Membership Site Owner's Bootcamp hits the sweet spot of relevance.

On November 11-12, 2006, Ryan Lee and Tim Kerber attracted a sellout audience of entrepreneurs to West Palm Beach, Fla., for their Membership Site Owner's Bootcamp. The bootcamp was designed to set up a dialog, sharing membership site success tips and techniques that could be implemented using any software.

Both Kerber and Lee have had extensive experience--and success--with online marketing and membership sites. Ryan currently hosts over 40 membership and "sales letter" sites focusing on different markets within the fitness and health category. His home site is www.ryanlee.com.

Tim divides his time between www.membershipsiteowner.com and providing user support for Bill Myers's Membergate program, www.membergate.com, one of the leading membership site content management and back-end/billing solutions.

Day 1 takeaways

The tone of the event was set in the opening presentation, which not only reviewed the purpose and owner-benefits of a membership site, but included simple, easy techniques--in this case, specific ways to research the competition and potential market interest in your topic. I especially liked the simple, but on-target, idea of looking for competition by entering "your topic+membership," or "your topic+subscription" into search engines.

The focus then turned to pragmatic issues, like identifying your software objectives and locating potential content contributors and editorial board members for your site. Pricing strategies and merchant account tips rounded out the afternoon.

The power of desktop video solutions

Throughout the weekend, the importance of desktop video solutions, such as Camtasia, available at www.TechSmith.com, emerged. Presenters and attendees alike related numerous stories describing the power of videos, both in promoting the website and in developing both content and back-end information products. Snagit, TechSmith's screen capture program, was also frequently recommended.

Day 2 takeaways

The economics of member acquisition and retention--particularly newsletter-based retention--occupied much of the second morning, along with consideration of the mix of editorial content and advertising.

Speakers emphasized the importance of not e-mailing members your entire newsletters, but, instead, the importance of simply e-mailing a teaser describing the newsletter, plus a link to where on your site visitors could download the full newsletter. The goal, of course, is to drive members to your website as frequently as possible.

Distributing newsletters as downloadable Adobe Acrobat PDF files was a popular option for newsletter content, topics and formatting.

Newsletter topics included ways to mine member forums as sources of future newsletter topics. Often, the instigation for a posting could come from the site owner--although there are numerous ways that site members can be encouraged to start the topic development process by asking questions and submitting comments on their concerns.

Worksheets included a simple formula for developing the "hook" needed to attract members and differentiate yourself from the competition. The "newsletters and community building" portion of the boot-camp suggested including a Best Forum Post of the Week and ongoing features like Best Tip of the Week and Best Tool of the Week.

The afternoon of the second day focused on developing additional back-end profit sources and increasing the website conversions from first-time visitors to membership subscribers. Price points, billing cycles, and incentive options were discussed, including ways to use integrity to make site membership a safe investment.

Paying big dividends is a simple statement of membership growth--i.e., the number of new members--or showing site popularity, as reflected in content recently added and the number of downloads.

Vertical versus horizontal growth

Toward the end of the event, Ryan Lee took attendees through each of his websites, describing each site's origins, missions, and role relative to his other sites. One of the main things to emerge from the final presentation was how--once created--site equity, like DVDs of previous presentations, can be used for years to come, attracting new site visitors, creating current revenue, and driving traffic to partner sites.

Ryan detailed the growth philosophy that guided him, which involved first creating secure monthly membership revenue with a handful of key vertical markets and then expanding horizontally to similar--or complementary--markets.

He then reviewed hardware and software resources, including the importance of a quality USB microphone. His "required reading" includes Patrick Hanlon's Primal Branding and W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne's Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant.

Guest presenters

Additional presenters during the tightly organized weekend included Larry Pike of www.artisticthreadworks.com and me.

Larry discussed the specific community-building techniques used to drive traffic to his sites that dominate the market for embroidery designs and equipment reviews. In one 30-day period he added 1,802 new paying members. He also described outreach efforts, such as local chapters open to both members and non-members.

In "Endless Content," I described my Content Catalyst, which is a system for creating content for articles, blogs, newsletters, teleseminars, webcasts, and website registration incentives.

Content Catalyst is a 276-page e-book containing over 400 topic ideas, www.designtosellonline.com/Contentcatalyst.cfm. It includes a system for writing based on a "never fail" formula for headlines and a system that takes the time and the stress out of writing.

Overall impressions

The quality of the audience contributed to the success of the event. In contrast to many internet marketing events, the Membership Site Owner's Bootcamp attracted a peer group of entrepreneurs, in contrast to similar events which often attract an audience of hopefuls and wannabees.

Equally important, those attending were not employees or managers of online business units owned by large corporations. Instead, they were business owners--often self-made owners heavily invested, and heavily investing, in their own success. A gathering of successful entrepreneurs can generate a lot of electricity and cross-pollination that can't be duplicated in a more diverse audience.

Like all entrepreneurs, the site owners probably work too many hours, and too many days, a week--but they are doing it because they are passionate about the niche audiences their sites appeal to. Their sites are not only sources of income, but also sources of discovery and inspiration that they share with their members.

DVDs of the Bootcamp, with additional bonus materials, will soon be available at www.membershipsitebootcamp.com. Highly recommended. You'll find innumerable detailed suggestions and website practices.

Roger C. Parker is a long-time NL/NL contributing editor and Design Competition judge. Visit www.designtosellonline.com and download two free chapters from his latest book, Design to Sell (Microsoft Press).