Just in case you are not familiar with this term, this is where, a seller - take my own business for example, at DigitalAccessPass.com. You can sign up to become an affiliate. Then you get a special link that you can promote on social media, to your email list, on your blog, even on your podcast.

And if someone visits your special affiliate link, they are redirected to our web site, and a special browser cookie - a small piece of code that all web sites use - is set on that person's browser, tagging them as having been referred by you. And then, if they later go on to purchase any products from DigitalAccessPass.com, then you become that buyer's affiliate, and you can earn up to 33% in affiliate commissions. So if they went on to buy something for a 100 dollars, then if the commission for that product is 33%, then you get 33 dollars credited to your account.

And then, once a month, we pay out commissions for all past purchases that happened before the last 60 days. Now, we pay only after 60 days, because payment processors like Paypal give a buyer up to 60 days to ask for a refund. So once the buyer is past the refund period, we pay out any commissions due to you.

Don't worry if this affiliate program sounds a bit complicated, especially if you've never had your own affiliates before, but just know that DAP - or DigitalAccessPass.com - automates the whole process for your affiliates, for the buyer and for you, as the site owner.

Affiliate marketing is nothing new. Amazon.com built their entire business in the early years from allowing affiliates to promote their products on their web sites, and giving them the ability to earn commissions on any sales that are generated through their referral.

At DigitalAccessPass.com (DAP), we have built our entire business without any kind of Google-gaming.

Not that we don't care about Google. Of course, we do. We even used to have a few ads running on AdWords - we no longer do - we stopped running them about a year ago. No paid ads, no SEO gaming, no fake blogs or link farms. On rare occasions, we do some link building, but it's all totally white-hat and Google-approved stuff.

Most of our customers find out about DAP through a review article online, someone recommending it via email , or a post in an online online. So we have never had to worry about Penguin, Panda or any other cute animals :-).

So how did we do it?

(listen to the show for the rest)

Listen online at http://SubscribeMe.fm/

This is Part 2: Seth Godin Ruined The Internet.

Becoming a Celebrity, building Authority, being perceived as an Expert? Of course, it's easier said than done. Because there were a lot of things that went into the huge success that this "guru" had. There's a whole lot of hard work, commitment, passion, timing and personality and likeability and trustworthiness and so many factors that go into someone ascending to that all-star level.

But most people don't necessarily care about becoming the GOAT - as in Greatest of all time - in a given niche. You probably don't care about being a GOAT. I know I don't care about being the GOAT.

Some people will tell you that you don't really need to worry too much about learning a lot - just know a little bit more than the ones you are teaching.

BAD ADVICE!

(listen to the show for the rest)

Listen online at http://SubscribeMe.fm/

It has been an incredible journey for the last 365 days.

Today - September 26, 2016 - is the 1st anniversary of this podcast, at SubscribeMe.fm. Full of excitement, nervousness, apprehension, exhilaration, self-doubt, self-confidence boosting... you get the picture. As many highs, as there have been lows. And that's not only the nature of starting a new marketing channel, but also the boon and bane of Podcasting.

I've been chronicling everything I've learned into a book, that I'm shortly going to be releasing on Amazon Kindle. And I decided to take a few of the biggest lessons I learned, both on my own, myself, as well as watching others in forums and on social media, and listening to other podcasts, and I'm going to share them here.

And before you wonder, what does Podcasting have anything to do with membership sites, remember... this show is not just about membership sites. The first half of the title of the show, is "Making, Marketing & Monetizing Online Digital Content". And if you've listened to my past episodes, you'll see that this show encompasses all phases of digital content, and that includes content marketing. And that brings us to my first lesson...

#1) Podcasting Is Not A Business Mode.

Yes, I said it. The emperor has no clothes.

(listen to the show for the rest)

Listen online at http://SubscribeMe.fm

No, everyone is NOT an expert at something (that's good news for you and me!).

Seth Godin ruined the Internet. Of course, I say that in the most sarcastic way, because I'm one of Seth's biggest fans. I've bought and read every single one of his books - and most of the ones I bought were real paperback books, not just some Kindle download. And he wrote a book called "Everyone's An Expert" - and he released it as a PDF. If you go to the show notes for this episode - at subscribeme.fm/41/ , you'll be able to download the PDF there.

I always say this in a sarcastic way - "Yeah, right, everyone's an expert". We know that most people trying to make a buck online certainly seem to think that they're an expert. That's exactly why every other person on Facebook claims to be an expert about membership sites, or a lifecoach, a business coach, or a funnel expert. Anyway, that was my "glass half full" sarcastic twin. You know, I'm a Gemini.

Now let me bring out the "Glass is half full", optimistic, inspiring twin. So here's how to be an expert --- and more importantly, Position Yourself as an Expert in other people's eyes, in my eyes: It's very simple... Ready for the million-dollar one-liner? Here it is...

HBO, Netflix, licensing more than just content, and the Publisher or Marketplace Model.

One of the most famous content licensing example is HBO, or Home Box Office, and over time, others like Showtime and Netflix have also joined this category.

For a long time, these companies were just paying a licensing fees for movies and tv shows and documentaries produced by other people. For eg., HBO pays the producers of a movie a bunch of money which gives them the rights to play that movie on their platform for a certain duration of time. So, previously, they would just pay some cash upfront, and then HBO got it back from their millions of paying members who subscribe to their channel via their cable network. And then, at one point, HBO figured out that it has the cash to create it's own content. So it started producing its own TV shows.

And last year, HBO launched HBOnow and HBOgo, which offer the content direct to consumers via their own web site. And that's how I myself watch HBO - watch it entirely through their web site hbonow.com. And my Apple TV also has an app for that.

How did they get me to subscribe? Because I wanted to watch Game of Thrones. What does all of this have to do with your online business, your membership site or online course?

(listen to the show for the rest)

Listen online at http://SubscribeMe.fm/

Basically, with content licensing, you pay your content partners a fee for the right to use their content on your web site, and have your members benefit from it. The payment itself can be structured in many ways, and it doesn't always have to be a cash payment: 1) You pay for the content upfront and purchase it outright, 2) You pay a small royalty on every sale, on every new membership sign up. 3) Which is basically a combination of the two, which is cash PLUS royalty... you pay a little bit upfront, and then continue to pay a small royalty per sale. If you see some of the most aggressive offers on the TV show Shark Tank, you'll see that the sharks want their money back and also a royalty. You can see this with some of the bigger movie stars, where they get a paycheck for the movie, as well as royalties. Like the recently released Deadpool movie, starring Ryan Reynolds. So that's cash PLUS royalties. And finally, the last type... #4) You pay in kind - like a barter.

(listen to the show for the rest)

Listen online at http://SubscribeMe.fm/

I want to tell you a true story, that delves into the psychology of a rabid fan, and how you can use those insights to create better content and better offers for your membership site or online course.

In case you don't know, Ventriloquism is where someone has a puppet - or a dummy - on their lap or on a stand next to them, they talk without moving their lips, they make the dummy's mouth move, and through a combination of a funny script, good comedic timing, and decent lips-not-moving skills, it makes it look like it's actually the dummy that's speaking. Obviously, everyone knows it's not the dummy that is speaking, so it's critical that you have a funny script and a good sense of timing, and you can make people easily suspend reality, and actually start to look at the dummy entirely when you are speaking.

Back in 2006-2007, when I was still renting DVD's from a video store called "Blockbuster" - remember those days? Yeah, barely a few years before that I used to rent cassette tapes! Oh my god. VCR. There's something I never thought I would hear again, and worse yet, hear myself uttering those 3 letters! If you're too young to know what a VCR is, I'm hoping you're old enough to know how to Google stuff! So Google it!

Anyway, back then, I watched a movie called Dummy, starring Adrian Brody. It's about this really introverted, unemployed, depressed guy, who has major social issues. And one day he discovers that he has a knack for ventriloquism. It's a really cute, feel-good movie. And at the end of the movie, as part of the DVD extras, they show the ventriloquist who helped Adrian Brody with the vent skills and the dummy scenes and the dummy humor and stuff. Turns out, the guy is the world famous ventriloquist, Jeff Dunham. And he goes on to show behind the scenes with the dummy, and even gives a quick ventriloquism tutorial on how to pronounce words without moving your lips, timing, the script etc. That's it - I... was... hooked.

Listen to the episode for the rest of the story.

Listen online at http://SubscribeMe.fm/

When I say "User" in this context, it means users of your product or service. Your members, your community, your subscribers. Forums and Discussion groups are a great way to get your members communicating with each other, creating great discussion threads and contributing great online content that search engines love, and can bring you a lot of organic traffic, even if they are sometimes of the long-tail variety. Facebook groups are easily one of the most popular forms of online forums today, for connecting and networking with others in your niche. But online forums have been around forever, starting with the now-extinct eGroups which became so big and so popular, that it was bought by Yahoo and renamed to Yahoo Groups - this was in the late 90's. In the online marketing space, there are popular forums like WarriorForum.com, DigitalPoint Forums and Sitepoint Forums. And there are several “answers” forums like Quora.com and Yahoo Answers. And I am willing to bet, that you have probably run into a forum answer at some point when searching for information on Google. It happens to me all the time, where a top 2 or 3 search result is from an online forum of some sort. That's how powerful the SEO potential is with forums. But there's more to User-generated content than just Forums and Discussion groups. UGC can be applied in many facets of your online business.

