http://www.simpleology.com is a huge and fast-growing membership site (run by Mark Joyner, who is pretty good at this marketing stuff...) run with Amember. But the *signup* process is *not* pure Amember: it's been customised, integrated with other scripts, to make it far more user-friendly. I just did a test sign-up (recommended!) and here's what happened: 1. Home page: enter first and last name and email address 2. Confirmation email (and a thanks page that explains all about confirmation emails.) 3. When I click the confirmation email link, I'm taken to a page that contains: Amember login link A username generated for me in the format firstname_lastname A password generated for me. So the program that accepted and confirmed my email address has integrated with Amember to create this account for me. I never had to fill out signup.php - I've got a personal username without having to think it up (and test it for uniqueness) myself - and now I'm a double opt-in subscriber. That's the first piece of neat mystery integration. It's made life simpler for the visitor (which means more signups) and safer for the site owner (because he has a double opt-in confirmation before I'm added to the Amember database). The second piece of neat mystery integration comes when I log in to Amember. The first page I see is a One Time Offer (OTO) - that is, if I upgrade to paid membership *now* I can get these bonuses; if not, I'll never see this page again. Clicking the 'yes' buttons submits a form to amember/member.php with the product_id hidden. Clicking 'no' submits to some other script (!) and takes you to a second OTO page offering a $1 trial. This time, accepting takes you to amember/member.php to sign up for a separate product (it's the same access with a different payment structure), and declining takes you to amember/login.php Now... can anyone see how either of these neat things is done? Especially the first part, as Amember's native signup process isn't nearly that friendly.
I see turnkey asked about how to run a OTO, too. Maybe the nice people at Simpleology would just tell me if I ask them...
You would be surprized, but signup process is pure aMember - enable "generate password", "generate username" at aMember CP -> Setup - use signup link as http://www.yoursite.com/amember/signup.php?hide_paysys=free - enable email confirmation at aMember cp ->Setup -> Email OTO is a custom script, it is not hard to implement, but PHP knowledge required, and it is always too custom to implement it in aMember core.
Yes, I am surprised! That's actually not how they are doing it, though - if you look at the urls, you can see other scripts are involved (/cgi-bin/tpro/sendit2.cgi for instance). One advantage of this is that they can give you the option to sign up for a second autoresponder. Or does Amember +Arplus do that, too?? I actually tried emailing Simpleology's support desk to fish a bit, see if they would let anything on, saying I would quite understand if not. They said they were glad I quite understood. OTOs are extremely popular among internet marketers since Mike Filsaime's 'Butterfly Marketing' launch. His product includes a script, but a lot of people are looking for something less expensive. As far as I can see (having joined lots of 'butterfly'-powered sites but not actually bought the script) Amember wipes the floor with it - but it has two features Amember lacks: - turn every customer automatically into an affiliate - land at OTO page before arriving in members' area Personally I don't really want either (though I would love a limited time offer script - something that would be available for a week from whenever the visitor first sees it, for instance) but I bet a lot of people do. So if you could find a way to make it a plugin, you might be even more popular than you already are! (You know, on reflection, I bet Simpleology's signup process - any part of it that they couldn't have done with just Amember, of course - could be emulated with one of those sophisticated form processing scripts that will POST data to other scripts. There is a perl-based one at http://soupermail.sourceforge.net/ . It's a monster, but I remember I got it to work once.)
OTO script Morning, I found http://products.djt-engineer.co.uk/free-one-time-offer-script/ - that might be useful. Enjoy, Barbt
I know how to do this!! Hi all, Jorge here... I'm a suscriber and customer of Simpleology and actually that was the site that "inspired" me to use amember. I also noticed the customized way to suscribed and the OTO Mark use. Here is how I managed to do the same: Ok. First the customization form. - Let amember create the username and password. You can also put the address as optional. - Now, check your regular signup form and watch the source code - Copy this code to the page you want to use it - In the 'Form' tag change the 'action' address to a full url address - Now, if the signup form send the data to /amember/signup.php you need to change this as http://www.yoursite.com/amember/signup.php - Now simply hide all the form boxes that are optional and you don't want to use. You can do this by 'input' boxes type to 'hidden' I like to use first name, lastname, email and country. There you go. You can see an example in my site www.US-bank-non-residents.com NOW.... The OTO - You can use any hover ad creator to do this. I use XsitePro and I love it. - The idea is to program a "one time" ad that announce ** don't close this window yet ** and then describe the OTO. You can add a link to a more detailed sales page or to an order form. Again, you can see an example in my site www.US-bank-non-residents.com This little tricks can help your site to do, practically the same stuff that the great Joyner does on Simpleology. Regards, Jorge
hi Jorge! thanks for your excellent solution. however an OTO in a popup/hoover ad will not get the same conversion (sell-thru) as an OTO on a long salespage, where they must scroll all the waaaaayy down past the the long copy, and then are presented with 2 text links or buttons: [Yes! Sign me up! I want the $97 xyz plus the $10,000 in worthless bonuses] [No thank you. I'll pass. I understand that once I leave this page, it will be gone forever] Any real OTO system (such as Mike Filsaime's Butterfly Mktg, referenced above) will read/write to a mysql db to determine whether the customer previously saw the OTO. If you hit your browser's Refresh button, or if you leave the page and come back using your Back button, the OTO will not be there. Back to my main point... the OTO should be presented on an actual webpage, preferably using long copy. trish : - )