Are Memberships a Good Front End Funnel?

Welcome to the Rich Life Reframe podcast. We've been given an amazing opportunity in entrepreneurship that's never been available in any other time period. We live in a reality where the number of lives we impact can be directly reflected by the dollars in our bank accounts. This podcast is all about living a truly rich life that goes beyond the amount of income that we make. It means living the good life and existing in a state of freedom, security and. Well, this podcast will be going through quick reframes that can help you get your mind right so you can truly live the life that you've always dreamed of. That being said, let's hop into this episode.

What is up everybody? Today I want to answer one of the frequently asked questions that I get. I mean frequently as then I get asked this all the time, like literally all the time. So I want to answer, would my membership work for a front end offer or should I create a membership for a front end offer? People think, you know, the logic behind it is my membership could be $27 a month, could be $47 a month. But there is a serious flaw in the way people are thinking of this in that people, when they think about the membership, they think about the commitment behind the membership. They think about the overwhelm of having something else that they're paying for on a monthly basis. They think about all of the different things that they're going to get within the membership that they're probably never even going to use. So when you think about leading to strangers or offering your front end offer as a membership to people who have no idea who you are, all of a sudden, even if it's only $47 a month, they're doing the math in their head. So they're like, oh man, that's like almost, you know, 500 and something dollars per year. It's really hard to talk and do math at the same time, by the way. You know, they're thinking like, oh, this is like a 500 plus investment. I don't know if I'm ready to make that kind of commitment. I don't even know you yet. It's kind of like meeting someone on the Internet that you're going to start dating, right? And instead of just going on a first date, they're like, ooh, maybe we should be in a long term relationship. Maybe we should, maybe we should get committed and like start, start committed. Like going crazy, not quite that committed. Maybe we should commit to dating regularly and making this first time date like an every single week date. And you know, Then we can turn it into weekends and we do all these different things together. People aren't there yet, right? Like their brains are not ready. They want to meet you, they want to get to know you, they want to, you know, really dive into your first digital product before they commit to a longer term relationship, AKA your membership. So the difference being memberships are awesome. It's a great way to bring in buyers or to continue nurturing buyers in a different container. I have a membership, it's called the Rich Life Lab and I absolutely love it. But I will also tell you the majority of the people that join, when I first opened the doors, I had 75 people join right out of the gate. They were all people that had been on my email list for a while and every single one of them have had purchased a tiny offer. However, when I've tested adding that funnel on the back end of my tiny offer, it doesn't convert as well because of that fear of commitment. Because people are like, I don't know you yet. I don't think I'm ready for this. So when you can shift into bringing people in with a one time commitment, with a small digital product, not a reoccurring membership, not a subscription that they're signing up for, you're overcoming objections immediately. When people see that membership option, they're like, oh, you know, I'm paying for Netflix, I'm paying for the Dollar Shave Club, I'm paying for Disney plus. Like, they're thinking all these things that they're already paying for monthly and they're like, oh man, I told myself I wasn't going to sign up for anything else that I might not use. So they're, they're out. They're already deciding against your product before they've even given it a chance. If you can bring them in with this tiny offer, with something that is a digital product. And when I say tiny offer, I mean a small digital product, something that's $50 or less and allows people to have that impulse purchase opportunity that brings people in. It's an easy button for their business. It gives them a quick win, it gives them a quick result that's going to build trust so much faster and bring people into your email list where they're waiting for the next offer. They're now paying attention, they've logged in, they're looking at your videos, they're watching your videos, they're getting used to hearing you talk and seeing your voice and they're going to remember you so much better than if you just sell them a freebie and then nurture them into or send them a freebie, not sell them a freebie. If you would just bring them in with like a free PDF or something, they're not going to pay the same amount of attention. So when you can get turn your email list into your buyers list and you bring people in and they are actively consuming your content, they're going to remember you and they're going to be ready therefore for the next thing that you have to offer them. So when you think about online businesses is oftentimes we have what we call value ladders. So there's the front end offer, what I've called the tiny offer. You know, it brings leads in all the time and brings buyers into your email list. From there you could bring them into a variety of different levels inside your business depending on what their, you know, how hot their pain point is and what they need from you Next. I, in my business, you know, we hit $2.2 million in revenue last year. So I'm gonna break it down. What we sell inside of the business, I have my membership that's called the Rich Life Lab, that's $197 a month, that is much more focused on the mindset. It's getting people ready to join the other programs. It's helping them believe that they can have any kind of business that they want to create. It's giving them, you know, the self efficacy of yes, I finish what I start and I can do hard things, I can launch things, I can have this business. It's