CMS Infusion Review
It was back in May that I posted an article about the upcoming release of MME3 and its main product - CMS Infusion. I was fortunate enough to have a ‘bonus’ membership to MME3 from a previous purchase, so when CMS Infusion was released I set aside some time to take it for a test run.
I think the wording at the time was ‘the mmonster unleashed’ and I have to say it’s very true. Not a scary monster though … but rather a goliath in membership management software. I have to admit that I’ve not delved anwhere deeply enough into the software yet. There have been 4 or 5 updates since I installed it a few months ago and the site I installed on will probably end up being just a ‘demo’ site. Still … if you want to get an idea of how a CMSI site looks after a half hour or so of messing with the menus then have a look over at www.verifiedmarketing.com. The template is one of several that came with the script and I’ve enabled the article directory module, though I haven’t set it up properly with categories yet. Keep an eye on the site from time to time though as I will be spending some more time with CMS Infusion to see what it can really do.
From the control panel end I can tell you that they’ve left no stone unturned. Almost anything that you could want is either in there already or available as a plugin. As I said though, it is a bit of a ‘Goliath’ and whilst the script publisher has made it as easy as possible to drive, you can expect to get a little bit lost when you first start using it simply because there is such a large array of options.
I’ll post some more on this soon when I get a chance to spend a little more time with the script.
Affiliate Funnel - Review
In order to understand what this site is all about you need to first understand the concept of affiliate funnels. The easiest way to look at it is to imagine a funnel. At the top (i.e. the ‘wide’ end) you are constantly ‘filling’ it with prospects who are subscribing to your lists, joining the programs you are promoting or coming in from safelist, traffic exchanges and other sources. Instead of trying to manage all of your various programs individually, you are pulling them all together into the top of your ‘funnel’. At the bottom of the funnel you are building your list of customers who are purchasing some of the products and/or services that you are promoting.
The key difference here between an affiliate funnel and a downline builder is that with the downline builder you are nearly always building a list for someone else. Whilst you do get some benefits from this, you aren’t building your own list of quality leads.
Affiliate Funnel has three levels of membership. On the free level you will be promoting 6 programs that have been chosen by your upline and one of your own. On the first paid level you get to use 3 of your own programs and on the second paid level you get to use all 6 of your own programs. Anyone you refer will then be shown those one, three or six programs of yours to promote.
The site is well laid out and a comprehensive instruction manual is provided. This is an essential and most welcome resource on this type of site where it really is imperative that you have clear instructions showing you, step by step, what you need to do to get your affiliate funnel up and running.
Traffic exchanges and safelists get more than their fair share of bad press, but generally that is from people who don’t know how to use those resources efficiently. To those who are prepared to spend the time learning how to use TEs and safelists, they can be a very effective form of lead capture.
You can sign up for a free membership at Affiliate Funnel right HERE.
Score: 8/10. A well laid out site with a well presented system.
Resell Rights For Newbies - Review
I’m sure you’ve seen at least some of the sites and courses out there that offer to provide you all the information you need in order to make the most of all that ’stuff’ you’ve accumulated on your hard drive. Resell Rights For Newbies is in that category.
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Free $397.00 Value |
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Get The ENTIRE Resell Rights For Newbies System Course Absolutely FREE “No Strings Attached”
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As membership is free I decided to join and have a little poke around. The site is run by John Hostler (a copy writing ‘heavyweight’) and Liz Tomey (a well known and very successful IMer), so my expectations were fairly high. I’ve heard plenty about John Hostler as he’s often mentioned as one of the best copywriters out there and I’m familiar with many of Liz Tomey’s products and projects, and admit to enjoying her ‘more info, less hype’ approach. As a consumer just like everyone else, my perception of the people who own a site or product has a bearing on whether I’ll give it any more than a casual glance.
So … what’s in the site? Keep in mind, I’m looking at this from the point of view of someone who has been around computers since 1980 … so I’m not quite the newbie myself … but I’ve been involved in IT consulting and support since 1995 so I’ve had plenty of ‘exposure to newbies’. It almost sounds like some sort of ailment 
.
The core of ResellRightsForNewbies.com is a set of videos that show you what tools you will need, where to get these tools and how to use them to create and upload your resell rights site. Most of the videos have been created by Liz Tomey and in the set of 12 videos Liz covers everything from registering your domain to hosting, editing and uploading your site. Liz makes a couple of mistakes along the way and hasn’t edited them out … which I think is an important point. Instead, she simply fixes the mistake and carries on.
The videos are quite detailed and go a long way toward teaching a ‘newbie’ how to get a resell rights website up and running. There are also several e-books with information that compliments the Resell Rights For Newbies course. For a free course, I think it is very good value and definitely worthwhile if you are struggling at coming to terms with the process of creating, hosting and uploading a web site.
There is just one thing that I would take a couple of points off for. There is a link to a blog in the members area, but the blog hasn’t been updated since January.
Score: 8/10 Definitely worth a look if you feel that you are a ‘newbie’.
