Sales and marketing are crucial parts of your role as a membership site owner.

Even the best membership website in the world will fade away into obscurity if you’re not doing anything to attract new members.

However when selling your membership offering, there are certain tropes and cliches that you want to avoid to ensure you’re not lumped in with the sleazier elements of online businesses.

Here are our top tips for attracting new members without feeling like a scumbag…

Avoid the unrealistic hype

We’ve all seen the headlines…

“Discover How This Beagle Made $7,838,922 in Just 25 Minutes Using a Paperclip and a Half-Squeezed Lemon”

Okay, maybe not THAT headline, but you get the gist…

There’s nothing wrong with emphasising the potential outcomes for someone joining your membership site – but over-promising unrealistic results is a surefire way of being written off as just another sleazy marketer.

Speak in your own voice

Rather than aping the same old, cliched marketing waffle you see on every other sales page out there; inject your own personality and your own voice into your copy.

This is particularly important for membership sites, where your ‘dialogue’ with your members continues beyond the initial sale.

Provide legit risk reversal

Every buying decision represents a risk for the customer, including the decision to join your membership site.

To counteract this, you can employ what Jay Abraham calls “risk reversal”.

Utilising trial periods, money back guarantees or even just incorporating social proof can go a long way towards making the decision to join an easier one as well as reducing the pressure on you to go over the top with your sales strategy.

Use genuine, verifiable social proof

Testimonials can be extremely powerful additions to your sales pages, and they’re even more effective if they can be verified too.

Putting a face, a name and even a company and website address to your testimonials and quotes removes any doubt about their legitimacy.

You might even consider posting screenshots of genuine emails and social media messages too for added effect.

Ditch the ulterior motive

Getting involved in existing communities can be a great way of promoting your membership site; however responding to every request for input, feedback or assistance by pushing the link to your sales page will wear thin pretty quickly.

Instead, try to actually help people out, adding value to the communities you’re part of, and you’ll find that people will respond far more positively and be more likely to be interested in your product.

Remember that “marketing” and “sales” are not dirty words

While there are clearly some styles and approaches that you will want to avoid – it’s important to remember that it’s okay to actually market and try to sell your membership.

Many sales trainers agree that one of the biggest mistakes people make is failing to ask for the sale – so be sure not to fall into the trap of “not wanting to appear salesy”, and as a result avoid trying to sell altogether.

How do you approach to sales and marketing?

Which sales techniques turn your stomach?

What sort of things tend to work on you from a customer perspective?

Let us know in our FREE Facebook Group

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