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Consider, for instance, your own membership website refund policy. Perhaps you state in some obscure region of your site that there are no refunds of subscription fees. But your customer assumes that you offer at least a 30-day, money-back guarantee.
She experiences buyer's remorse and wants a refund after only four weeks. Technically, you feel you are not required to return her money.
Do it anyway. It's less expensive than haggling with her, or worse, defending yourself to your credit card merchant account provider.
Do you really want an unhappy, former subscriber bad-mouthing you to other prospective subscribers? Of course not.
It's better not to hide your refund policy or be deceptive about any part of your offer.
It's best to offer a longer, even a lifetime satisfaction guarantee. Very few people will ever exercise
longer guarantee, but it will go a long way toward giving prospective subscribers confidence in your offer.
8. You shall test!
Test everything that you can measure!
Don't assume. Don't guess. Test, measure and know for certain.
This is fundamental to all direct response marketing campaigns. You must test lists, headlines, copywriting styles, offers, prices, even envelop colors.
Learn to love testing or, as previously suggested, marry someone who does!
9. You shall profit!
There are numerous reasons why you must charge a sufficiently high price for your products and services.
First, perceived value of your information is directly reflected in your prices. That means you're very likely to sign up more subscribers at a higher price than you will at a modest price. And those subscribers are more likely to be happier, more loyal and require less maintenance than those who join at a lower price point.
Equally important, you need to succeed financially in order to continue your subscription website enterprise. Financial success means paying bills and enjoying profits of your hard work and risk-taking.
Financial success is your right and your just reward. It is amoral for you to not to enjoy financial rewards of success. If you believe that you deserve to succeed and enjoy financial success, you will!
10. You shall adjust!
The online marketing business is in a constant state of flux. Learn to be flexible.
Expect to make adjustments to your business model after your set your objectives. Resist urge to dig in your heels and be foolishly stubborn about your initial assumptions, or about changes that loom on horizon.
Online publishers survive and succeed because they are nimble and quick to adjust to changes in market conditions. Try to be objective about your business plan, making necessary course corrections as you proceed.
11. You shall embrace humility!
The world is full of people who, upon achieving a certain level of success, begin to believe in their own infallibility. This kind of arrogance is not only unwise from a human and spiritual perspective, it's simply bad business.
As soon as you set yourself up as a know-it-all authority, you distance yourself from your customers. You lose touch with their concerns, questions, fears, etc. If you create a master/apprentice culture, people will begin to resent you and eventually look elsewhere for a different authoritative source of knowledge.
Because in final analysis, subscribers come to you for nurturing, support and comfort as much as they do for pure how-to information. Your members want to feel as though you are genuinely interested in their success.
If you're not genuinely interested in your members, it will come across in tone of your written as well as spoken voice. Your subscribers will sense it, and they will ultimately abandon you for another guide.
But if you're humble and loyal, and continue to deliver quality content, you can expect members to renew for several cycles. Some will even apologize to you for not renewing when they lose interest and move on to other pursuits and interests.
12. You shall give back.
Nobody achieves much in life without getting some help along way, or without having some "lucky" breaks created by others.
There are many people who will help you succeed, either through advice, by example, or with encouragement.
Make a point of paying it back. Contribute something back to your community (however you define "community"), either in form of financial support, or with gift of your time.
Giving back will keep you grounded, help keep you from outgrowing your hat, and provide you invaluable perspectives.
Peter A. Schaible is executive director of the Subscription Website Publishers Association ( http://www.SWEPA.com ).
SWEPA exists to support online publishing by providing education, training and industry recognition. Our goal is to help members build successful, profitable subscription websites.
Copyright 2004 Subscription Website Publishers Association. Permission to reprint is granted provided the references and hypertext links to SWEPA are included.