(listen to the show for the rest) Listen online at http://SubscribeMe.fm/

This is part 4 of the series, 6 Ways To Create Content for Your Membership Site - where I talk about The Oprah method of creating content for your blog, your online course or your podcast and even your webinars and seminars.

#4) The Winfrey Way - a.k.a the Oprah Model of generating content for your web site. This is one of the oldest, time-tested ways of generating content: Which is to invite Guests who create the content FOR you. I call this the "Oprah Model". Oprah Winfrey became one of the world’s richest self-made women, a billionaire, the most influential talk show host, an author, philanthropist, actress and media personality – all by doing what? By interviewing other people!

Think about that for a second: Of all the athletes, actors, authors, scientists, medical professionals, entertainers, business icons and celebrities who she interviewed on her show – would you EVER consider Oprah an expert in any of those subjects at all? Was she as good at any sport as all those athletes who came on her show? Was she as good a writer as those authors who she interviewed? In fact, she created more best-selling authors than anyone else in this world! But would you consider her any expert in any of the topics on which her guests spoke? Of course not - SHE was interviewing THEM. So hang with me for a minute here...

I'm going to make 2 points here, as to why this Interview model is both good and bad. The good first.

(listen to the show for the rest)

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In last week's episode, I said that some of the best membership sites I’ve been a member of, offer content in multiple formats. And one of my pet peeves, is when I see someone wanting to prevent their members from downloading their content. They don't want their members to download videos, don't want to download audio, not even PDF reports, because they don't want anyone to quote unquote "steal" their content. You're probably not one of them, because you're smart enough to be listening to this show. But if you know of someone who comes from such a dark place of mental scarcity and deprivation, and are the complete opposite of being generous, and they are actually afraid of being generous, then I have some words of advice for them. (listen to the episode for the full scoop)

Some of the best membership sites I’ve been a member of, offer content in multiple formats. The first thing you have to accept - is that recycled or re-purposed content is NOT low quality content. It's mostly a psychological barrier that you have to overcome. And remember, your followers are not following you on every channel. So re-purposing can be HUGE when it comes to content marketing as well, and not just for membership content. Let me give you my own example of content re-purposing... (listen to the episode for the full story) But that also brings us to what I call the Gary Vee Conundrum. So let's take a single module from an online video course that has the video itself on a page, along with links to the audio version as well as a transcription in PDF format, on the same page. Some members like watching videos, others prefer skimming through a written article or PDF and highlighting or making notes of parts that they find important. And there will be others (like me) who prefer to listen to audio while out on a run, or while doing household chores (suddenly, doing the dishes ain’t so bad no more!). Re-purposing content can add great value to your existing members, because they can choose what format to consume the content in. So let's say you're good at writing. let’s start with a blog post. (listen to the episode for the full story)

In today's episode, I talk about 6 different ways to create content for your membership site

This is THE podcast to listen to, to learn about creating membership sites & online courses, making, marketing and monetizing digital content, WordPress, eCommerce, digital marketing, and tools, techniques and tips that you can use to create a long term, profitable online business.

I'm your host Ravi Jayagopal. I am the co-founder & co-developer of DigitalAccessPass.com, a leading membership plugin in the industry, fondly known as DAP. And you can fondly call me RSSKisser. No, wait, I don't think you heard that right - let me slow that down for you... I said you can call me RSS Kisser. Know why? Because I just launched a new web site called http://KissMyRSS.com, which is a free online service that helps podcasters get new listeners. I will talk about this more later in the show, including what RSS means, but for now, check out the site at KissMyRSS.com and during this launch, you can get 500 FREE new listeners for your Podcast - actually, scratch that - it's not just for podcasts - it can be for any Audio that you own. So whether it is for an episode of your podcast, or any audio you have created, say, maybe a single module from one of your audio courses - and you can put it in front of a new audience, people that may have never found you otherwise. So check it out at http://KissMyRSS.com.

Listen to the full episode #33 at http://SubscribeMe.fm for the rest.

We gonna party like, it's my birthday, sippin' on Baccardi like it's my birthday....

Well, I don't drink rum any more - I'm a bourbon guy. So I will be sippin' on bourbon, because it IS my birthday on May 26th!

And for MY birthday, I want YOU to buy one of these really cool gifts for yourself - because I have bought all of them for myself... cuz I'm worth it!

Ready? Let's go... And please note - these are in no particular order...

8 Life-Changing Gift Ideas For You - For My Birthday...

( Listen to the show at http://SubscribeMe.fm )

How To Get Audio & Video Feedback and Testimonials from your Audience

If you want your web site visitors or your members to leave you audio or video feedback, whether it is to give you a testimonial, or ask a question, or offer a review, or just about any kind of feedback, then for a very long time, there have been only a few good options.

Option #1) A very popular service that a lot of podcasters use, is called Speakpipe. I've heard the audio feedback left by listeners of a few podcasts I listen to, so I know the service itself works great, otherwise so many people wouldn't be using it. But I've personally never left feedback for anyone using this service, even though I wanted to at times even to just connect with the podcaster and thank them for the value I just got from their show, but I couldn't do it because the big issue with speakpipe, especially if you're on a mobile device, is that when you visit a podcaster's web site, and you click on the speakpipe image to leave audio feedback, then you're first asked to download their mobile app first. And without downloading and installing their app, you cannot leave audio feedback for the site owner.

Now, I don't know about you, but in this day and age of awesome UI and UX - ux stands for user experience, and UI stands for user interface - asking someone to download an app just so that you can do one little thing on a web site, that too an app that I may never need again, something I have no use for, doesn't add any value to my life, and all this so that I can do something that is actually more useful to the site owner? That's just plain archaic thinking - and just outright annoying. That would be like you coming to my web site, and you want to contact me, and when you click on the contact-us link, you are asked to download a piece of software first befor you can use the contact us form, and you were trying to ask me a pre-sales question about my product or service. Would you bother downloading a special app for that? You probably wouldn't. And even if you were a glutton for punishment, I can't imagine too many people doing that for MY benefit as the site owner. So I wouldn't use speakpipe unless they fixed this issue.

Plus, as far as I know, speakpipe just offers audio feedback.

What if someone also wanted to leave you video feedback? Or, maybe you want both audio and video, so you could take the video part of their feedback and use it in your content marketing, like in your youtube channel? And you can use the audio, on your podcast?

I guess you could use an app like SnapChat, and tell your users to snap you. Now, full disclosure: I have never used SnapChat even though I did sign up for an account after listening to Gary Vee hyperventilate over it over and over again. But I've never really actually used it, but I've heard that you can send someone a private video snap. But I mean, are you really going to ask people who are right there on your web site, to go and download snapchat, sign up for an account, teach them how to use the app, offer a tutorial on how to send you a video snap? I'm sure one day in the future - maybe a couple of years from now, everyone is on snapchat and this won't be an issue. But that day is not today. So apps like snapchat are not an option when it comes to your web site visitors leaving you audio or video feedback.

Option #2) I guess your youtube channel could be a great place for people to leave you video feedback, but you would first need to send them offsite, away from your web site, to your youtube channel, they would have to log in to youtube first, and they can't upload a video to your channel - they would have to respond to one of your existing videos. And all of that doesn't work if you just want a easy and convenient way for your audience and your customers to simply go to your web site, click a button and leave you video or audio feedback right from that page. I can't believe youtube doesn't provide an easy widget that you can embed into your web site to collect video feedback that is just uploaded automatically to your channel. And I also can't believe that Facebook doesn't offer a way to upload a video as a response to someone else's comments. If you see someone's post on Facebook, you can respond with text, links and even images, but not video. And I actually find that shocking.

Anyway, that brings us to Option #3. When I was getting ready to launch this podcast back in September 2015, I found this amazing free WordPress plugin that does this really well. And this is the best option available on the market. And it's crazy to think that it's actually free! Listen to the episode for more details.

3 must-have tools that you absolutely need, to help secure yourself, as well your web site.

TIP #1) What is the first WordPress plugin I install on every new WordPress site I create? Nope, it's not DAP. It's Wordfence. It's the #1 security plugin for WordPress, and I will not do anything with a new WordPress installation, until I've installed this plugin. And the makers of the WordFence plugin have discovered a vulnerability in the Ninja Forms WordPress plugin. So if you're using Ninja Forms, make sure you upgrade to the latest version. Takes just 1 click to do from the WordPress plugins section of your site.

And if you are not using Ninja Forms, then you should consider switching to it, as it's a fantastic contact-us form plugin, with a lots of features like support for the new captcha from Google, auto responses, storing the emails online in the plugin's settings, just in case you don't get the actual email delivered, and so on. I have the link to the WordFence security article in the shownotes at subscribeme.fm/30/

And then they also found a vulnerability in Yoast SEO. That needs to be updated as well.

I'll have links to all the relevant articles in the shownotes at http://SubscribeMe.fm/30/

TIP #2) And do you know what is the 2nd plugin I install on every new WordPress site I create? Nope, it's still not DAP. It is iThemes Security. Formerly known as WP Security.

