I spent a few weeks setting up and adding content to my new members site. I am charging £1 a month for membership with a 1 week free trial. It's a photoshop tutorial website that has HD video tutorials etc. For photographers (an area at which I'm proficient in.) I have been using ppc to drive traffic to it for 3 days, but not one signup yet, even with the free trial. I am wasting money on ppc and can't afford to carry on my campaigns when they aren't converting. Has anyone got any suggestions for getting members please? Anyone know how to go about targeting the photography niche? any free traffic techniques/website you could suggest?
Find photographer affiliates, and message them, you can post a free press release, and people will come
maybe it is what you trying to sell.. tips, tutorials, howtos, photo editing.. tricks are all free on the internet... they will have little incentive to sign up.. unless you can make a full course.. make a CD or comprehensive book.. you maybe able to sell.. then still they will pay one time cost for the book.. it is just difficult to offer it on a subscription membership basis...there may be nothing wrong with your marketing method have you thought about two tiers system? for basic discussion, free.. for high end.. in depth know how.. charge a membership fee..
It is extremely difficult to get people to pay for anything these days... especially membership sites. I would try a couple of things: First- you should really try to increase the amount of time on the free trial. I rarely even download software that will simply expire with demos that are shorter than 15 days. It's not a long enough time to gauge the value of a product and even if your membership service is cheap you have to earn trust first. Second- try reaching out to a few industry leaders and give them a chance to use the site for a longer period of time (potentially forever) in exchange for their participation and hopefully marketing of the site. People love to feel as though they are a part of something, especially if they are a leader, and are likely to share your site and recommend it to their friends (and if they are leaders in a large industry with active bloggers and designers like the photo industry) then you are already in luck! Sorry I can't be of more help, but hope this is somewhat beneficial to you
How many visitors does the site get? When trying to sell a membership the traffic you may be getting from the PPC is not targetted enough. Try doing some private advertising with some related sites. Get about 5 which are high on google on your selected keywords. That investment will always bring a higher return then PPC in my opinon.
You could perhaps try a CPA campaign but you should then invest in a good affiliate software for the affiliates to get heavy tracking data. Should be modeled behind google analytics so that affiliates know where their traffci hits are coming to your site from. You could get one developed for yourself or buy one of the off-the-shelf products available in the market.
One good way, although it may not bring in droves of people, is to establish a good reputation for yourself on a good forum that is related to whatever you want people to sign up for. Then, you can direct people to your site from that forum. *I don't suggest spamming your site. Actually help people, then while you help them and show that you are a knowledgeable person you can direct them to your site.
http://photographypool.com Thanks everyone for all your suggestions, there's been some good stuff, I've taken it all to mind. I have also extended the free trial to 20 days. Also, the person who asked how many hits I get, approx. 200 uniques a day. Any more suggestions? Thanks
You may want to rethink your business model. Why not release 90% of your content for free, and charge a premium for the final 10%.
emid123, you are not giving them any samples to look at, no free tips to read. Every time I clicked on something, I get directed to a sign up page. Why should they buy something they haven't even seen yet? That's your main problem, right there. By the way, by doing this, and if your stuff is really good, you do not have to have free trials.
If I had 200 uniques coming to my site every day then I would be turning at least 5% of that into sales. Some people have said about free content, that could work but it's the same idea most related sites have. Try and come up with a unique idea, something people have to do on your site to be able to get the templates. Just a thought.
Thanks for the suggestion, I realise to compete in this niche I will need to be as unique as possible. I'll get thinking. I think i'm going to try the free content idea so many people have suggested, I will make some additional videos and put them up on my site for everyone to view and also on youtube etc with links to my site. It could possibly work, I hope
I'd suggest you have very small sample pics of some of your stock so people know what they're buying into, just make them too small to use and have a water mark over them. As when i was looking around i found it annoying i couldn't see exactly what i'd be buying into... Having said that your site looks good and i'm thinking of signing up myself for that price... What i'd say though is think of who you're marketing to. People who take pics already are less likely to sign up as they do their own pics and can get free tutorials online. Maybe aim for someone like me, who spends alot on istockphoto and wouldn't mind a cheaper alternative for some types of pics. £12 for unlimited royalty free images for a year sounds like an excellent bargain to me, if i could see some samples and was on my computer i most likely would'v signed up already. And i still might. But yer, just look at who would really want your service and adapt your ppc advert accordingly.
Thanks for the tips, I think one of my problems is that people are unable to see a lot of what they are paying for. pmmdvonline, I will have a look at your report, thanks. tech_savvy, that's certainly true, the only difference is my content is higher quality than what you can find for free.