14 replies to this topic

[YOLF]

We've recently improved our membership numbers by asking for the sale during the new signup process. In order to continue to improve this system and sell more memberships, I suggest that we create an affiliate program to reward people for promoting membership offsite. This will increase traffic and membership revenue while requiring only a simple sign up with an affiliate service such as commission junction and a little bit of development. With commissioned sales people all over the web, we'll be selling LongeCity and its mission more efficiently and contributing to increase our traffic and revenue as well as filling the pockets of members looking to earn their way to a membership.

 

If you're a member, you can also see post 6 in this related topic.

 

Please also join the Business Development Group if you're interested.

 

Proposal Form:

• Proposal: LongeCity Affiliate Program Project
• Team Leaders: Caliban and Mind
• Leader workload: 10 hours or less
• Team Members: Caliban, Mind, YOLF
• Members workload: 1hr/wk
• Members only? - No
• Funding Required? - to be determined by board, a small fundraiser could be used to defray costs and keep our fundraising engine going.
• Funding Level: $0 maybe more if we commission an advertising graphics specialist to develop our graphics, but this could be done at a later time.
• Metrics for evaluating success or failure - success metrics will be measured by income generated by affiliate program as tracked on their site, more money/memberships =  more success
• Milestones / Interim Steps:

Choose an affiliate site with a good reach and lots of users

Signup

Develop aesthetically pleasing advertisements for formats used by affiliate site (optional, but worth it)

Promote affiliate program

Add affiliate link to bottom of site and also to navigation bar

Periodically update the description of LongeCity on the affiliate site to promote to different markets

Edited by YOLF, 06 March 2015 - 08:56 PM.

[Bottlerocket]

This sounds really, really good. I wouldn't mind developing some graphics so we have something to start with, and then they could be replaced by professional graphics later. And of course, I'd also like to take part in the actual affiliate program!

[Sanhar]

Being a networker I'd be nuts to not want to be involved.  I am typically conservative when it comes to "selling" things as I don't like to be seen as primarily interested in money - it destroys trust - but once someone is sufficiently interested and it "makes sense" I am more than willing to go for it.  As an added benefit they usually actually sign up at that point too.

[decide2evolve]

As someone with programming experience, it's not hard to put togeter affiliate systems, there are several, some might even be built into the site.

 

Something else I suggest is to have a monthly membership. Use 7.00, monthy. This might be a good option for some people who want to test the waters, or who have more fluidity in their incomes, even though they can opt out of the annual option. It also provides 84$ per year, rather than $50, for the organization. If you use 5.00 per month, and they stay the year, that is $60.

 

The biggest key to this is making sure they get something for their money. Is this site and the information on this site worth money to them? How engaging is it? Are there tools that they can use in their everyday life outside the group that are useful tools? Are there tools on the site that they can use off the site that they can use for their benefit, while simultaneously exposing the world to the group by using those tools? What about an internal podcasting system that members can use for global reach, sponsored by the group? What about an internal vidoe system that can be used as such? What about phone apps and sharing tools for social networks? All of thse things can be done.

 

If you are looking for serious growth, then those things can be explored. you'd be surprised (or maybe not!! given the nature of technology!) at how the cost for deploying these sorts of things has come down and with a little honest effort can be put in place.

 

Just some thoughts.

 

 

[YOLF]

As someone with programming experience, it's not hard to put togeter affiliate systems, there are several, some might even be built into the site.

 

Something else I suggest is to have a monthly membership. Use 7.00, monthy. This might be a good option for some people who want to test the waters, or who have more fluidity in their incomes, even though they can opt out of the annual option. It also provides 84$ per year, rather than $50, for the organization. If you use 5.00 per month, and they stay the year, that is $60.

 

The biggest key to this is making sure they get something for their money. Is this site and the information on this site worth money to them? How engaging is it? Are there tools that they can use in their everyday life outside the group that are useful tools? Are there tools on the site that they can use off the site that they can use for their benefit, while simultaneously exposing the world to the group by using those tools? What about an internal podcasting system that members can use for global reach, sponsored by the group? What about an internal vidoe system that can be used as such? What about phone apps and sharing tools for social networks? All of thse things can be done.

 

If you are looking for serious growth, then those things can be explored. you'd be surprised (or maybe not!! given the nature of technology!) at how the cost for deploying these sorts of things has come down and with a little honest effort can be put in place.

 

Just some thoughts.

I'd love to hear more. What are some options? Is this something you could volunteer on? How long do the applications last before requiring an update? If we had to pay for development, what would it cost?

 

I think they discontinued monthly memberships because they were costing too much to administer. I still think they could work, but we'd have to be clear that we're not going to make refunds or field contact emails on monthly memberships under any circumstances and that it is the user's responsibility to shut off their subscription via the payment gateway. A new usergroup for monthly members would have to be created and I think they should be $8/month as that's our number and would gross us $96/yr or net us $90. The $50 annual membership nets us $48.45. Assumption = Fees of 2.5% +$0.30 per transaction.

[Sanhar]

As someone with programming experience, it's not hard to put togeter affiliate systems, there are several, some might even be built into the site.

