Membership Script – Frustrations!

May 5, 2009

I’ve been busy installing and testing various scripts over the last few months. There are all kinds out there, some great, some good, some not so good and to be “Polite” some that are absolutely dire.  More detailed in depth reports to follow on each one. But for now I’m so frustrated I need to let you realise what you may be letting yourselves in for. Do your due diligence, if you’ve decided on a script, google it “name of script+complaints” see what comes up before you part with your hard earned money. Another secret as to how good a script can be is to also google “powered by +name of script”  take a look at how many of those sites are active and live and how many are dead in the water.

In general the ones I class as not so good are the ones that don’t seem to want to install on your average hosting package. Because let’s face it, most of us out there don’t have our own dedicated servers now do we?, no, we have shared hosting space on a baby croc or free site or even worse could be with no root access oneandone.  And don’t even get me going on UK2.net. !  Think I’d better leave that one there for now.

As an experienced script installer, I really can’t understand why some program manufacturers make it so hard to install their programs.  And when you’ve managed to find a hosting company that does have the right version of PHP and MySQL, root access, the ability to run Crons and allow you to use their smtp for the email functionality of the program……. you’re darn well nearly exhausted.

So after the runaround of  “it must be your hosting, the program runs fine on our hosting”  They then try and sell you a package on their hosting company as well. Beggars belief really.

So you limp away completely drained from the installation phase, only to find that half the time there is no decent user manual, or it’s not completed or it just doesn’t flow intuitively at all. My biggest pet peeve is where they say look at the installation videos, and there aren’t any! you click the link and it says something really stupid like “Coming Soon” -  that’s no use to existing customers who need the information NOW!..

There, I feel better now! Or Do I ?

One script that is going to flood the market in the next couple of months is Simple Member Basic. (This is the lite version of Simple Member Pro – to be reviewed in the next posting.) Simple Member Basic will run a basic membership site and has been offered to the market with give away rights to those who have purchased the PLR ( I believe there were 50 rights offered ) Those who have PLR rights can offer resale rights etc, yesterday I got an email offering this for just $3.

Why am I telling you all this, well, if you want a basic script, and it is very basic at this level, but it won’t work straight out of the box ( even if you have the instructions to install it ! ) to run a basic membership site, then if you are offered it don’t bother to pick it up.
Not at $17 as I’ve just been offered Hmm? $3 or $17 and I’ve not even finished this Buyer Beware post………YET!
The downside is of course, is there is no user manual. Now, why am I not surprised.

Caveat – Buyer beware!

“Some things in life are free, others things are worth paying for”.

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Do you need a help desk system?

December 2, 2008

If you take a look around at most of the BIG Internet marketers and their sites, you’ll notice one major thing they have in common. They use a help desk script. The reasons for this are many………

1. They don’t want to publish their email address for the robots to pick up and send their spam too.
2. They have staff members who deal with different aspects of their business, a help desk script means they can access the messages without having to have access to the main email address.
3. A help desk script helps keep all the messages together – no more disjointed communications.
4. When people keep emailing the same questions over and over, a help desk script can take these and make them into a FAQ “frequently asked questions” , thus saving your members time because the answer will already be provided for them before they have asked the question.

There are plenty of help desk scripts on the market, ranging from free to extortionate! Some work, and unfortunately some don’t. I know some membership scripts have an inbuilt help desk system, but unfortunately these are usually the more expensive ones. 

One of the absolute best and I recommend it hands down above all the others that I’ve tried is ticketdeskpro Ticket Desk Pro is easy to use, both for the admin and the customer. 

Do yourself a favour, save yourself time and rid yourself of the email nightmares, trust me once you have your own support system up and running, you’ll kick yourself for not having done it sooner.

For the small ticket price TICKETDESKPRO  is an absolute gem!

I use it and wouldn’t recommend it if I didn’t.    This neat little system will save you a Ton of Time in lost productivity, no more hours sat at the computer answering the same old questions over and over again.

For those who don’t like installing scripts here’s my offer to you. BUY THROUGH THIS LINK  and I’ll install this superb script free for you.

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Best Value Membership Script

June 2, 2008

DLGuard is a powerful, yet easy to use script that you simply upload to your website and then rest assured that your internet business is not only safe, but also much easier to manage, automating the tasks you just don’t have the time for.

DLGuard supports the three types, or methods, of sale on the internet:

Single item sales, secure protected time limited dowloads  (including bonus products!)
Multiple item sales – you decide what products are available with each purchase
Membership websites – set up as many member levels as you wish to have, the number is unlimited, and it works. I’ve used this script for the last   two years and no one ever has managed to log in and download anything unless they were a bone fide registered member of the site.             

DLGuard is fully integrated with PayPal, ClickBank, 2Checkout, Authorize.Net, WorldPay, AlertPay, Ebay, PayDotCom, E-Gold, and it can even track your free product downloads. Not many other scripts out there on the market provide this many payment processors.

The DLGuard built-in Shopping Cart offers Paypal and 2Checkout payment options, and the Membership areas allow Paypal recurring billing as well as linking to any PayPal, ClickBank, 2Checkout, Authorize.Net, WorldPay AlertPay, Ebay, PayDotCom, and E-Gold single sale product so that people who buy your products can access your members area.