And there are a few features that both of them have, so you have to be careful not to turn those features on in both plugins at the same time.

So here are some of the easiest ways to protect your WordPress installation:

* Be alerted when an unauthorized user tries to log in to your web site: Like someone trying to log in as admin, or trying to use a username that doesn't exist, from an IP address that's not authorized, etc.
* You can lock down the admin part of WordPress so that only certain authorized IP addresses can log in as admin
* You can change the location of the WordPress admin login page to a secret page
* Scan WordPress files - like plugin files and theme files - against the WordPress repository to see if anyone of them have been modified, because that's one of the easiest ways your site can become the target of a phishing scheme
* Scan file contents for backdoors, trojans and suspicious code
* Scan posts and comments for known dangerous URLs and suspicious content
* Scan files outside your WordPress installatio
* Lock out after how X number of login failures or remind-password attempts
* Block IP's that access URLs that no one is supposed to access - like certain internal URL's
* Hide the WordPress version
* Change location of the WordPress admin login page
* If you have the default username of "admin", then you can change it to something else with a couple of clicks
* Change your WordPress database prefix - which is good to prevent an automated database hack-attack, especially if you have used an automated installer to install WordPress - these installers are usually provided by most hosting companies, and the default settings they use are not very secure.

So there's a whole bunch of settings that these two plugins provide - WordFence and iThemes Security. And I'm in the process of creating a video that shows the entire set up.

And then, there's one CRITICAL CRITICAL line of code that you need to add to your .htaccess file on your web site - this one is so critical, that without having this line, our web site DigitalAccessPass.com got hacked a couple of times a few years ago. BUT... if you want to know what that one line of code is, all I ask from you, is that you join my list, by going to subscribeme.fm, and wait a few seconds, you'll get a popup, enter your email there, and you'll be on my list. And I'll be emailing this one SUPER CRITICAL line, to you. And you must then add it to your web site right away. No charge. Totally free. Just join my list by going to subscribeme.fm. That's it!

TIP #3) You should IMMEDIATELY change your password to all your webmail accounts - like Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail and your bank's web site.

For 2 reasons.

First one is that a guy named Alex Holden, who is the founder and chief information security officer of Hold Security, discovered that hundreds of millions of web mail accounts were recently hacked, and the hacker is selling these off online. Link in the shownotes at http://SubscribeMe.fm/30/

TIP #4) Use a browser tool called LastPass. There are a few similar ones - like 1Password and Roboform. If you already use one, then that's awesome. But if you don't, then it's really important that you use one - and I personally use LastPass. It's a free online service that stores your passwords in the cloud. Now, before you freak out, remember that all of your passwords are one-way encrypted with super-strong encryption, and the key to opening this encryption, is stored on your computer. So every time you ask their system for a password, this secret key stored on your computer is required before your information can be unencrypted. So even if their service gets hacked, the passwords they get will all be worthless without your secret key. There's a lot more to this, but explaining the technology is beyond the scope of this podcast. So just go with my recommendation - use LastPass. Do not store passwords in your browser. LastPass is available as a plugin for Chrome and Firefox and Safari. So even if you're switching browsers or using multiple browsers on your computer, like I do, then LastPass will help you secure and remember all of your logins and passwords for all of your web sites. One of the biggest issues I see when I do 1-on-1 coaching and membership site set up calls with DAP customers, is a lot of them will spend a whole bunch of time looking for logins and passwords. It is amazing how much time people waste trying to find their log in information for various web sites - like Paypal, Stripe, ClickBank, Aweber, multiple WordPress sites, Godaddy, web hosting control panel, and on and on and on. And using LastPass, you can share passwords securely with other people on your team, like your business partners, virtual assistants, developers and designers. And you never have to send such information by skype or email or any other insecure method. You just share a password from your vault with another LastPass user, and that's it. They get it through the cloud. Super simple, and secure. And the cool thing is, LastPass also has a location to store secure text information. So if you have other secure information that you would normally write on a piece of paper and keep in your bedroom locker, now you can securely keep it in your LastPass account, and now all your kids and spouse and lawyer needs, is the secret key to your LastPass account. That's it! Just one password to remember for all the important people in your life, just in case, you know.

So get LastPass, and you will save a CRAZY amount of time, effort and frustration by using LastPass. And no, I'm not affiliated with LastPass and I don't get a single penny from recommending them. Same thing goes for WordFence and iThemes security.

So those are the 3 major security tools that I highly recommend you install and use right away: WordFence and iThemes Security for your WordPress sites, and LastPass. And don't forget to change the passwords to every single online service - especially because May 5th was world password day, and it was created to remind us that passwords to mission critical services must be changed every now and then.

And don't forget that one last piece of security super tip that I haven't given to you yet - you can get it simply by signing up for my list, at subscribeme.fm.

Until the next time, here's a quick tip of the day: If you're using Chrome, search for Lastpass, and download the Chrome plugin. And set it up today, and every time going forward, every web site you visit and log in to, LassPass will ask you if you want to store the login information. Just keep saying yes, and you'll never ever use paper, or fumble and stumble for passwords ever again.

Friends don't let friends go without telling them about SubscribeMe.fm. So please let a friend know about this security episode - the link you can share, is http://SubscribeMe.fm/30/ .

Membership Model #6: Coaching Portal:
In this model, you sell coaching and consulting: When it comes to a membership plugin like DAP, even a service is basically created as a “Product”. So just like you would sell a digital report, or a software program, a service is sold the same way: Create a Product, give it a price, and use the membership plugin to configure what content they get if they buy your “Service”, and that’s it.

Now, with a service, you don’t always HAVE to provide an online member’s area, because you may be delivering the actual service offline – like SEO or Web Design services, Accounting services, Lawn Maintenance services, etc.

However, it can be very useful to create at least a couple of member pages where they can log in and see a summary of what they purchased, change their Profile information (like name, and email and password). And any supporting worksheets and documents that you create during consultation, can be added to this member's area, so that the member can log in later and download meeting notes, or special documents you created for them. It doesn't even have to be custom stuff - even the standard documents and videos and follow-up lessons and refresher videos can all be added to the member's area.

If you have a service that requires them to schedule a 1-on-1 call with you, then you can embed an online calendar from a service like Calendly.com - which is what I use myself to schedule interviews for my podcast, even though I've brought on only one guest so far), and then there are other services like ScheduleOnce.com , doodle.com/meetme or SimplyBook.me

And after you embed it on a page, you can then protect that page with DAP, and now only members can book an appointment with you for a private coaching call.

Or if you are doing group coaching, you can embed a Google Hangouts video or a Webinar Registration form on a DAP-protected page and allow only certain types of members to sign up for the webinar.

Membership Model #7. Credit Store: Credits & Rewards
Imagine you’re at a restaurant, ready to order food. And you tell the waiter, “I would like to start with some ice-cream“. The waiter looks at you squarely, and says “I’m sorry, but you must first order something to drink, then eat the salad, then the entree, and only then can you order dessert“! Not cool, right?

So, back in 2008, when I had just launched DAP, I had a customer give me this idea. She wanted to be able to offer points to her members, which they could redeem for stuff she was selling. And that gave birth to what I called the Self-Service Store or SSS. And then we totally abandoned it for a while. Then fast-forward a few years later, Veena took it up again, completely re-imagined and re-developed it from scratch, and create what has been a game-changing plugin, and she gave it the name Credit Store.

I talked in detail about this in 2 of my past episodes: Episode 12, which was titled "E12: To Drip or Not To Drip Content: That Is The Question". And episode 13, which was titled " Why You Should NOT Drip Content In Your Membership Site Or Online Course". Check out both of those episodes at http://subscribeme.fm/12/ and http://subscribeme.fm/13/ .

Finally...

Membership model #8: Online Billing for an Offline Service
You may have an entirely offline service – like web design, accounting, or even lawn maintenance! You can accept payments one-time or on a monthly basis for your service. You can optionally add an online member’s area and give them some online tips, send service and billing reminders, etc. It can be online billing for a purely offline service. You can use DAP for such offline services as well. You would basically set up the buy button in such a way that it simply logs them into a one- or two-page member’s area, where you can address them by name, thank them for their purchase, and show them next-steps and explain how the service will be delivered.

You can also add an “Online Report” for an “Offline Product” – for example, if you are selling a Blender, then you can deliver a “How to Lose 10 Pounds in 3 Months By Juicing” report, and deliver it to them securely online via the member’s area. You can add videos and audio to the member’s area showing how to use the blender, give them recipes, have videos that show how to create different types of juices with the blender, etc.

Ok, that brings us to the last segment of this show:

Tool of the day:
One of my favorite tools is Wunderlist. It is absolutely the best to-do list-creation tool there is. It works on your phone, on your desktop, and tablet. So I'll be going for a run with my dog Vanilla, and I'll suddenly get this content idea. And I'll just quickly pull out my phone, fire up Wunderlist, and there, I have many lists created - podcast episode, facebook post, blog post, grocery list, marketing ideas, etc. If it's a podcast episode idea, then I'll click on the podcast list, and start typing the idea. I can even click on a microphone icon, and start dictating, and Wunderlist is smart enough to transcribe it as I'm dictating. Super, super awesome app. One of my favorite tools that I couldn't live without.

