot more sense than the sword comparison. So maybe I should have used the garden metaphor in the first place. Oh well, I think “double-edged” makes the title of this section sound a lot more exciting. Okay... enough screwing around. Here are some tips to help you develop and maintain a healthy member community. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org ►►Moderate All Forums: Be sure you have someone you trust moderate all member forums. It is a good idea to compensate these people. Free membership is usually all that is required. ►►Unexpected Gifts: Send an unexpected gift to each of your moderators at least twice per year. Most forum moderators are used to putting in hours and hours of moderation time for zero compensation. Furthermore, most forum moderators moderate multiple forums. When your moderators receive an unexpected gift from you... well they’ll be flabergasted. I like to send things like Omaha Steaks http://www.omahasteaks. com or Harry & David gifts http://www. harryanddavid.com. 37 ►►Fair & Swift Member Actions: Another good metaphor for an active user community is that it’s a LOT like a family. Heck, it IS a big group of people with lots of complicated relationships. For example, let’s say that community member “Bob741” and “TurboJerry” have become good friends. Now normally “Bob741” is a very mildmannered fellow. But something strange happens. A new user joins the community. We’ll call him “HotHeadHarry”. Well, “HotHeadHarry” starts making some inflamatory comments in a discussion thread that “TurboJerry” has started. “Bob741” sees his good friend being unjustly attacked and is transformed from mild-mannered to ferociously furious. Now how in the heck This is the “My Profile” page for a community site built and run by a friend of mine. This guy has done a phenomenal job of integrating multiple community features into a single membership website. Here’s a place to upload photos I’d like to share with the community. This site has a place to upload a member’s photo! Here is a reward or points program! I don’t have any points yet. Wow. I can post blogs, articles, videos and even podcasts. Here’s a place where other members can sign my “guestbook”. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 38 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org did this happen? From my experience, almost all human emotions tend to be exagerated in an online community. Your fellow community members will be quick to tell you you’re the smartest guy in the whole world. However, they’ll fly off the handle a lot quicker as well. Now, there is nothing wrong with this. It is what it is. As the owner of the forum or user community, you MUST be aware of how this works. And when people get out of line, you must offer consistent, fair and swift resolutions. Sometimes this may include kicking someone A classified advertisement section for your membership off your community and community will make it a lot easier for your members to giving them a full refund. buy and sell itmes from each other! ►►Customer Service: This one should be obvious. But in case you’ve never shopped at Zappos.com before, your customer service policy should be something like this, “The customer is always right. Period.” You should treat each customer that contacts you as if it were your Mom asking for help. Do whatever it is that they ask. Sometimes it won’t be fair to you... doesn’t matter... just do it. ►►Develop a Thick Skin: This one is huge... at least for wimps like me. What do I mean by calling myself a wimp? I really struggle with not taking criticism of me and my business personally. And when you have an active member community whose emotions are on a The classified ad software here allows the member to upload photos, include price and answer questions from potential buyers. hair-trigger, well you’re going to get regular doses of somewhat irrational criticism. It is critical that you develop a thick skin. If you’re a wimp like me, you just can’t let this stuff bother you that much. If you do, it will start to affect critical business decisions. Not good. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org How To Turbo-Charge YOUR User Community In the beginning stages of your membership website, you’ll want to be able to jump-start your members forum and other community features. Here are a few ideas to help you out! ►►Have a contest: There may be some obscure market out there that doesn’t like contests... but I’ve yet to discover it. It seems like everyone loves contests! You can have a contest to see who can come up with the most original question about something specific to your niche. Prizes? Give away membership extensions, some of your products, or even Starbucks gift cards. Be creative. The more creative you are the more buzz your contest will create. ►►Create a poll or survey: Polls are powerful for a number of reasons. First, your members will have a natural desire to be a part of a poll that is well targeted to your niche. Second, your members will be much more apt to participate since you’ll make the poll completely anonymous. And finally, your members will want to see the resulsts of the poll. Don’t be afraid to ask a controversial question. This will spur additional comments and thread discussions. ►►Give A Quiz: Quizes are yet another powerful tool for jumpstarting your community. Here are a few quiz tips: Keep your quiz to ten questions or less. Your quiz should take less than 120 seconds to complete. Be sure to time this. Your entire quiz should be on a single web page. Your quiz should offer some sort of score or comparison so your members can see how they did. ►►Hire A “Plant”: This final tip may be somewhat controversial. Pay a few people to start new forum discussion threads on a regular basis. It would be ideal if these people were interested in your niche, that way you don’t have to script every post. You won’t have to do this for very long as your new forum and user community won’t take long to take on a life of its own. I hope this chapter gave you a better understanding of the technology that is available to help you create a powerful and cohesive community within your membership website. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 39 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org 40 Here’s A Foolproof Method For Hiring an ‘A-Player’ That YOU Can Use to Find a Loyal, Trustworthy & Appreciative Employee. Step 2 Step 1 Send this msg to those who follow the simple directions from step 1. Place “filter-style” ad in Craiglist. Are you a go-getter who is tired of limited opportunity? Do you like to work with positive and upbeat people? Are you an ultra-organized person? Small yet growing publishing company is looking for an assistant office manager. Your duties and responsibilites will include: - Website & database order entry. - Product packaging & fulfillment. - Customer service via telephone & email. - Office automation projects. - Organization projects. *** IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS *** If you are seriously interested in this opportunity, please include the following in your reply: 1. Write a short paragraph that explains why YOU are the perfect person for this position. 2. Explain the two most exiting qualities about yourself. Debbie Downers => DO NOT APPLY! Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Step 3 Step 5 Candidates will Self-Filter after reading your detailed information on website. It’s finally time for the interview. The people who’ve made it through this far will be pretty good. BUT, here is where you give them the “Unlimited Opportunity” Litmus test. http://www.usconcealedcarry.com/public/1252.cfm During your interview process, you gotta do TWO things. 1. Create a tiered list of potential job responsibilites. Be sure the upper tier of potential responsibilities are way over their head. A-Players will be up for the challenge. B & C players will not! 2. Ask them if they’re lucky. People who have a general sense that they are lucky people are the kind of people you want to work for you! Step 4 Candidates will further Self-Filter after completing the survey! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=931053573229 Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 41 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org 42 17 Ways to Simplify Your Life... Right NOW! 1. Do one thing at a time. 2. Regularly Evaluate Commitments. 3. Mind Your Own Business. 4. Stop Doing Things You Don’t Do Well. 5. Avoid Excessive Reasoning. 6. Don’t Be Complicated. 7. Don’t Overestimate Yourself. 8. Don’t Let Work Pile Up. 9. Buy Some Time. 10. Have Realistic Expectations. 11. Avoid People Who Talk Too Much. 12. Be Generous. 13. Let Discipline Be Your Friend. 14. Be Thankful. 15. Be Positive. 16. Don’t Be Judgemental. 17. Be Wise. NOTE: I swiped these from “100 Ways To Simplify Your Life - J. Meyer” - These are my 17 favorites! Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Well, I hoped you found some SOLID information here. But here’s the bottom line. There is simply NO WAY I can teach you everything I’ve learned in a free ebook. And if you’re like me… you want to rip that lid off your personal cash geyser as quick as you can. So here is the absolute FASTEST way that you can implement a proven, surefire method to “flip the switch” on the hard-wired need that YOUR customers have. I’ve put together a DREAM TEAM of the most successful association marketers on the planet, and we’re revealing ALL in 3 detailed, uncork-yourgeyser-NOW, action packed days! Announcing... First Time Ever (and probably the last!) 3-Day Tribal Marketing Insider’s Workshop Chicago, IL - Hyatt Regency O’Hare May 15th-17th, 2009 This LIVE event is a limited seating, invitation only insider’s personal training on the POWER of association marketing. Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved. 43 44 TRIBAL Marketing - www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org By the end of these 3 power-packed days, you’ll be armed with all the tools you need to immediately uncork Old Faithful by tapping into the hard-wired need of your own association members. Here’s just some of what you’ll learn: • Why associations work: You’ll learn exactly how to trigger the hardwired belonging response, but you’ll also learn about the mental “software” that creates other cash generating pre-programmed responses. • The 7 ingredients to triggering the hard-wired human need to belong: These are things you MUST combine to maximize the sense of belonging and the belief that YOUR association is the group they should belong to. • A complete, easy to duplicate system: This is the practical tool that will allow you to start an association right away. You’ll learn whether the “Integrated Method” or the “Secret Third Party Method” is best for your association. • The Ultimate Niche/Topic Selection Flowchart: This is a critical piece to a detailed formula to ensure that you’re in the right niche at the right time. This is how you’ll select what kind of association to start. • The Association Business Plan template: If you don’t have a plan, you might as well be buying scratch off lottery tickets instead of starting a business. We’ll give you a “fill-in-the-blanks” plan to have you up and running in no time. • How to integrate the power of associations into your exiting business: You’ll learn that the difference in psychology – selling something to a stranger versus sharing something with your brother – can more than double your revenue. For more information about this event, please visit: www.TribalMarketingAssociation.org Copyright © 2003-2009 by Delta Media, LLC & Tim Schmidt - All Rights Reserved.