Here’s more about DLGuard and it’s unique features…. Unique download links and page security  – you set the time for the download link to expire, should your customer / member not download within the given time frame, you even have the option reset the download link for them. Another cool feature is being able to set the number of times a customer / members can download the item.
Customer tracking and reporting - search and find facility built in, search by receipt number, member name, or any combination of information you might have.
Automatic autoresponder sign-up - simple and easy to use
Promotional Coupons  – this is a new addition to the script, I have not tried this yet.
Calculate Sales Conversion Rates – if you want to analyse, this does it for you.
Customise the look and feel of DLGuard – change whatever you want to, take the time to learn and you can do this
Use your own custom script with DLGuard - easy and quick integration DLGuard is the perfect solution to secure your single sale item, such as a niche marketing website, software sales, ebook sales, and more!  DLGuard not only protects your download page, but it makes setting up new products, or making changes to existing products so much quicker and easier than before. DL Guard is the simplest, easiest membership script to work with. It doesn’t have the bells and whistles that the big ticket $1000’s cost membership scripts, but as a starter to the membership site arena this script, most certainly is OUT there and DOING GREAT THINGS for someone who is new and doesn’t have the thousands to spare, this little GEM is a great find. 

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What’s all the Great Buzz about Membership Sites?

January 9, 2008

So just what is all the buzz about membership sites? It seems to be flavour of the month to start your own membership site.

Well I suppose you could be easily convinced by the numbers 100 members all paying $67.00 a month is I’m sure you would agree a nice little earner. Sounds good doesn’t it, just what could you do with $6,700 a month or even $80,400 per year. Easy Money! you might think that but………any real and honest marketer will tell you the truth. Running a membership site is darned hard work, either before launch or whilst the site is ongoing. 

1. You have to have work hard for the benefit of your members.
2. Membership sites based on content need to be constantly updated.
3. New members have to be constantly brought in to replace members who decide to leave. Even if you decide to limit the number of members let’s say to just 100 you still have to provide your service to those members with fresh content articles, products or new material on whatever your chosen site is about. 

I am not saying that to frighten you off the idea, because to be honest I really wouldn’t mind that kind of income.  So how can you easily set up and run your very own membership site?

One way to make it easier for yourself is to make sure that you have a solid membership script to use.  A good membership script will make running the site and delivery of the content so it is only available to your paying members so much easier for you.

A decent membership script should have without a doubt :-

1. A secure “login area”  for you as Admin and a seperate secure “login area” for your members.
2. Each seperate member has their own Username and Password. Not just one protected folder relying on one .htacess file.
3. A choice of payment processor to take your subscriptions from your loving members.
4. A secure method of product delivery so that only your members have access to the goods they have paid the fee for.
5. An autoresponder or mail system built in so you can communicate with your members directly from the site or through your third party autoresponder service, choice here is up to the individual site owner.
6. Ideally a built in way to offer your members “member only specials”, call them whatever you like, upsells, downsells, OTO’s I much prefer to refer to them as “member only specials”.
7. A way for your members to upgrade to the next level of membership i.e. if they joined as a free member to upgrade to the next level of membership and it’s relevant benefits.
8. Although not always required, a script that integrates with a forum for your members always provides added “value”.
9. Again if the script you choose includes it’s own affiliate program inbuilt, you then would have the ability to allow your members to make affiliate fees by promoting your site. This of course would not be applicable if you have chosen the capped member limit type of site.

Obviously the script you choose will depend on the budget you have to work with. Do it right and do it well and you will soon be on your way to that $80,400.oo  or even more!

Let’s just do the math :-

• 100 members @ $5.00 month =  $6,000.00 per annum
• 100 members @ $27.00 month = $32,400.00 per annum
• 100 members @ $47.00 month = $56,400.00 per annum
• 100 members @ $97.00 month = $116,400.00 per annum – now do you fancy doing a bit of hard work?

My own personal choice of script, all singing, dancing complete with bells and whistles – and a monthly payment plan added to help ease the pain on your wallet, nothing beats this for it’s built in features take a look at Memberspeed. 

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Link Cloaking

January 10, 2007

What on earth is link cloaking? and why should you use it to your advantage ?

I’m not sure about you but I prefer to cloak my links, not because I want to hide anything or do anything devious you understand, it’s just simply because I think it looks neater and nicer.  Let’s face it, who wants to read a big blue hyperlink like this http://memberspeed.com/rep/janetsawyer.html when, Memberspeed looks a lot nicer and serves the same purpose of sending your viewer directly to where you would like them to go.

Link cloaking enables you to post links whether they are affiliate links or not it doesn’t  really matter, it just tidies the place up a bit.  Of course, if they are Affiliate links, it also gives you a little bit of protection from link stealers. You know the ones I am talking about, they have their own affiliate id and use that instead of yours. Happens a lot with Clickbank, they replace their hop-link name for yours and they delibrately steal your commission, additionally they get the product cheaper. Sucks I know, but if you leave the door to the house open, someone will be tempted to come in, have a look around and take what they fancy! So don’t leave it to chance. Lock the door so to speak, by cloaking any links, be they affiliate links or just simply site links to other sites.

Here’s a site I’d like to recommend to you, some great bargains at some great prices, but as the name suggests, they are only offered at the weekend.  Take a look at this weeks WeekendSuperDeals                 

Want a simple to use membership script with lots of features. This script evolves as it matures, links your members only to your forum, limits your content to members, new members don’t automatically get access to everything.  Choose infinite levels of memberships, email your members from within the program, choose by country, memberlevel or products purchased. I could go on, but why not have a look for yourself.  LaunchFormulaMarketing            

As we are talking about cloaking and it’s uses, let’s take another look at a great method for marketing. Viral sneakiness is nothing underhand or devious either, it’s a great e-book written for people like me who like to use the easy less painful way of marketing, rather than the hard work way.  This book contains some solid information that can be applied by all who want to market on the internet.

Viral Sneakiness Report  got to go now, I feel an attack of being Vlazy comming on.

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