If I have added any kind of value to your life, have helped you in any way shape or form, and if you appreciate the content in this podcast, then I would really appreciate it if you would head over to my site http://SubscribeMe.fm, and sign up for my list, for free! because that helps me know who you are, and it helps me put a name to the anonymous listener that you are right now. And when you sign up, you can also find out how you can get a free copy of my book, Subscribe Me: Making, Marketing & Monetizing Online Digital Content with Membership Sites, Online Courses and Subscriptions.

And there's a lot more cool stuff coming in future episodes, so please subscribe to the show via iTunes or Stitcher. Go to http://SubscribeMe.fm and you'll see all of the links there.

Thanks again for listening to my show. I really, really appreciate your time. Until the next time, here's a quick tip of the day: Download Wunderlist right now - right after you finish listening to this episode, and create 5 top-level lists - like Member content, Podcast, Blog, Facebook, Groceries. And you'll figure out the rest from there.

Until the next time, cheers!

In the last 2 episodes, I talked about Membership models 1 through 4. So if you didn't hear part 1 or part 2, I recommend that you start with those first. You can go to subscribeme.fm/26/ the number 26, and subscribeme.fm/27/ to hear Part 1 & 2. In fact, just go to the main site - subscribeme.fm and you'll see a big beautiful podcast player with the full playlist of all past episodes. And this beautiful podcast player is powered by CoolCastPlayer.com, officially the prettiest podcast player on the planet.

Membership Model #54. Magazine Model

This is one of the most interesting membership models, and back in 2009, I gave it this name because back in the day, like Dave Jackson from schoolofpodcasting would say, we used to get people asking how they can set up content access similar to a real-world magazine subscription. So if you are old enough to have ever subscribed to physical magazines - I say that because the funny thing is, I don't know if my kids have ever seen a magazine in my house - well, we did buy a sports illustrated a few years ago when Lebron James won his first championship. And then the People issue with Steve Jobs on the cover when he passed away - Rest in peace, Steve!

I remember, as a kid, I used to wait every week for this magazine delivery guy, who charged a fixed fee every month - I think it was like 20 rupees or something - which in today's exchange rate would be 30 cents. He brought this massive travel bag full of magazines, and you could pick out any 5 you wanted. And you could keep any of them for as long as you wanted, but you could only ever check out 5 magazines. So if you returned 5 magazines, you could pick out 5 more. If you kept 2 and returned 3, then you could pick out 3 new ones for the week. Ring a bell? That's actually how the DVD portion of Netflix works. The crazy thing is, while I'm talking about outdated paper magazines, even DVD subscriptions are well on their way to becoming extinct! So, with Netflix, you can check out a maximum of 3 or 4 DVD's, depending on which plan you are on. And then when you return one, you get the next one in your queue automatically mailed to you.

So I was thinking about this guy in India, this was back in the early 80's. He had a couple of these gym duffel bags, and he hung them from the handlebars of his bicycle, he wore slippers, his bicycle was all beat up and his clothes had seen better days. And YET, he had the entrepreneurial mindset and the passion and the determination to sign up for a bunch of magazine subscriptions himself, and then he basically lent them out to others. Sure, it would be a gross copyright violation today - you can't buy a DVD for personal use and then turn around and lend it to someone else for money. So just put that aside for a second, and you'll realize what an impressive thing this guy did. So I guess that was probably my earliest recollection of a membership model. I was really inspired by this man when I remembered him when writing notes for today's episode, and I hope it inspires you too.

Think about how a real world magazine subscription works: You subscribe to a magazine - let's use the example of the famous "Star" magazine, which, by the way, my wife Veena used to love to read many years ago. So once you subscribe to a physical magazine, you get a new edition mailed to you every week. And if you cancel your subscription, you will not get any newer editions, but you can keep the ones you already got in the mail, because obviously, you've already paid for those. And most importantly, you only get access to the magazine editions from the time you subscribe, and if you wanted older editions from the archives from before you subscribed, then you have to buy them separately. So in the early years of DAP, one of the requests we got was to be able to duplicate this content model, where you deliver digital content as if it were a monthly magazine. Only those who are currently subscribed during a month, get access to that month?s content, and keep access to that content going forward. So, for example... (listen to the show for the rest)

Shownotes at http://SubscribeMe.fm/28/

Membership Model #4. Recurring Subscriptions with Lifetime Recurring.

Basically, they pay until they cancel. It's obviously easy to do this if it's a SaaS product - SaaS is the acronym SAAS - which stands for Software As A Service. Like Leadpages, or Dropbox. Even at DigitalAccessPass.com, we offer a pseudo-SAAS model. DAP is basically a WordPress plugin that you install on your own site, but we packaged a lot of things into a saas like offering, where you get DAP, you get set up help, ongoing monthly support, a whole bunch of plugins from WickedCoolPlugins.com, and we made it a monthly subscription. So in this model, you get the benefits for as long as you pay. And when you stop paying, you lose all of the benefits. Like your gym membership. Or phone service.

Now, you might wonder, what if you have a regular online course? How to make it a perpetual subscription? That's where positioning and packaging comes into the picture. Of course, not all membership sites are created equally, and not all digital content can be charged for every month. If you're selling an ebook, for example, then.... obviously you are not going to be able to charge $10 a month - or even 1 dollar a month, that too as an ongoing subscription for life. So with a life-time recurring subscription, your mindset as a site owner, has to shift a little bit.

So instead of thinking, how can I charge every month for my ebook and a couple of videos, you have to think from another perspective: The question you should be asking, is what all can I package together, and how can I position the offer in order to make this membership site worth $10 a month? Now, I don't want to get into pricing yet, because that's a huge topic and I will certainly talk about it in a different episode. But for the purposes of today's discussion, let's say you already know whether you want to do a $10 a month subscription, or $50 a month, or $100 a month. Let's stick with $10 a month. So you should take careful inventory of everything you have ever created - whether it is an article you wrote, an email autoresponder series, any tweets you sent out, any content marketing you did, and make a list of every little thing you have in your content library right now, then to that list, add a comprehensive list of things you have the capability of creating in the future. In a future episode, I'll also get into how you can get your content from third-party sources, other than yourself. And you need to think about everything you can package in order to make your membership a complete no-brainer for the $10 a month that you're planning on charging.

In the beginning, you may look at your ebook, or the few videos of your course, and wonder how the heck you're going to be able to charge $10 a month for something so little. Don't necessarily go by the volume of the content. It's always the quality of the content, and the value it provides to your members. Remember, the bigger the benefit to your audience, the larger the value, the bigger the subscription fee you can charge. So even if you start with a basic 7 video course about, say, piano for beginners, you can identify the life-cycle of a piano student, all of their wants and needs as a beginner and as they start getting better, getting more advanced, and you can create courses appropriate for their advancing skills over time. Don't forget to check out episodes 24 and 25 where I talk about how to brainstorm content-creation ideas, whether it is for content for your membership site, or content that you can use for marketing. You can find those episodes at SubscribeMe.fm/24 and SubscribeMe.fm/25.

So that's membership model #4: Recurring Subscriptions with Automated Lifetime Recurring

Welcome to episode #25 of the SubscribeMe show from SubscribeMe.fm.

I'm your host Ravi Jayagopal. This is THE podcast to listen to, if you want to learn about creating digital content, marketing it, selling it, and then delivering it.

I am the co-founder & co-developer of DigitalAccessPass.com, easily the best membership plugin in the industry, fondly known as DAP.

Membership sites aren't just for subscriptions that charge you month after month for life, until you cancel. That's just ONE way to create a membership. And membership sites aren't just for protecting content for ongoing members. There are essentially 9 different ways to add a membership component to your web site, and I'm going to discuss all 9 of them in this multi-part series. And today's episode is part 1 of this series. So be sure to check out the next couple of episodes as well, for the full story.

Here are 3 (of 9) ways in which you can monetize your content:
Membership model #1.    One-time Products with Lifetime Access
Membership model #2.    One-time Products with Fixed-term Access, like say 1 month, or 1 year of access, with Renewal
Membership model #3.    Recurring Subscriptions with a Fixed-term

So let's dive right in to Membership Models...

Membership Model #1: One-time Products with Lifetime Access
In this, you create a one-time product where your buyer or member pays you just ONE TIME and gets life-time access to the content. They are never charged again for updates, so make sure you’re not giving away lifetime access to something that needs a lot of updates and support. For e.g., a lot of plugin developers get overambitious or desperate, depending on how you look it, and in order to start getting an immediate flow of sales, they over-commit on things like “Lifetime Updates” or “Lifetime Support” – sometimes, both!

It is incredibly hard to continuously develop software for many months, leave alone many years. And then, if everyone is paying you just once, and you still have to continue updating the software, introducing new features, making bug-fixes and then also support them via email or support tickets for as long as they continue to use your software, and you're never ever going to get paid EVER again, that's a really tough proposition. And that's why you'll see a lot of software products that haven't priced themselves correctly, go out of business every single year. WordPress plugin developers for the internet marketing community, are notorious for over-promising, under-delivering, and then just disappearing from the face of the internet.