really the foundational level of belief that people need to have before they can scale into the other program. So it's, you know, it's much less tactic focus and much more mindset and big picture. You know, that, that 10,000 foot view that you need to build anything in your business, that's the foundation that I lay in, the membership that I have. The next level up is my self paced version of Tiny Offer Lab. That's a $2,000 program and that's really focused on helping people see what it's like to build an offer, to build a front end offer and what, what it looks like to launch that with Facebook ads and get it out into the world. Tiny Offer accelerator is my $6,000 program and that is all about scaling that tiny offer into your higher ticket, whatever your higher ticket thing is, whether it's a course, group program, mastermind, we focus on how to nurture people from the tiny offer into your higher ticket thing and also expand your traffic so that you're not just relying on Facebook ads, you have, you know, YouTube ads running, Pinterest ads running. It helps you expand. So, you know, not all of your proverbial paid media eggs are, are in one basket. And then finally I have my impact Lab Mastermind. That's 18, 000 for six months of coaching and it includes very one on one hand holding support trainings directly with me, Voxer access a lot. You know, it's a very high touch program, but you can see how all of these layers play together. And that someone might buy my tiny offer and be put in this holding pool that is my email list and they might jump right into the membership as their next best fit or, you know, maybe they're, they're ready to solve their problem immediately and they jump right into the 18k mastermind. When you have a value ladder and you have a tiny offer that brings people in, it lets them self select what level of support they most need next and how they like to be supported. Some people like to have a membership. They like having that community aspect of it. They like, you know, the smaller monthly payment to get some support and you know, they can be in and out and check in when they need. Whereas some people really want to shorten their learning curve and they jump right into an 18k program because they see the value in getting an expert's eyes on their stuff and really shortening their time in learning and creating all of it at one time. So the point being, memberships are not a great front end funnel. There's too much commitment, there's too much nurturing that should happen before people are ready to decide that. Um, and, and the value of a membership shouldn't be the lowest, the lowest price in the market. Right. Like the, the value of the membership should come in the result that they get from that membership. When you try to throw everything at them for a very low price, it ends up overwhelming the buyer and it's not a good experience. And eventually they're going to drop off of your membership and not end up ascending into anything else that you have. So 100%. I would always start with the tiny offer funnel. Not freebies, not memberships. Go straight for that low ticket product. That's gonna save them time, it's gonna inspire them and it's gonna, you know, teach them something, but also help them see bigger so, or see something bigger for their businesses so that they're, they're really ready to continue growing with you and continue being inspired by you and continuing on their learning. Journey with you as well. So that's my tangent, my soapbox on why memberships are not not a great front end funnel for most businesses. You know, unless you're super established and you have a lot of brand awareness before, it's not a great place to build. If you have any questions, I'd love to know in the comments. I would love if you would leave me a comment and let me know, you know, if this is a new thought for you, if you've tried launching cold traffic to a membership, how it went for you. And we can totally nerd out on front end funnels and see what's really working in today because it's 2021 as of the time of this recording and and I know things are continuing to change and change in digital marketing faster than they ever have before. Okay, that's all I've got on front end funnels as memberships. Of course. If you ever have other questions that you want me to answer about digital marketing in general, whether it's value ladders, offer creation, paid media, social media marketing, anything in the world of digital marketing, I'm happy to answer your questions, create videos around them and I'd really love to know what's on your heart, what do you need support with? What questions do you have when it comes to this world of digital marketing? Because you know, as I said earlier in the video, it does change all the time. Like all the time. So I'm happy to keep you updated with what's working well for my business and for the students that I've been coaching. And I would love to hear from you through the comments. Please feel free to subscribe. And if you are watching on YouTube and also if you're listening to this in the podcast format, make sure that you subscribe there as well. And also follow me on Instagram. My username is Ali Bjork. And just a side note, we are still running our monthly giveaway where we give away one lucky reviewer. We'll give them access to my $2,000 value signature program, Tiny Offer Lab, where you can learn how to create a tiny offer for your business. And we base this off of the reviews that we are getting on the the Apple Podcasts app or you know, whatever you use to listen to your podcasts. If when you leave a review there and you send me a screenshot on Instagram that you've left this review, we also have a form that you can fill out to submit your review for our monthly giveaway that we'll link in the notes below. This episode so that you can get in on, you know, your chance to win access to the program and get coaching on creating your first digital product or, you know, many digital products later. Wherever you are in your journey, I would love to support you in that. So please feel free to, you know, check out that contest and see what it's all about. Awesome. Well, I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day and thank you for being here with me either on YouTube or in the podcast, and I will talk to you all soon. Thanks.