I’m excited to announce that I’ll be publishing a book in Spring 2018! Entitled A Member Is Worth a Thousand Visitors: A Proven Method For Making More Money Online, it will show you how to take a strong audience and outstanding content and monetize them by creating digital memberships. These memberships will be so compelling that consumers or other businesses will be dying to pay to join.

We’ll start off by examining why it’s vital to identify your very best customers—your “whales”—and focus relentlessly on their wants and needs. From there, we’ll go step-by-step through the five forces that will turn your existing audience, brand, and content into a digital money-making machine.

My real goal in all of this is to demystify the digital world for you. In my work, I help people who “don’t know what they don’t know” about online technology focus on what they like doing and are the best at, while the experts worry about the inner workings.

The Five Forces

The book is anchored by a discussion of the five forces of online revenue growth. My team and I identified these forces over the past two and a half years through hands-on experiments with our clients, primary research and interviews, and a review of research projects done by academics. We’ve seen our approach drive 50-600% revenue growth.

Over the next five weeks, we’ll preview each of these forces and give you a taste of what the book can do to transform your business.

To sign up for a free copy of the first chapter when it’s available, click below:

Force 1: Focus on Your Whales

Focusing on the most engaged subset of your customer base is the key to unlocking explosive growth in the digital world. How can you identify your most enthusiastic members and tailor your content to their wants and needs? I’ll explain how doing so will open you up to both audience expansion and higher sales.

Force 2: Be Conversion-Oriented

Engagement metrics like page views and time on site are nice, but we care mostly about hard sales. We’ll explore the Number One driver of conversion (it might not be what you think) as well as strategies to nurture digital prospects through an effective marketing funnel.

Force 3: Upsell

You’re attracting and converting large numbers of whales into paying customers. At this point, many businesses want to move on to new customers. But you shouldn’t stop focusing on your whales yet. Why? It’s five to seven times easier to sell to an existing customer than to find a new one. I’ll show you how to easily create premium products you can upsell your members into.

Force 4: Measure and Experiment

Using data effectively can help you see patterns and identify and issues that might be standing in the way of your growth. I’ll talk about some exercises that can help you find the fires and put them out for good. Then we’ll look at how to identify your best opportunities. I’ll have you loving analytics by the end of this chapter.

Force 5: Create Bandwidth

By this point in the book, you might be thinking “Hey, Rob, this all sounds great, but we don’t have the time/people/resources!” Have no fear, I’ll walk you through three options to create more capacity to grow your business.

Let’s dive in, and transform your business.

How Sterling Woods Can Help

The Sterling Woods Group teaches clients our five forces to methodically make more money online. The goal: make sure you lock in double-digit growth year after year using the power of digital media. Many companies have experienced over 50% growth using our system. Beyond the financial benefits, clients tell us that – for the first time in years – they feel truly focused.

We offer workshops, coaching, and keynote speeches. Sterling Woods is also an agency that launches new digital initiatives, so clients don’t have to add overhead. Our agency business model is unique in that most of our fees are based on performance.

About the Author

Rob Ristagno, Founder and CEO of Sterling Woods, previously served as a senior executive at several digital media and e-commerce businesses, including as COO of America’s Test Kitchen. He started his career as a consultant at McKinsey. Ristagno holds degrees from the Harvard Business School and Dartmouth College and has taught at both Harvard and Boston College.

Rob is the author of A Member is Worth a Thousand Visitors: A Proven Method for Making More Money Online, set to be published in 2018. He regularly speaks at key media conferences, including at Niche Media events, Specialized Information Publishers Association meetings, and the Business Information and Media Summit.