But if your product is not a software product, and instead, is a digital information product, then it is easy to update your posts or pages or PDF reports over time without much effort. And information products don’t require much support in general - compared to software or services of course.

So this model lends itself very well to “How-to” courses and training programs and reports and tutorials.

It gives your buyers a sense of satisfaction that they don’t have to keep paying for updates, and it also doesn’t create too much overhead for you in terms of updates or support.

But still, buy once and get lifetime access is still a bit scary for a lot of people. Which is where, this second model comes in.

#2. One-time Products.. BUT with Fixed-term Access and Renewal

In this, you create your one-time product with a fixed-term access - like access for 30 days, or 365 days, anything but NOT lifetime. And then, at the end of this fixed term, access to the content will...

(a) Automatically expire and they have to manually pay a renewal fee to get further access to another extended period of time, or

(b) Access to the content they already purchased never expires, but they don’t get access to future updates unless they renew.

We've used this model with selling DAP itself. So you can purchase a 1site or a multi-site license of DAP, and you get 1 year of upgrades and support - the 1 year is the fixed term here. And then at the end of the 1 year, you can still continue using the version of DAP you already downloaded and installed, but you cannot get future upgrades and support, unless you renew for a fee. Now, in the case of DAP, renewal is much less than buying a new copy of DAP. So there's a built-in discount for renewals. You could do the same thing. Renewal is a fraction of the new product. So depending on how much work it is for you to create new versions of the product, or keep updating this existing product, you could charge anywhere from 33% to 75% of the cost as renewal. That way, they get a discount for renewal, and don't have to purchase it all over again, and you get a returning customer who is a lot easier to sell to, than finding a brand new customer.

Membership model #3. Recurring Subscriptions with a Fixed-term
With this, you are actually creating a recurring subscription product – but one that has a fixed-term of recurring payments – like it ends after 3 payments, or ends after 6 payments, or 12 payments. Basically, the payments stop after a set number of payments.

You could also call this a Payment Plan or an Installment Plan.

You could give two pricing options for the same product – the first one is a 1-time payment for lifetime or fixed-term access – for say 97 dollars. And the second option is, you offer a payment-plan for the exact same product in the form of “3 Payments of $37 each”. And because it is a payment plan, you can charge a little bit more in total.

So if they took the one-time option, they would pay 97 dollars. Or if they took the payment plan, they pay $37 x 3 = $111 - which is basically 14 dollars more in total - compared to the one-time price of 97 dollars.

In fact, you should intentionally make the sum-total of your monthly payments a bit more than the single-payment option, and this can help push your potential buyer towards the single-pay option when you explicitly tell them that “Save $14 when you take our Single-pay option”. Obviously, the more the savings on the single-pay option, the more easily you can make your single-pay option look better.

But sometimes, for big-ticket items – like say a $2000 product, it may actually be beneficial to keep the sum-total of the payment plan close enough to the one-time option. Like in this case, it could be “One payment of $2000, or 3 payments of $697.” The difference between multi-pay and single-pay is $91. The difference is not too little, and they can still consider the one-time option. And it’s not too big, so they don’t pay too big of a penalty for taking the payment plan.

Check out Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, a book about how we all make irrational decisions in a very predictable manner. In the book, he talks about many pricing-related experiments he conducted, with some very interesting conclusions about how people think.

A couple of things to note about this fixed-term continuity program:
a) You can charge the exact same amount each month - on Auto-Charge, or
b) You can charge a different amount the first month - and label it a trial, which is then followed by same amount being charged on the subsequent months - again, all on Auto-charge

So those were 3 of the 9 types of membership models. So what are membership models 4 through 9? You're going to have to come back for the next episode for that one.

The show notes for this episode is available at subscribeme.fm/26/ . And when you get there, you'll see a beautiful online player with a large play button ON THE LEFT, which is key, because otherwise it will look like a banner ad or a header graphic. That's where, you will be able to play the episode directly from the web site, thanks to my podcast player plugin, called CoolCastPlayer. It is without a doubt the Prettiest Podcast Player on the Planet. It plays podcasts as well as regular MP3 files. And a super cool feature it has, is the ability to embed that player on a different web site. So this is going to be awesome if you have guests on your podcast, and you can simply send them a piece of code so that they can embed your interview on their web site. So check it out at CoolCastPlayer.com.

Don't forget to join other SubscribeMe listeners and a network of folks all interested in the same thing: Membership sites and online courses. Join the group by going to subscribeme.fm/group/ and that will take you to my Facebook group.

Thanks again for listening. I'll talk to you soon. Cheers!

In today's episode, I give you a detailed example of how I have used my TOC Technique myself to create a book, a podcast, and how you too can churn out blog posts and social posts at will and enter any group or community and add value right away, without being spammy.

So in the last episode, I introduced you to my "TOC Technique", where TOC stands for TOC, as in, Table of Contents. If you haven't listened to that one, then you should listen to episode #24 first, if not, this episode may not make much sense. So go to subscribeme.fm/24 to listen to the last one first, then continue with this one.

In today's episode, I'm going to give you some real-world examples so that you can get an idea of how powerful this technique is for churning out content at will, never getting writer's block ever again, never having to wonder what to blog about or how to do come up with content for your content marketing.

All of this starts by creating what I call your "Dream Book TOC". So you need to create the table of contents of what you would consider your "dream" book. And this dream book toc, will not only help with content creation and content marketing, but it will actually help you research your niche even BEFORE you ever get started.

And we're not talking about the monetizability - I'm not referring to the ability to monetize a market, but your ability to figure out the depth of YOUR OWN expertise in a market. If you can come up with the table of contents for a dream book in a niche, and you look at that entire TOC, and you look at each chapter and sub-chapter, and you go "Oh my god, I have no idea what any of that stuff is, and I don't have any clue how I'm going to even BEGIN to attempt writing this book", then you know right away that this is not the right market for you. Now, we're not talking about you partnering or hiring an expert in that niche and having them create the content. We're not going that far yet. I'm assuming you're a small business owner, an independent freelancer, and you're trying to carve out a name for yourself in your niche. So I'm going to assume that you're going to want to do this stuff yourself.

So if your dream book TOC scares you, then that's a HUGE warning sign that you're headed in the wrong direction, and this niche is not for you.

HOWEVER... if you look at your dream book, and it makes you go "Hell yeah, I can churn out content for this stuff day and night. I can write about these chapters, I can blog about these, I can do a podcast about this, all day every day. And when I do a podcast about this, I know so much about this stuff that I don't need to bring on experts and do interview guests to create the content. I can just pick any topic, fire up my mike and recording software, and I can start dishing and deep diving into these topics all day, ever day!'

See where I'm going with this? Yes, that's how I feel about my own expertise - which is all things membership sites, online courses, digital content delivery, and so on.

So let's say you were in my same niche, here's how you can go about creating your dream book toc.

The "TOC Technique" will help you become a master at creating content for your membership site, for your online course, youtube marketing videos, writing sales copy, writing books, creating a product, writing Facebook posts and Tweets.

And when I say "TOC", I mean T.O.C, as in Table of Contents.

The show notes for this episode is available at http://subscribeme.fm/24/ . And that's where, you will be able to play the episode directly from the web site, thanks to my podcast player plugin, called CoolCastPlayer. It is without a doubt the Prettiest Podcast Player on the Planet. It plays podcasts as well as regular MP3 files. So check it out at CoolCastPlayer.com.

Alright, let's jump right in...

So what is this TOC technique and why is it such a big deal?

I came up with this idea a few years ago, but had never given it a proper name that is easy to understand and implement, until recently.

Back in 2007, I published my first book, called "No Business Like E-Business", which at the time, went on to become a category best seller, which was a pretty big deal for me, because it was a physical book, and I had no list back then. Well, I did have a small list, but I never promoted this book to that list. Never even told anyone other than a few of my close friends and relatives. So the fact that it become a category best seller, was incredibly gratifying.

It initially took me an year to write most of it, then life happened, I took a couple of years break, then when I got back to it, from that point, it then took me another couple of years to rewrite it pretty much entirely. So roughly, it took me about 3 years to complete the book, writing at most a couple of pages a day, sometimes nothing at all for days and weeks together.

At the time, I had a lot of things going on. I had a full-time job, I had my PHP scripts web site, mywebmasterinabox.com, which is now defunct by the way, but you can still see what it looked like back then, as it's still online. My son had just been born, my wife had taken an extended leave of absence from her job, I was the sole earner, I was in a really, REALLY bad situation at my job, with an insanely angry and verbally and mentally abusive boss, I could not leave my job because I had to keep a job to keep my green card application going, it was a complete mess. Those few years were probably the darkest years of my life, and if not for my sweetheart, my wife Veena and my precious kids, I don't know if I would be here today. It was that bad.

And during this whole time, I was working in New York city. I would commute to the city by train every day. And at the time, I had a company provided laptop, which has some amazing stories attached to it, that I'll talk about in a future episode. So I had this laptop, but I didn't have a wifi card - don't know why. Never even thought about it. But that was the best thing that happened to me - that I didn't have wi-fi on the train. So I used to open up Microsoft word, and write my book.

