How I Activate / Sell to Non-Members
The membership software limits them, so they don't have access to anything. However, they also end up not added to any of my email lists, they are true non-members. For a while, I have been thinking about what to do with these addresses...
I decided to go ahead with a test of these addresses. I grabbed the 100 most current names and emails and sent them an email. The subject line had their name (as was used to register), and the message was essentially this:
'I noticed you are interested in my XYZ, and you had registered for an account. Thanks for your registration, to access and download all the ABC, you'll need to have a fully paid account. The URL to order and upgrade your account to paid status is here (insert link). Folks often miss the link, so click there, upgrade now, and I look forward to helping you out with DEF...'
It was a bit more than that, but you get the idea. As mentioned, I sent that to the most recent 100 names. I did this manually in my email client, one at a time. I normally wouldn't personally spend my time on that, but I wanted to run each element of the test. It took me about half an hour to send all of them.
From the 100 emails sent I ended up with 4 sales, of a product I sell at $90 (USD), so earning $320 (minus my time). Nothing earth shattering, but I'm pleased with that coming from folks I have simply written off in the past.
Overall, I think it was worth the time, and on my next round I am going to have my assistant send out the emails. I have about a thousand of these non-members, no idea if the conversion will continue on that larger sample (and I don't expect any response on the really old ones).
If you have lots of non-members who have registered to your site, based on my small test here, I think it would be worth your time to run such a test. And, if you do, I'd love to hear how it goes for you.