Building Your Own Membership Site - It’s Hosting Time
Once you get to this point it is time to start thinking about domains and hosting. You’re probably starting to wonder (or worry) about membership scripts, JV partners and a whole lot of other things, so just slow down a little and let’s look at the logic of the process. Sure, you need a script and there is a relationship between the script and the hosting account. Mainly that each script has specific requirements as far as the capabilities of your web hosting account goes.
Rather than trying to work out which host works with most scripts, I’m going to make a single recommendation based on my own experience. The host I recommend is HostGator simply because I know that their hosting accounts have everything you need to use just about any script out there. I’ve not yet come across any scripts that won’t run with Hostgator. This includes aMember, Launch Formula Marketing, Butterfly Marketing and pretty well any PHP membership script. Their prices are very competitive and you have the option to upgrade to a dedicated server if your site becomes extremely popular and needs the extra resources that a dedicated server provides.
The two main types of server are shared servers and dedicated servers. With a shared server, your site is one of many on a web server. With a dedicated server you don’t share with any other sites … you have the whole server to yourself. There is a big difference in cost with shared hosting costing around $10 per month and dedicated servers costing around $100 per month. Unless you are expecting to have thousands of members in your first few weeks you will be fine with a shared server.
You will find that most membership scripts require PHP version 4.x, MySQL version 4.x, and the ability to communicate with payment processors such as Paypal. Whilst most hosts provide all of this, some make it a little more difficulat than others. GoDaddy for example doesn’t allow you to connect directly to payPal. You have to use a programming library called ‘cURL’ *and* you then have to go through a special proxy server rather than directly to PayPal. This type of thing provides extra headaches that none of us need.
If you go with HostGator you can be 99.99% sure that the installation and configuration of your membership script will go very smoothly.
I mentioned JV partners earlier. the reason why I don’t think it is time to start looking yet is because if you want to attract some good partners you need to have something attractive to show them first! There’s no point in just saying ‘hey, I have this great site I’m going to set up’. Nope, you have to be able to *show* them your great site.
Getting back to hosting … you will also need a domain of course. You may already have one. If not, you can register a domain when you sign up for your hosting account. The thing to keep in mind when choosing your domain is that you will rank better in the search engines if you can get a domain name that relates to the topic of your site, and more specifically a search term that people use when looking for your site. For example, if your site was about scrapbooking you would be looking for names that contain the word ’scrapbooking’. Something like ’scrapbookingtips.com’ would be ideal. This may not be easy as many domain names are already registered, but think about variations. If you can’t get scrapbookingtips.com … try for scrapbooking-tips.com. That dash isn’t going to make much (if any) of a difference to the search engines.
That pretty much covers the hosting. If you decide not to follow my recommendation, be very careful and make sure that you choose a web hosting company that provides everything you will need for the membership script you decide to use.
Hodgkinson & Gislason, MME3 and the Monster Unleashed
There have been muttering, musings and speculation over recent weeks about what will be inside Simon Hodgkinson and Jeremy Gislason’s MarketingMainEvent3 package
Well the cat’s out of the proverbial bag and now we know - What you’re about to see is set to send shockwaves throughout the Internet Marketing Community
Go And Watch This Video: www.cmsinfusion.com/cmsipreview/
This is a sneak preview of the new software these guys have confirmed will be included as part of their MME3 membership (now confirmed for 08.00 EST on June 5th and set to run for just 7 days)
We are bringing this to you first and all we can say is this is going to be HUGE!
We’ve seen some powerful software releases over the years but this is, and to quote Simon Hodgkinson, ‘The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of - CMSInfusion Technology has the power to make Millionaires out of average Joe marketers… What will happen when it gets into the hands of some seriously smart marketers is anyone’s guess. All I can say is
watch out Amazon, eBay, iTunes and Youtube…’
From the video released today it looks like CMSInfusion is going to be the number one software of choice among the ‘in crowd’
In a spellbinding 50 minutes we’ve seen that it can build membership sites, manage affiliates, create article and content rich sites, deliver audio and video and take user to user communication into real Web2.0 territory. (The video is going to make your eyes pop out!)
All we say is that after you’ve watched this June the 5th is going to seem a long way away.
We’ll get more updates on this soon and continue to bring you the news as it happens.
In the meantime, you can pick up some more insider tips here: http://www.marketingmainevent3.com/headstart/egoldmines
Building Your Own Membership Site - More Decisions
One thing that you will find while you are planning your membership site is that some decisions are dependent on each other. For example, the topic or niche of your membership site may have a bearing on the membership fee options you provide. Some topics simply don’t suit a regular weekly or monthly product delivery. In this case, you may deliver your initial product when the member joins and then provide on-going coaching or support as the monthly component. Or you may simply charge a one time fee and update your site less regularly. This is fine as long as your members are aware of what they are paying for. You definitely don’t want to look like you are under-delivering or have no interest in your site and its members.
Think about this when you choose your topic and be sure that you know exactly what your product is and how often it is delivered. it will make other decisions such as membership fee options much easier when you get to that point in planning your membership site.