Initially, I started writing the book sequentially. Acknowledgement, Introduction, Chapter 1, then Chapter 2, etc. But this sequential process started burning me out pretty quickly. There were some things I just had no mood to write about. You know, stuff you know in your head, but you know it's going to take you hours and hours to put it into words, and some of these were boring topics to me. It's like trying to teach a rank newbie some new skill. You just wish they would get it already, right?

So that's when, I said to myself, I'm going to start writing the entire table of contents first. Start to finish. I'm going to think of all the questions that someone new to an online business would ask, and then create the most exciting titles for the chapters and sub-chapters, and someone should simply look at the titles and get excited about buying this book.

So I sat down and created what I felt at the time, would be an amazing set of chapters and sub-chapters, which would cover everything someone needed to know about creating an ebusiness.

And once I had completed the TOC - as in TOC , as in table-of-contents, then every time I opened my laptop, I would just scan the titles and sub-titles, and I would just pick one that interested me at that moment, and I would dive right into that section, ignoring all other parts of the book.

This is how film-making is done as well. They don't shoot the first scene of the movie first, and second scene of the movie next. The scenes are shot in a completely random order, depending on availability of the actors, location, etc.

So I started writing my book in this controlled-chaos. And that's when I made the most progress.

So I would choose any topic that I felt like writing about that day, and then if I wasn't able to complete that chapter, or felt that I needed to revisit and change or add more, then I would simply type in the letters "XXXX". So that way, I could come back at a different time, and just search for the word XXXX, and I could keep jumping to every section that I had left unfinished, and could either go on to finish one of them, or get started on a new one. I gave myself the permission to be free and chaotic and random and write in any way I felt inspired to. And I did the exact same thing when I recently published my latest book, "Subscribe Me". I started with the TOC - the table of contents.

And this technique is so powerful, that it can be used for brainstorming and creating so many other things.

In fact, this is a more powerful version of a mindmap in many ways.

I've used this technique to write documentation for DigitalAccessPass.com, map out an email series, series of blog posts, series of FB posts, etc.

So let me quickly give you a couple of examples:

I've already told you how you can use it to write your book, really fast.

For the rest, listen to the episode at http://SubscribeMe.fm/24/

Let's talk about the types of videos there are:

#1: Sales page videos
#2: Content Marketing videos
#3: Native videos on Facebook & Twitter
#4: Documentation and Tutorial videos
#5: Members-only, private videos that are reserved just for members who have registered for free, or have paid for your online course

For Sales page videos, content-marketing videos & tutorial videos that you post on your own blog, or for posting on online forums, and any public-facing videos that you are ok with people sharing with one another, or you actually WANT people to share it, use YouTube for all of those videos. Many years ago, in the early years of Youtube, for a while, it wasn't considered cool or professional to put a youtube video on your home page. And all that was before youtube became the 2nd largest search engine, after.... you guessed it, Google.com. Millions of people start their search on youtube, especially for do-it-yourself stuff, tutorials, product reviews. And for your video to rank high on youtube, say, when someone searches for "how to potty train a puppy", and you have an online course about puppy potty training, then you want your videos to come up high in the search results. And one of the factors that can help your video rankings, is the number of video views, among many other things. And the fastest way to rack up video views for your main sales videos and other documentation and tutorial videos, is to upload them all to youtube, then take the embed code for those videos and put them on your web site on your home page, in your documentation section, when you do content marketing on your own blog, and so on. So for all public-facing videos that do not need to be protected, use youtube. That will help your videos rank better not only on youtube, but also on Google.com searches, when google will sometimes show videos from youtube among the search results. So it helps your overall SEO efforst, where SEO stands for search engine optimization.

Next, if you have private members-only videos, then do NOT, and I repeat, do NOT host them on Youtube.

Now there's a common misconception that your videos are secure if you make them "Private" youtube - what that means is, there's a setting in youtube that will allow you to make the video private. And private videos will not show up in searches, in side-bars or in recommended videos that show up right after a video has finished playing on youtube. So just because it doesn't show up anywhere, doesn't mean it is fully protected from prying eyes. If you make your youtube video private, and then embed that video in your member's area, then once someone gets to that page, and sees that it's a youtube video, they will be able to click on the Youtube logo, and get directly to that video on youtube.com.

And they can now share your quote unquote private video link with just about anyone on the web, or send the link by email, or post it on Facebook, and suddenly, your private members-only video is now public and out in the open.

Next you might think... what if I used a video plugin that will hide the youtube logo from the video? You could, I guess. But that would be a violation of youtube's terms of service, and could get your account banned. So don't do that.

So for private videos that you want to publish in the member's area, and make it available to only your members, make sure they cannot pass around your link, you have 2 options:

Option 1: Amazon S3. S3 is fantastic for hosting private videos, and I have also developed a plugin called S3MediaVault.com, which will help you secure your S3 videos, and embed them in your member's area in such a way that it is secure, and cannot be viewed or shared outside of your web site. You should check out my last episode - at subscribeme.fm/22/ , where I talk a lot about Amazon S3, which is a super-cheap and fast option for hosting your media files.

Option #2: Vimeo.com. Now, Vimeo is just like youtube in that, people can upload their videos, there's a common directory to search for and watch videos, it's social in nature, and so on. And vimeo also has a way to make your video private, which means your video will not show anywhere on vimeo.com or in recommended videos at the end of other people's videos. However, the one big difference between vimeo and youtube's private feature, is that vimeo has a setting where you can tell vimeo, allow this video to ONLY be embedded and played on www.mywebsite.com. It's called "whitelisting" - so this is the same thing that my plugin S3MediaVault does for S3. It whitelists your domain, so that your video can only play from your web site. One drawback of Vimeo.com is that even if you store your private videos on Vimeo and embed the private video code securely on your site, there’s still the question of other file formats – like audio, PDF, zip, doc, images, etc, none of which vimeo supports. So even if you use Vimeo for videos, you still need a solution for the other file formats, and I recommend Amazon S3 + S3MediaVault.com for that.

Now, once you've ensured that your video can ONLY be played on your web site, then you now have to make sure that ONLY a certain group of people - like your registered free members, or your paid buyers, or your monthly subscribers - can even get to that page that has this private video. And that's where you need a membership plugin, like DigitalAccessPass.com.

So 2 levels of protection: 1) Make sure your video only plays from www.yoursite.com, and 2) make sure only authorized members or buyers can get to that page.

If you use Vimeo for this, then you need to sign up for their "Pro" package, because that's the one that has the whitelisting feature. And pro costs 199 dollars per year. So it's not really cheap. But  the advantage of Vimeo is that you can customize your player colors to match your web site look & feel, and you can get some video analytics. And you won't pay more than 199 a year, whether you have 10 view or 1 million views on your videos.

So, to summarize: For public videos and videos that you would like to encourage sharing and liking and commenting, use Youtube videos. And for private members-only videos, you can use Amazon S3 and a plugin like S3MediaVault, or you can use Vimeo.com. And for protecting all NON-video files, you should absolutely use Amazon S3.

Before you go... let me give you a REALLY sweet deal here, for my podcast player plugin, CoolCastPlayer.com. If you purchase a copy of CoolCastPlayer, then respond to the welcome email you get right after the purchase, and let me know that you are a listener of this show. And I'll give you free unlimited-site license of the S3MediaVault.com plugin for free. That's a 97 dollar value, and you can get it for free. S3MediaVault is a plugin that can protect your PDF, Audio, Video and other files stored in your Amazon S3 account. And S3MediaVault also comes with a built-in audio player and a video player, so you can embed secure audio and secure video on your web site, and make it available for members only or buyers only. So get a free copy of S3MediaVault with your purchase of CoolCastPlayer, but you must take action before Monday, March 14th. You can also contact me via the contact-us link at subscribeme.fm.

So thank you for listening to my show. I know you have a lot of choices in podcasts these days, and I'm super thrilled and appreciative, that you chose to listen to my show. That means a lot to me. Stay subscribed to this show, and I'll do my darnedest best to bring you great content every week.

Cheers and talk to you soon.

Most membership sites, will have a need to protect the following types of media: Video, Audio, PDF, Zip, Word Docs - well, don't use word unless you have to, because not everyone would have word installed, but you get the idea. Different types of files need to be protected. But for the most part, we're talking about video, audio and PDF reports.

If these files are stored right on your web site, AND if you have a bunch of these files that are also big in size - like over 10 MB, for eg., then a lot of your members viewing and downloading them from your site simultaneously will use up a lot of resources on your server – when I say resources, I mean server memory, server speed, server bandwidth, etc – basically your site can get overloaded. Which means your site could slow down considerably.

Have you heard of the "Digg Effect" or "Slashdot Effect"? Many years ago, there used to be a social bookmark sharing site called Digg.com. If you have heard of Reddit.com, then Digg and Reddit were competitors. Big time traffic on both sites. Digg just slowly went away. But getting your site's URL on the front page of Digg, meant that you could end up getting tens of thousands of visitors in a very short time period. And that usually crashed most WordPress sites that were on shared hosting. Which is why WordPress unfortunately got a bad rap years ago. And things have changed a lot since then, and there are tools you can use today to make sure your site can withstand a sudden influx of traffic.

