For Infoprenuers, there are three tools that help you retain customers in your subscription program. Here are some pointers on what those three tools are and how to use them.
As the President of the Information Marketing Association, I host a monthly coaching call for info-marketers who have questions and are trying to launch their infopreneur business. Here is a question from Jay in Boston about Info marketer's strongest retention tools. Since this is a common question, I decided to prepare an article about this challenge to help you.
There are three tools that should be integrated into an Info-Marketing business. Those are utility, savings, and content and personality.
Utility are things that people build into their businesses. Things like the free or toll free numbers that people call for more information. You teach people that strategy and then you help them sign up with the actual provider. If they drop your continuity then they lose the ability to use that system. Or you are actually providing it for them. So they sign up, they upgrade from one price to another and they get all of that built for them. All they have to do is call in and then you teach them how they can integrate it in their business.
The one thing that Jimmy V. and Travis Miller have is that they are providing a radio show ad. So if they go a month or two with those ads and suddenly you drop out the program, the member will have to go figure out how you are going to get radio ads to replace the other things they were getting for their businesses. Where as with newsletters, if you send three or four of those monthly newsletters out and you try not to send a fifth, you have customers calling you, "Hey, where's your newsletter?" While the newsletter is a tool they enjoy, the radio commercials are integral to their business.
The good thing is, what you know, you normally teach the business owner, but you kind of boil it down and you give it to them on a website that they could sit an employee down for a day or two, when the employee is just hired and they learn the process. That will give you unlimited access to this staff-training program. Another good benefit to create is a training program for employers to help your customer get your training implemented. If I hire somebody, I want to be able to sit him or her down in front of that system. So that becomes part of the utility of my business. It becomes part of my employee-training program. And every time I hire a new employee, I have to have that program to help get the new employee accustomed to my business.
Next are discounts. Savings and discounts can come in the form of exclusive access to vendors that they would not have access to otherwise or even know existed. (One of things that we are doing with the Information Marketing Association is creating an insurance program that covers our members in case they give advice that somebody decides they want to sue them over.) So, let's say you tell somebody to implement a particular business strategy and they implement that and don't get the results you promised. A lot times they could file a lawsuit against you. Well, this is what that insurance will cover. Like my personal E & O policy is over $6,000 a year for the premium. Well, this is going to be $400 a year, because it is a group program for the association. I know not all of the IMA members have that type of coverage, but for the ones who do already, that is a huge savings and more than justifies the price of being a member in the Information Marketing Association.
Personality is when people want to know what's going to happen next. Like how after the election, many people were wondering what did Rush say about the election? When Sarah Palin was nominated, what did Rush say about Sarah Palin? Everybody wants to know what they have to say about it. That is what you want to do within your business is have people say, "I wonder what he thinks about that?" So they kind of tune in to hear what you have to say about it. It is these three principles that help make good businesses great and help to establish more buyers, more members and more profit.