 

Something else I suggest is to have a monthly membership. Use 7.00, monthy. This might be a good option for some people who want to test the waters, or who have more fluidity in their incomes, even though they can opt out of the annual option. It also provides 84$ per year, rather than $50, for the organization. If you use 5.00 per month, and they stay the year, that is $60.

 

The biggest key to this is making sure they get something for their money. Is this site and the information on this site worth money to them? How engaging is it? Are there tools that they can use in their everyday life outside the group that are useful tools? Are there tools on the site that they can use off the site that they can use for their benefit, while simultaneously exposing the world to the group by using those tools? What about an internal podcasting system that members can use for global reach, sponsored by the group? What about an internal vidoe system that can be used as such? What about phone apps and sharing tools for social networks? All of thse things can be done.

 

If you are looking for serious growth, then those things can be explored. you'd be surprised (or maybe not!! given the nature of technology!) at how the cost for deploying these sorts of things has come down and with a little honest effort can be put in place.

 

Just some thoughts.

 

 

This is why people like me (and YOLF) are trying to create new and engaging content like videos and music.  I'm also planning a weekly brief vlog on news because I know very well that many people don't scan research reports like I myself do and want a short digest that they can just listen to along with visual cues.

 

Tools are interesting.  I'd like to have a discussion on tools we could offer.  That smartphone heart rate monitor by Dennis is a good example of that and I wonder what else is possible both in terms of downloadable apps and on-site tools.

In any case I for one AM looking for serious growth in membership and registrations.

[rapier]

I'm sure the progressive thinkers you're looking to attract will  quickly recognize the posting moderators mindset, that Medicine is the Best Medicine, shrouds the site from reality.  Good luck.

[Sanhar]

I'm sure the progressive thinkers you're looking to attract will  quickly recognize the posting moderators mindset, that Medicine is the Best Medicine, shrouds the site from reality.  Good luck.

 

I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you meant.  Could you clarify please?

[rapier]

I'm pretty sure that today's thinkers understand that today's medicine/vaccines and unlimited lifespans are mutually exclusive.

[Sanhar]

I'm pretty sure that today's thinkers understand that today's medicine/vaccines and unlimited lifespans are mutually exclusive.

 

Why?  Because rejuvenation tech will make hospitals obsolete?  I don't think it will go that far.  Medicine will need to change but I see that happening whether they like it or not - but yes, they won't, and they will put up trouble about it.

 

As to vaccines... um... until we have an in-body medical nanite system (which we won't for quite some time, I think) I don't see how vaccines won't be needed?

[decide2evolve]

Hi.. 

 

I have your questkions and i will get back to you with some response later today or tomorrow. I have a couple of writing deadlines to meeet. Best. Rob

[caliban]

I don't think we need programming help or external platforms on this one. 

 

LongeCity has had a thank you points-based referral programme for years. (see right hand sidebar) 

In principle we have the technical capacity to implement financial 'kickback' for referrals, but we are not currently using this, partly to ward against abuse.   

 

There may be a little bit of money in the budget if we wanted to run a 'banner' at other sites it would be nice to tie this into some current initiative or offer.   (previous example)

[YOLF]

I don't think we need programming help or external platforms on this one. 

 

LongeCity has had a thank you points-based referral programme for years. (see right hand sidebar) 

In principle we have the technical capacity to implement financial 'kickback' for referrals, but we are not currently using this, partly to ward against abuse.   

 

There may be a little bit of money in the budget if we wanted to run a 'banner' at other sites it would be nice to tie this into some current initiative or offer.   (previous example)

This is a good way to implement this quickly, but one thing this is missing, and that is attracting people who might not be one of us or who wouldn't have otherwise been able to recognize us. Using a site like commission junction has the added benefit that people will create content to earn money from our success. People make careers off capitalizing on affiliate programs. We want to apply their ambition to our goal and let them cross promote us to others. Services from commission junction are pretty free, they just make commissions off the initial sale, and then we keep them on a subscription. It also allows us to sell more memberships before people start to discover our site. There might be a risk that new members would try to hijack our mission, but we can prevent that with a policy change.

[ShadowWolf]

To be honest, I have not paid for membership yet because it was unclear what value I would gain by doing so. Perhaps making the incentives clear would persuade more people, like me.

 

Adding more incentives would also help. Perhaps access to all the biohacking devices most of us cannot afford at a Longecity sponsored biohacking lab/s. Heck biohacking labs could be the new gym. I am just spitballing.

Edited by ShadowWolf, 10 March 2015 - 11:11 AM.

[YOLF]

To be honest, I have not paid for membership yet because it was unclear what value I would gain by doing so. Perhaps making the incentives clear would persuade more people, like me.

 

Adding more incentives would also help. Perhaps access to all the biohacking devices most of us cannot afford at a Longecity sponsored biohacking lab/s. Heck biohacking labs could be the new gym. I am just spitballing.

Sounds interesting, I'd love to see this happen, but it should be it's own project proposal in the Project Ideas forum and include details and links to biohacking lab examples.