While the lure of $5 or $10 or $20 per month from 1,000 or more subscribers might be what motivates you to create a membership in the first place, that should not be your end goal. After all, you’ll need to work to keep those subscribers happy. You’ll have to create new content every month, and even if you outsource that (and you should) you still have to manage it.
So what’s a business owner who’s chasing the passive income dream to do? Build a better back end!
Automate Your Email Contact
Probably the most important piece of a profitable back end is email. It allows you to stay in contact with potential buyers, recommend products and services, and even get feedback from your audience.
And here’s the most powerful tool in your email arsenal: the autoresponder.
By setting up a series of emails ahead of time, you can easily be making offers while you sleep, take a vacation, or work on your next big launch. Autoresponders – once they’re set up – are almost completely hands off. All you have to do is revisit them once a year or so to make sure they’re still applicable to your audience.
Monetize Your Download Pages
Here’s another important piece to the passive income puzzle: download pages. Ordinary marketers and small business owners, once they receive an order, send their new customer a link to download the files. But if you’re sending the files directly, you’re very likely missing an opportunity to make more sales.
Think about it. The customer who has just bought from you is primed and ready to buy again. It’s up to you to make the offer, and the download page is the perfect spot. You can include sections such as “Customers who bought [this] also bought…”, affiliate offers for complementary products, and of course, upsells to higher-priced offers.
Look Out For Your Members
New (and sometimes even established) business owners are often reluctant to make offers of related products and services. They might feel that emails and other offers are a bother to readers, or that “other marketers in my niche already promoted that,” or that “everyone has seen this product already.”
You could not be further from the truth!
Consider this. Your readers consider you a trusted resource. They depend on you to filter the available flood of information, and to present just what’s relevant and valuable. It’s your job (responsibility, even) to share what you find with your readers. They’re expecting it.
So as a business owner, look out for your readers. Let them know what you find, or someone else will become their “go-to” resource.
Setting up a recurring membership is just the beginning of your passive income funnel. When you build up and properly monetize the back end, you’ll enjoy a steady stream of income that grows over time.