Building Your Own Membership Site - Time To Choose A Topic
The very first thing you need to do, before you start thinking about domains, hosting, scripts etc is what your site is going to be about. Generally speaking, there are three ways you can go with this.
- You Have An Existing Skill Or Interest
- You Have Something In Mind - Not Necessarily An Existing Skill Or Interest
- You Have Absolutely No Idea Whatsoever!
The first two are obviously the easier route. The first consideration should be how and what you can deliver to your members. This can be all manner of things including electronic information (i.e. software or e-book downloads), a newsletter that you publish, physical goods or some type of service. So … ask yourself right now … what am I going to give my members? An even better question would be “What am I going to give my members that will keep them coming back month after month?”. Write it all down. As you read through this course and think about your membership site you will be coming up with some GREAT ideas. Write them down NOW! Don’t even question whether you think you need to write them down or not. Just do it!
Lets get back to what you are going to deliver. This is one of the key questions that you absolutely MUST be able to answer before you start a membership site. If you can’t deliver (or better still, over-deliver) to your members on a regular basis then you will find most of them cancelling their accounts or simply not returning (depending on whether you have a monthly or one-time fee). Make sure you have a very clear picture in your mind of the types of products and service you can provide and write them down. If you can’t think of anything then perhaps you should consider a different topic. There are very few topics where there’s absolutely nothing you can offer … but if that is the case and you are absolutely sure then don’t spend too much time dwelling on an idea that isn’t going to work.
The next key question … is there a demand for what you intend to offer? If it is an existing interest then you should already be able to answer that question fairly accurately. Particularly if you have been active in forums or other sites that are related to your area of skill or interest.
If it is something that you just thought may be a good topic for a membership site, or you have absolutely no idea what you want to do then it’s time to do some research. There are plenty of places to research hot topics on the Internet, but before you go browsing away looking for the ideal niche, do some offline research. newspapers, radio, television, friends and family are all good research subjects. Think about it this way - if you are searching for good topics on the internet, then obviously there are already some sites and services related to those topics. By researching offline you have the opportunity to bring something totally new to the Internet. There’s a potential goldmine there if you are the very first! I’m not saying that you will find something brand new, but it is well worth a look.
For your online research, follow some of the links in the Research category at HotMarketingSites.com. This is a directory i created a while back with all sorts of resources for online marketing and product development.
Don’t expect to find something today .. or even this week! Take your time, do your research and make sure you have a good, popular topic that you know you can deliver to.
So, assuming that you have an in-demand topic or niche for your site, and you know that you can provide quality to your members, you are now ready to move on to getting a domain and web hosting.
Additional Tips
Participate in Online Forums - This is a must if you want to gather a ‘following’. You need to let the online world know that you ‘know your stuff’ and are willing to help others. On that note, go out of your way to help others. In the longer term it will establish you as an authority in your chosen topic and someone who gives more than they take. Thus, when you do start your membership site there will already be many people who know you are going to over-deliver.
Become An Authority - notice I use the word ‘authority’. There are very few genuine experts or gurus in any topic area and you really don’t need that tag. An authority is someone who has an above average knowledge of a particular topic. It’s the person who you go to because you know that he or she has most of the answers to your questions.
Building Your Own Membership Site - Introduction
If you’ve read any of the e-books or guides about building your own membership site you have probably found that they all have one thing in common. They are incomplete. I have read all of them and in every case there are some areas that are poorly explained, not explained at all or are simply giving the wrong information.
I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a comprehensive guide to building and owning a membership site and I think it is high time that someone told you everything you need to know about building and running a membership site.
This series of blog articles will eventually be made into a complete guide to owning your own membership site. We will cover the planning stages such as choosing and researching your topic. We will look at the various scripts and online services that are available for running membership sites and how to set these scripts and services up. We’ll also look at promoting your membership site. Keeping your customers happy and retaining them for the long term. Many of the technical aspects will be covered. For many people this is the stumbling block. I often see people posting messages like ‘I’d love to own my own membership site but I don’t know how to set the script up’. We will work through the technical areas step by step so that virtually anyone can work to a plan and create a membership site.
What we won’t be doing is favouring any particular products or services. This guide is about helping you to set up a membership that works for you and your customers. There isn’t one single product that suits all topics or sites, so we will look at the strengths and weaknesses of various products so that we can find you a ‘perfect fit’ for your site.
This is going to be a lot of fun and please do leave some feedback as the course develops. It would be great to get some questions along the way and to hear about your successes.
Are You Struggling With Creating A Membership Site?
I’m interested to know if there are many of you out there who have thought about creating a membership site but felt that you didn’t have the skills, the funds or the time to create a site. I often look around for ‘entry level’ products that would allow anyone on a very low budget the opportunity to start a membership site. What is it that held you back?
Review - Niche Mania
A review on Niche Mania is way overdue. This is another of my favourite AdSense template sites and one of just a handful of sites that I actively promote. I’m doing Niche Mania a dis-service by calling it an AdSense template site…there’s a whole lot more in there including articles, XSitePro templates, scripts and e-books. Keep your eyes peeled for the full review which will be completed in the next few days.
