Launching With a Low Cost Membership

In this episode, we're exploring the five most common CRM mistakes made by business coaches and consultants. We dive into the second of these five mistakes. But first, let's recap the previous ones. Mistake #5 is neglecting to grow your mailing list, while Mistake #4 is overcomplicating technology and systems. Mistake #3 is launching without a promotion plan. Now, we're tackling Mistake #2 – offering a low-cost membership program.

This often stems from the belief that setting a lower price point will result in a higher volume of sign-ups. However, Mary Sue shares her experiences, revealing that this approach rarely reaches the expected numbers.

Takeaways

• The Downfalls of Launching a Low-Cost Membership
• Strategies for Membership Pricing
• Considerations before Launching a Low-Cost Membership

Quotes

"My rule of thumb is if you have to sell 100 or more of something to make it profitable, you're likely setting yourself up for disappointment.""- Mary Sue Dahill

"You invest similar effort and resources in launching both low-cost and high-ticket memberships.Why not prioritize promoting the high-ticket option, which is more likely to yield better results- Mary Sue Dahill

Featured in this Episode

Mary Sue Dahill

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marysuedahill

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction

00:55 - The Pitfalls of Neglecting Your Mailing List

01:21 - Cracking the Myth of Low-Cost Memberships

02:10 - The Audience Size Reality for Low-Cost Memberships

03:08 - The 10,000-Strong Mailing List Myth

04:09 - Overdelivering: The Pitfall of Low-Cost Memberships

06:29 - Conclusion

Product byhttp://www.heartcastmedia.com

Transcript

Mary Sue Dahill;

What are the 5 biggest CRM mistakes business coaches and consultants make? Hi. My name is Mary Sue Dahill. I'm the host of CRM Success Secrets podcast, and I have a really unique perspective on what works in the sales and marketing space for business coaches and consultants because I help them implement those strategies in the all in one CRM solution I sell, so although I'm not defining their marketing strategies for them, I am helping them implement them, and I see the results of their strategies over and over again, and so that's where I've gotten These 5 mistakes that I'm going through in each of these episodes we are on the 2nd mistake, so let me go through the others. The mistake number 5 is not growing your mailing list, letting it stagnate Mistake number 4 is overcomplicating your technology and systems. Mistake number three is launching without a promotion plan, and so mistake number 2 is launching a low cost and I put air quotes in there, membership. So, you know, the theory is that because it's cheaper, you're gonna get lots of people To sign up, you're gonna put all this value into a low cost membership, why would anyone say no? And that's the kind of thinking I've certainly done myself and failed at it as well, and I thought, oh, it's me. You know, I made stakes on how I marketed it, the name that I gave it, blah blah blah. But after witnessing many many clients doing the exact same thing, I realized it has nothing to do with, how well they've defined this membership the fact is that, when you say it's gonna be cheaper and I just need to get a ton of people in there to make it really worthwhile financially for myself, You're probably not going to reach those numbers.

So my rule of thumb is if you have to sell 100 or more of something to make it profitable for you and not a loser, then You're probably in a scenario where you're not gonna reach that number, and no matter what number you hit, you're gonna be disappointed. And the reason I'm saying this is because, myself included, although I have a decent sized mailing list, It's not tens of thousands of people, you know, it's about a couple thousand people. So, most of my clients are in that same space so they have between 500 to maybe 25 100, 3000 contacts in their mailing list. It's not nothing, and it's a good sized audience, but you're not probably not gonna find 100 buyers in that audience when you go to launch your low cost membership. And I'm saying that because The sales conversion from email marketing is right now at about 1.2%, So that means you would need a mailing list of a minimum of 10,000 people to get a 100 buyers of your low cost membership. And, again, since most of my clients don't have that, and I would say most business coaches and consultants don't have mailing lists that large, launching a low cost membership expecting these amazing results is going to end up being disappointing. So when I have seen clients, you know, they come to me and they're, I'm gonna launch this low cost membership, I give them the same feedback. So, launching a low cost membership costs the same promotion time as a high ticket membership, So that's the other cost.

You know? You're putting in the same amount of effort, maybe spending the same amount of money to get your sales page and your copyright, for a low cost membership as you are for a higher cost membership. So why are you spending all of that on a low cost one? I would put more effort into launching and not maybe not even more effort. You'd put the same promotion into launching your high ticket membership, and probably get better results. So the other thing is to look at what's in your ship, you know? If you're putting all this effort into your membership for low cost and you need the numbers to make it work out for profit for yourself, then that's where you're you're kind of you're thinking about this in a way that is not gonna really help you out, so consider how, much you should charge if you only had 5 to 10 people in your membership program. That can still be as valuable for all the members that are in there as one that's for 100 people. So maybe instead of doing a $40 membership, you do a $500 membership, and I'm guessing That what goes into the membership really isn't going to change that much, so, because most of my clients are over delivering anyways, many of these low cost memberships, I hear the big picture, description of it, We'll have 2 group sessions a month, I'll also have a 1 on 1, and there's gonna be a workbook I mean, that's a lot, so why are you wasting time on launching a low cost membership? Put your effort into a higher ticket membership. So in summary, when you're launching membership, be realistic about your ability to sign up clients into a membership. Is it reasonable to think that you're gonna get 100 people signed up in a relatively short period of time? I think it's more reasonable that you think of getting 5 to 10 people signed up within a short period of time.

Second, cost. Cost out your support time and promotion time to help You price the membership accurately for yourself so that you are making a profit and eliminate low cost from your service offerings. Your newsletter is your no cost service. So if you want something that is attracting Lower Cost People, that's what your newsletter is there for. If they can't afford to pay you what you're worth to deliver your services, then they should be on your newsletter. So before you launch a low cost membership, take a step back and think about All these things I talked about and consider switching it to a high cost membership.