But I'm not talking about just site visitors. I'm talking about a large number of your visitors and paying members, downloading PDF's, watching video, listening to audio, and if all of those files are stored on your site, then your site could end up becoming super slow, and then might eventually even crash. And your host will have to restart your server, and then the whole thing could happen all over again.

On top of that, there are also bandwidth charges that your host will charge you with for all of those downloads, which are usually not very cheap.

Don’t put too much faith in your web host’s “Unlimited Bandwidth” clause, because if you read the fine-print carefully, you’ll see that as per their TOS, if you consume large amounts of bandwidth and use too much of the server resources, this could cause other web sites (belonging to others) on the same server to slow down and have a degrade in performance, especially if you are on a shared hosting account.

And your host could consider this as abuse of their terms of service, and they could either slap you with huge bandwidth or server utilization fees, or ask you to upgrade to a more expensive hosting package, or may even ask you to take your web site elsewhere because you’re causing issues for other site owners on the same server.

Instead, if your media files are stored on Amazon S3.... (listen to the episode for the rest)

I am so pumped up today, because I just soft-launched my new plugin. It is the prettiest podcast player on the planet, and along with celebrating its beta launch, I'm going to tell you about the biggest lessons I have learned from publishing 21 episodes of this podcast.

Let me tell you about my new podcast player plugin, and why it's different from anything else you've ever seen before.

It's called CoolCastPlayer, and you can see it in action at CoolCastPlayer.com

When I first launched my podcast back in September 2015, and wanted to publish my podcast feed and the episodes on my web site at SubscribeMe.fm, I quickly found out there's a huge need for a really good podcast player. Most of the players I came across were downright UGLY - and that's capital U, capital G, capital L and capital Y. UGLY as hell.

And there was just one decent looking podcast player out there, but it did not have some key features that I wanted. But the design of the player was not very good, in that, it wasn't obvious that it was even a player. I went to the web sites of several big-name podcasters who were using that plugin, and I was actively looking to see how they were using it, and I skipped over the player many many times, because it looked like a banner ad. It did not even look like a player - just a colorful banner.

And my biggest mindset that has helped me, and also hurt me, over the years, is that when I find a plugin or tool that I want to use in my business, and I find that the best of them have glaring holes in how they're designed or developed, then my mind starts spinning, and I start to wonder how I can create something better, and something that fits the needs of the market a lot better.

And that's what led to me developing CoolCastPlayer. I will go into the full list of features later in this show, but for now, let me tell you that other than being optimally designed to get your web site visitor to both notice your player and click play on your podast episode, the biggest feature by far, is the "Embed" feature. I call it, "Install Once, Embed Anywhere". And I'll explain this in a second, as I get into my podcast myths-busted list.

So let's go: 3 Biggest Podcasting Myths Busted:

#1. The hardest thing for a podcaster, is the marketing of your podcast and getting new people to listen to your show. If someone tells you all you need to do get some traction is to get into iTunes' New and Noteworthy, then just laugh out loud and run away. My show stayed at the top of New & Noteworthy for my category, for an entire month. It was in the top 3 for most of the time, and moved between #5 and #10 for the remaining 8 weeks that your show gets on New & Noteworthy. It did diddly squat for me. And if you listen to the biggest podcasting veterans out there, you will hear them all say the same thing. New & Noteworthy does very, VERY little for your show. And focusing your efforts on that, is, like Dave Jackson of SchoolOfPodcasting says, trading a dollar for a dime. Complete waste of your time.

#2. Do not launch with 3 episodes. Or with 5. Or with 8. When someone subscribes to your show on their iPhone or on their desktop using iTunes, then iTunes will ONLY download the latest episode. So DO NOT be fooled into thinking that if you launch with 8 episodes, then a new subscriber will result in 8 episodes. It won't. A new subscriber will only result in 1 download. And that is your latest episode. To hear the remaining 7 episodes, they would have to manually click on the little "Cloud" icon, and click "Download" in order to listen to your past episodes. So, when you launch with 8, you would have to make sure your 8th episode is pretty dang great, because that's the first one they're going to listen to. And as a new podcaster, if you launch with 8 episodes, your 8th episode is guaranteed to NOT be your best one, because guess what? You followed bad advice, and you created all episodes together, in the span of a few days, before you ever launched your show. Which means, you haven't heard your own episodes enough, you haven't gotten any feedback from your listeners, you haven't gotten the momentum of having been in the game for enough time, you haven't been able to learn from your mistakes, and you haven't been able to tone down your mistakes and amplify the best parts. Launching with 8 episodes is like, let's say you want to learn tennis. You can't schedule 8 tennis lessons on the same day. Just because you play 8 times in one day doesn't mean you're going to get better. You need practice. You need to go out and practice serving, and volleying. You need to watch film. You need to get in a few games with other people. You can NOT speed up the process. Whether it is having an entire day's meal all together in one sitting and starving the rest of the day, or trying to go out on 8 dates with the same girl on the same day, there are no shortcuts. When it comes to learning and honing your craft, or building relationships - which is what podcasting really is - building a relationship with your audience - you simply cannot fast forward through it like you would fast forward through a commercial.

I will be getting into all of this in a new online course that I'm putting together, and that course is actually going to be free as a launch-special bonus when you purchase CoolCastPlayer during the beta launch.

So if you shouldn't launch with 8 episodes, then what do you do? Simple. Launch with just 1 episode. What this allows you to do, is it lets you put your best foot forward, and focus ALL of your energy, ALL of your time and effort... and marketing on getting that ONE single episode out there, and getting the maximum number of people to listen to this one episode.

Then let it sit for at a week. At least. THEN, go ahead and launch the 2nd one after a week. By this time, you would have gotten feedback about the 1st one, from your peers, from your friends... and your social network and your email list. And you get to hear your own voice and your own show multiple times. And the more you listen to it, even though you may initially hate your voice, you will get over it quickly, and you'll get some ideas as to what's going to work and what needs to be cut out of the show. That will help you improve your 2nd episode. Then a few days later, take the experience of producing your 1st and 2nd shows, and use THAT to produce your 3rd episode. And the biggest advantage of this staggered release of episodes, means that your show is getting better with each episode. And now, because you're picking up new subscribers with each episode, what that means is that each time you release a new episode, iTunes will automatically download your latest episode on the phones and devices of ALL of your current subscribers. So you hit publish on your latest episode, and a couple of hours later, you can see that you've gotten 300 new downloads. Now THAT is super exciting and can be really invigorating and inspiring for any podcaster. So launching with more episodes does not mean more downloads at launch. Your latest episode will get the most downloads, and then from there, the drop off is really huge. Even now, when I launch a new episode, let's say in the first few hours, my latest episodes gets 100 downloads. Then one of my older episodes - usually the previous one, will get about 20 downloads. That's like a 80% drop. And then the next highest one will be like 7 downloads. And it usually trickles all the way to my old downloads to just 1 or 2 new downloads. That's how big the drop-off is between the latest episode and the next highest one.

But here's a really cool idea for you. Wait till you get to about 4 episodes in about 4 weeks. And now, you have a full month of podcasting experience behind you. You have asked for - and gotten a lot of feedback. You have learned about your own voice, the way you speak, what works, what gets your audience involved and excited, and so on.

NOW is the time to drop the hammer. Over the next 15 days, launch 5 new episodes. Never launch them all together. Launch 1 new episode every few days. And for month 2, that will help you tremendously in exponentially increasing your downloads, because remember, when you stagger the episodes, then you will get WAYY more downloads, than if you launched them all together. So the increased downloads will help your show rise in iTunes' overall rankings, and the momentum will help you take it to the next level.

What is that next level, is entirely up to you. But this little strategy will help you 10 times more than the bad advice out there.

Finally, #3: It is a complete waste of time, money and effort if you are promoting the direct link to your show on iTunes or Stitcher. It is the biggest wasted call to action. iTunes is the hardest thing to navigate for those who are new to podcasts. The goal of promoting your podcast should be to get them to your web site and listen to your podcast episode, in the fastest way possible. I call this "2-Click Play". The first click brings them to your web site. The 2nd click should be on your Play button. There is simply no faster or more efficient way to get someone to listen to your podcast episode, than putting a online audio player on your web site. So the first click is your audience or your friends or your social network, clicking on a link in your email, on Facebook, or on Twitter. Give a sneak-peek about the content of your episode, and they click on a link that brings them to your web site. When they arrive there, they should be greeted by a podcast player that looks really good, looks like an audio player, with a nice, large play button that is just begging to be clicked on. And the 2nd click is on that play button, and a few seconds later, they're off and away, listening to your show. And if they like it, you tell them on the show where to go to subscribe. And of course, you have a couple of beautiful buttons right below the player that tells them where to go to subscribe to your show. THAT is how you get the fullest bang for your podcast marketing bucks, and that's how you get more people in the door to listen to your show, so that they can decide whether or not it is for them. And that is how you grow your audience, and not by sending them directly itunes where most normal people who are not already podcast listeners, will completely get lost. 2-Click play.

