How to use paid and earned media to build your membership website
Most publishers continue to rely on paid media to generate traffic for their membership website. For good reason – paid media works. And it’s often easier to buy website traffic than to rely on earned media.
Basic paid media sources for building your membership website:
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) – Experience the quickest results and the advantage of letting the publisher control which landing page they enter on. Rapid conversion landing pages average three times higher conversion rates than the homepage.
Email Advertising – Other publishers’ email newsletters are a great source of new subscribers for your membership website, either flat fee or CPM.
Website Advertising – A direct click-through to the Rapid Conversion Landing Page of your choice, usually a flat rate for a specified length of time or number of impressions.
Direct Mail – These are often the most valuable new sign-ups in terms of annual spending per subscriber.
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You can’t buy earned media for your membership website. A lot of work must go in to succeed in earned media. There are several things you can do to ensure that your product gets the right media coverage and improved search engine rankings.
Basic earned media sources for building your membership website:
Website Organic Conversion Architecture – Include these four tools for converting visitors into subscribers: OFIN’s, OFIE’s, Floaters and Text Links.
Internal Print Media Merchandising – Put your URL on the cover or page footer of your print information products or offer print buyers additional free information at your Internet Hub.
External Public Relations – Create and distribute a press release for a free report or other information product that is made available at your Internet Hub via a Rapid Conversion Landing Page.
Social Media – Use for customer service, marketing, and lead generation. Balance marketing and editorial to build relationships and increase links.
Search Engine Optimization – Organic search traffic can account for up to 60% of website visitors. Optimize every page, image and video for the highest rankings.
Online publishers must have an effective plan to locate customers and give them reasons to sign-up and renew their membership. After studying dozens of membership websites, we have discovered successful publishers combine paid and earned media for the best results.
