This post is part of my year of alchemy, you can find the whole series here or subscribe for future updates here.
Two months into the year and I feel like I am only starting to get into the swing of things.
Over the December/January I lost a lot of members and so the main focus has been member retention.
Member retention
After converting 3 of my members to lifetime members and losing another 5 (gaining 3), I am down to 7 recurring members. Which is down to basically covering costs with a little left over for supplies I need to demonstrate in the videos.
If I had of kept my members we’d be sitting at around 40. So this is an area I needed to address.
Onboarding
First thing was implemented an on boarding process. Before I’d send an email, invite them to the group and that was it aside from the weekly updates. So I’ve implemented a bit of a better system.
- Email 1 -immediately – welcome email with video – what you should check out first.
- Email 2 – 2 days after sign up – check in, encourage to introduce yourself
- Email 3 – 4 days after sign up – a link to some of the most popular content
- Email 4 – 25 days after sign up – letting them know what’s in the pipeline for the next 2 months, plus a link to vote for what they want to see
- Email 5 – 50 days after sign up – offer to upgrade to an annual plan
- Email 6 – 120 days after sign up – check in and survey
These emails have been designed to be personal in nature so I am hoping this will help keeping people with us.
Engagement
This is a big one that I’ve struggled with. Getting people chatting in the group.
I’ve decided I need to show up way more and be present in the group. I’ve set up a schedule of types of things to post each day to make this easy for me. I schedule most of them in advance , except the live updates on Sunday’s which I just have to remind myself that it has to be done. I am adding more videos in addition to the scheduled posts and general on the fly content.
Content Roadmap
I am working on a content roadmap to make myself more organised and accountable. I’ll be giving access to the members the next 3 months of content themes. This could either keep or lose people if they can’t see anything they like. I am hoping we will get to a point that there is so much content that everything they want is there they just have to pick a path.
Mini guides
As there is now over 100 videos in the membership I totally get it could get overwhelming so I am working at organising this content better into little pick a path options.
Gifts
As a thank you for those people who have now been with me for a year I am going to send out some random thank you packs.
I am hoping these things will help with member retention so I am not constantly on the launch merry go round.
Regular launches
If you’ve been following on from last year you’ll see how much I had a love hate relationship with launching. So this year I am trialling shorter launch periods, more often. So once a month I open the doors to my list for the weekend. It’s nice getting a few members trickling in, not big numbers though as I did expect. Instead of launches my focus is on list building. I totally get that most people will be on my list for at least 6 months before they buy so I keep reminding myself it’s a marathon not a sprint.
New list building
So with a big focus on organic list building I’ve chosen a few of my biggest traffic blog posts and set up optin incentives. I have one that is going gangbusters. The only issue is, it’s not my niche! As in the location demographic that I am targeting. So I need to figure out how to segment it, and how to serve those people. My list is increasing but also the unsubscribe rate is because the relevance isn’t there. A rookie move I know! So a big thing is segmenting.
Diversify monetisation
AdSense
As a way to get those North American hits I switched on Google Adsense again. Considering my traffic still isn’t astronomical, it’s hardly worth it, so far I have made a staggering $3.21 in the month I have had it switched on but it all adds up.
Physical product
I’ve been toying with the idea of adding in a physical subscription based product to the mix but worry it will lock me in.
I am trying to figure out how this will work, in terms of cost of postage and product increasing yet the membership staying the same.
It may just get parked in the end.
Expanding the niche
As I mentioned with the loads of traffic from other countries, it’s probably time I tapped into that market. The ebook is what I’ll focus on for that. I’d like to geo locate and sell it in either Australian or USD based on where they live. I am hoping to map that out before the middle of the year and start making a plan to get that going soon.
The Plan for free content
I am still on a break from the podcast, trying to source some guests is proving hard work. People say yes, but don’t commit. Since not creating the podcast I’ve been doing blogs again.
The plan is to release a podcast every second week, and a YouTube video every other week.
I need to put a plan in place for an actual start date on this. OK let’s say autumn equinox. March 24. There we go we have a date!
It’s a marathon
I need to constantly remind myself this. I often want to give up because it doesn’t feel financially worth it, but then I remind myself of the bigger picture and the fact that I am enjoying the process.
JANUARY / FEBRUARY STATS
Ongoing members – 7
Lifetime members – 3
MARKETING
- Email subscribers – 945(+195)
- Instagram followers –10.8k (+800)
- Facebook followers – 917 (+39)
- Average Monthly website hits – 5025 (+124%)
DOLLARS
Income
- Memberships – $240
- Website advertising $0 (need to get $100 for a payout)
Expenses
We had the plugin renewal in USD that was a stinger. I also invested in some things to do demonstrations on. Hosting and Accounting software increased. I ended up ditching the accounting software and will stick with gold old Excel, more labour intensive but once setup should be fine..
- Website costs – $409.64
- Payment Fees – $10.93
- General expenses -$32.48
- Supplies for demos $275.95
- Advertising/marketing – $35.26
TOTAL Expenses $764.26
Profit/Loss
Profit/Loss for Jan/Feb – LOSS $524.26
(When I finish setting up my accounting in Excel I’ll update this with the Lifetime value)
TIME
Hours spent on the project the past 2 months : Approx 48
MY COMMITMENT FOR March
- Launch YouTube
- Finalise content road map for the next 12 months
April SNAPSHOT
Map out book plan
Until next month, if you’re not on the list to get my regular updates on this project and are wanting to follow along you can sign up here.