While there are many ways to make money on your website, few of them involve complete control over the product you are selling.
You can make great money through affiliate programs or advertising in the short term. But that money might disappear next month or next year.
As Danny Glover once told Mel Gibson, I'm going to tell you right now: I'm getting too old for that shit.
Since I am both a bit of a control freak and a constant worrier, my plan is to monetize websites by selling products that I have developed. These products include digital downloads and a subscription based membership site called Knowledge Land.
A few months ago I talked about the epiphany I had while using a platform called OptimizePress to develop landing pages.
I saved so many hours using OptimizePress that I made more progress in 1 week with the product than the previous 6 months combined.
Once my landing page and training pages took form, I started to ponder whether I could use OptimizePress for my entire site. Rather than a landing page platform, could this become my entire website theme?
If I chose to use OptimizePress as my website theme, how would it interact with the membership software that I had in place?
How do you integrate MemberMouse with OptimizePress?
Here are two ways that I have been able to integrate the products so far:
Landing page forms post directly into MemberMouse
The first task I had for integrating OptimizePress and MemberMouse was on a landing page I set up for downloading a free white paper. On this page I placed a hero shot of the guide, and a form asking for basic information on the right.
Creating this page was a breeze after using a stock landing page template available in OptimizePress. The original page had placeholders for email address and first name. I added a last name and password field for users to complete their account signup.
Note: I have stopped asking for a password on future download pages to improve response rates.
While it only takes a minute to have a great looking opt-in form, it can be tricky to connect with an email database or membership site.
Here are the steps I took to submit my OptimizePress form into MemberMouse.
1) Edit your opt-in box and look under integration type.
Many users will choose to email the results to themselves or integrate with their mail software via API. Membership sites will want to use a Custom form to integrate their products together.
2) Get your opt in form code from MemberMouse
In the MemberMouse menu you will see a link to Webforms.
Within the webforms section, you can select the fields that you would like to see in your Free Member webform. Then you can generate the HTML that you will place into OptimizePress.
3) Hook webform code into OptimizePress
Paste your form HTML into the designated field in the edit dialog. OptimizePresss will automatically read your fields and display them below.
Now you will specify how each field should be displayed, and how it maps to the HTML you generated.
Be careful when reviewing these fields, especially the name field. I was frustrated with the name field being incorrectly matched to the email address field.
The same process applies to any fields that you have added beyond name and email.
In the content tab you can change the privacy notice (I recommend doing this) and the default text for each field.
You can also change the text of the submit button if needed.
4) Test your webform
Since you are creating a form for a free membership, you should test that everything works by signing up for a membership. This will save users from frustration in the future!
It took me several tries to get the integration to work at first, with the name and email fields causing the most trouble.
5) Build a relationship
Once you have an awesome landing page in place, it's on you to create a great relationship with your new members.
I recommend starting with an auto-responder sequence. You can use the built in MemberMouse functionality or a service like Aweber for more options. My site has an 8-hit sequence for new members, delivered through Aweber.
Using MemberMouse decision tags to display members only content on OptimizePress pages
Displaying members-only content is the second area of integration between MemberMouse and OptimizePress.
The guiding principle of a membership website is that you value your members. They receive exclusive access to your finest work, and should have no trouble finding content.
Unfortunately, the way MemberMouse limits the viewing of content creates a terrible user experience.
It is easy to choose which member types can access content within WordPress. Choose who can be members and they will see the content.
As long as they are logged in of course.
When they are not logged in? They see the following message:
Not very inviting, is it?
Not only is this content uninviting, it also makes back navigation almost impossible. The unauthorized access page redirects to a generic error handling page (mm-error). This causes visitors to lose their navigation path and likely leave the site.
Who would stick around after seeing that message?
Cleaning up member access control using SmartTags
I was able to solve this problem by using the MM_Member_Decision tag to show/hide content on my pages based on members status.
How does this work exactly? Easy!
Let's start with the buy now buttons for my Google Analytics courses.
While the button sure is pretty, we should only be showing this to people who have not already purchased, right?
Using a simple decision tag, we can have this only show up for the right members of our website.
This is accomplished by wrapping the button in a set of MemberMouse tags that determine the access level of the visitor.
The first statement is [MM_Member_Decision membershipId='!3&!4′ hasBundle='!3&!10′]. This says show the box if they are not membership levels 3 or 4 and if they don't have a bundle 3 or 10. If they don't have those membership levels, they are not yet a paid member and thus should see the button.
You can wrap entire sections of your page in decision tags to show/hide content for members. You do this by going to advanced element options and adding code before/after your tags.
Once you get the hang of the logic, you can really start to make your site a dynamic treat for members and non-members alike. The best part is that you don't have to maintain two separate pages for your content anymore! It's all there in one place.
Soon you will find that your entire tag is dynamic (and awesome)!
Test your logic in MemberMouse by emulating the membership level access in MM Preview Settings.
What other integrations are there between OptimizePress and MemberMouse?
We have gone in depth on two integration points between software, but what about others? Here are a few more areas where you can integrate OptimizePress and MemberMouse:
- Using membership status to determine which popup should show up in Overlay Optimizer
- Buy now links on OptimizePress Buttons
- Move your entire cart/checkout process into a beautiful OptimizePress template (I did this and lived to tell about it)
- Personalization of landing pages/membership pages
- Dynamic membership pricing tables
- Timing of launch sequences
Let me know if you have any other integrations you have implemented/want to see written about in depth in the comments!
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