I will get into more myth-busting tips about podcasting, in future episodes.

Now, let me quickly tell you a few of the awesome features included in CoolCastPlayer.com, which I'm now officially calling the Prettiest Podcast Player on the planet. To see it in action, go to CoolCastPlayer.com, and you'll see both the episode player and the feed player demos.

Here are some of its features...

#1: It can play MP3 files hosted anywhere... like Libsyn, SoundCloud, Podbean, your own WordPress site, Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, PowerPress, BluBrry, etc.

#2 It has an "Embed" feature. This allows your guests who you interviewed, and your web site visitors, simply grab a small piece of code from your web site, and then insert the episode - or even the entire feed - on their web site. This is similar to how you can grab the embed code of a youtube video and put it on a different web site. And if you remember, youtube grew big-time because of this viral feature. So allowing others to embed your show on their web site, will give your show a viral marketing aspect.

Plus there's a whole bunch of other features: Like it's a WordPress plugin that is super easy to install, AND very intuitive to set up. Mobile Responsive: So it will look equally stunning on all screens.

It works with PowerPress. It has social buttons and custom buttons to put below the player, it has a download icon and speed-it-up icon right on the player. You can fully customize the player colors to match your show's artwork or your web site colors.

Plenty more features. Check it all out at CoolCastPlayer.com .

Until the next time... if you have a podcast, don't promote your iTunes or Stitcher links. Bring them back to your web site, because there are plenty of reasons why you should do that, and I will talk about all of them in a later episode.

Cheers!

This episode is going to focus on how you you should focus on finding the D-list Super stars in your niche.

These are the people who will have the inclination to help you. They too have something to prove, they're equally hungry and excited to work with other d-listers, they'll be more open to doing a mutually beneficial joint venture with you. They will be more willing to promote your product as an affiliate, write an article recommending you, interview you on their podcast. So many ways in which these kind folks can help you.

And no, I'm not talking about doing a stupid email swap or an ad swap or a link swap. I'm talking about finding influencers who are ready and willing to help you, AND can make an impact on your business. But for this whole thing to work, here are the main ingredients you absolutely must have in place first.

Let's say you are getting ready to launch a new online course about horse riding. Here's the new media way of finding your super star partners.

#1) Let's start with the obvious: You must have a great product. Now I'm using the name "Product" to loosely refer to anything physical, or digital, or a service. So starting with a great product goes without saying. Whether you are launching a membership site, a Kindle book, a WordPress plugin, or a SaaS app - by the way, Saas - S A A S stands for software as a service. A lot of people put the cart before the horse, and forget that they need to first create something remarkable.

I'm not saying you have to have this massive product all polished and completed. There's something to be said for launching a minimum viable product - or MVP. And the cool thing is, that with digital products, you can easily update it and add more to it over time, whether it is a kindle book - which you can easily update, and simply upload a new version with new chapters or edits of typos, you can keep adding content to your Kindle book with absolutely no hassle. With software, like a plugin, or a mobile App, or a Saas app, you can easily publish an update, a new "release", with new features and bug fixes. Even a product like the iPhone, can release updates to its operating system without having to touch the hardware. If you remember, people made a big deal about the original iphone saying it didn't have copy/paste functionality. One software update later, that feature was included. And Apple did not have to recall a single iphone in order to add that feature. So yes, the #1 thing is to start with a great product, even if it is a minium viable version.

2) Go to Facebook.com. Search for "horse riding group". Quickly join the top 5, do a quick scan, eliminate the ones that don't have much engagement, and ones that have too much spam and blatant promotion. Check if they allow new-member introductions. If they do, then make a post introducing yourself, give a quick elevator pitch about what you do, include a link back to your web site, and most importantly, say something like, "I'm excited to join this amazing group. I'm ready to contribute here and help others. I want to give more than I ask. So if you have any questions at all about horses and horse riding, then feel free to ask me below, or message me directly." See how that didn't sound like I'm quoting from my sales page or my resume? So just keep it classy, really low-key. I can't stress that enough. If at any time you feel that you might be doing something pushy or pitchy, then hold back. Don't worry about giving out too much content and wasting time. Trust me, you're better off wasting time by offering free content and helping others, than watching viral videos and looking at everybody else's life in pictures. It's about dang time you spent every spare minute you have building your own business.

Once this is done, now start listening, reading, observering. Start answering questions from others who you think you can help. Contribute to discussions and arguments. Feel free to take sides, but don't belittle anyone or trash someone's view point. Just state in a very clear way why you're taking one side of the argument, without involving emotion or making it personal. You can still have strong opinions and express them without trashing someone else's opinions.

Now comes absolutely, THE most important part: Every time someone engages with you, likes your content, responds to your posts, participates in a discussion thread along with you, add them as a friend. Don't go and start adding everyone in the group as a friend. That's key. Do it ONLY with someone who has engaged with you, or who you have engaged with, by commenting on their thread or answering their question or offering feedback.

If you do this for even just a week in 2-3 different groups, you can easily make 30 to 50 new really good contacts.

3) Next, contact the group owners themselves, build a relationship with them. Offer them feedback about the group, not in patronizing way, but in a complimentary way. Offer them a free membership to your horse riding course. Tell them there's absolutely no obligation. They never have to pay for it. If they love it, and if they have the time, you would really appreciate it if they can give you a testimonial that you can proudly display on your web site, with their signature, mentioning their web site, or the Facebook Group URL, or whatever they want. So the positioning of this offer is important. You're not being pushy. You're saying, IF they love it, IF they have the time, IF they would be kind enough to give you a review, you will proudly display it on your page.

#4) Go to the big content directories: iTunes, Youtube, LinkedIn. Find the top 10 people in each category who are providing a lot of value, creating great content, and are really cool to their audience. Contact them directly. You might not get much traction with the top few people, but that's ok. The goal here is to focus on the long-tail, the C and D-listers. Spend some time consuming their content. This is absolutely critical. If you shoot them an email right off the bat saying you want them to promote your product, you are almost never going to hear back from them. Instead, subscribe to those podcasts and youtube channels. Consume their content. Become a fan. Of course, if their content sucks, move on to the next person in the list. You don't have to listen to crappy shows. But the good ones? Listen, and become a fan. And find an interesting thing that you can say to them, that only a fan would say. For instance, I was a fan of Jon Nastor from Hack The Entrepreneur. And in one of his other shows, the Show Runner show, his co-host calls Jon Nastor the defender of humanity. So many months later, completely unrelated, when I was launching my own podcast, I wrote to Jon with the subject "O Defender of Humanity" and I wrote a really cool email to him, because I was a fan, and what I wrote was super genuine, and absolutely nothing pitchy or promotional. I built a relationship with him by exchanging a couple of emails, offering him some feedback, and finally, one day, I told him, oh, by the way, if you ever want to interview the coolest geek on the planet, then I would be super thrilled and honored to come on his show. I even referenced what I meant by me being the coolest geek on the planet. If you go to Google right now, and search for the keywords "coolest geek on the planet", you'll see that my web site shows up at the top. So I was a fan, I gave him feedback, I genuinely appreciated him, and actually communicated with him like a cool human being. He loved the idea, and I ended up as a guest on one of the hottest entrepreneur interview shows on iTunes.

So yes, you have GOT to put some time into becoming a fan, and building a relationship with your potential partners. You've got to woo them. It goes back to the often used example in dating. You can't ask a girl to marry you on the first date. And in this day of social media, where it's super easy to reach out to someone, and equally easy to be a douchebag and piss someone off by being pitchy and pushy, it is very important that you understand how to approach super starts and future partners. Remember, nothing, and I mean NOTHING gets a person more excited than hearing from a genuine fan tell them how much they love their stuff. And if it is genuine, and true, they'll feel it, and you'll hit it off instantly.

Think all of this is a bit too time consuming? Heck yeah, it is. In the beginning, you probably have more time than money. So go ahead and spend all of your time and effort on this. Stop watching Netflix for a month. No big deal. I know Gary Vaynerchuk is famous for his line "Stop watching effin "Lost". Sorry, Gary, I said that way before you did. I was telling this to my friends in 2000, back then, of course, I was telling them, Stop watching effin Friends! Because friends was the big & famous show back then. So yeah. People binge-eat, bing-watch Netflix, binge-play video games, we binge on every darn useless thing in this world.

So the next time you're on Facebook, and you see an exciting article or a video, click on that little downward "V" icon next to that post, and save it for later. Trust me, this one tip alone will make you 5 times more productive on Facebook.

So how about you spend the next 1 week binge-buildig relationships? How about you do binge-marketing?

This topic will be continued in the next episode.

Yaro Starak, one of the leading lifestyle entrepreneurs in the world, from Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, said this about my book at SubscribeMeBook.com:

Ravi's book rams home a very important message: It's much smarter to get paid more than once for making one sale, and one of the best ways to do this online is to sell membership products. Read this book and your eyes will open to some incredible opportunities to make money online.

So check out my book at SubscribeMeBook.com. It is a culmination of 18 years of my life making and marketing digital products, starting with selling a physical book back in 1998.

Until the next time, don't forget to do some bingeing that will actually help you take your business to the next level.

Cheers!