Getting Started with iGrOOps

The Affiliate Program Module 

Affiliate Marketing is one of the hottest trends to reach the Internet.  It is a way for your members (or affiliates) to recommend your online group to other people and get compensated for it.  It is a revolutionary way of marketing that has made the Internet what it is today.  With iGrOOps, you can be a part of this success.

Affiliate Marketing is just one of the many ways to build your online group membership.  Activating this program in your group can have a significant impact on membership growth.

How the Affiliate Program Works

This is a program for YOUR iGrOOp that allows your members to refer other members to your group using a unique URL assigned to them, and get paid as a result.  You set the affiliate commissions, the payment cycle, and the terms and conditions.  You, as the site admin, also pay the affiliates.  iGrOOps takes care of the tracking and the reporting.

Features

• seamless integration within iGrOOps
• user and admin areas
• custom terms and conditions
• define one time commission on yearly full access memberships
• define one time commission on yearly limited access memberships
• define recurring commission on yearly full access memberships
• define recurring commission on yearly limited access memberships
• define one time commission on monthly full access memberships
• define one time commission on monthly limited access memberships
• define recurring commission on monthly full access memberships
• define recurring commission on monthly limited access memberships
• define pay cycle (every month, quarter, when in the month, etc)
• define who on your team has admin access to this feature
• affiliates can have custom HTML on their landing page
• landing pages are really your group's homepage -- affiliates do not have to create any pages to get started
• affiliate e-mail notifications
• creates PayPal masspay files for fast and simple affiliate payments

Benefits - More Paid Members which equals more revenue!

The Smart Autoresponder Module

How many times have you signed up for a newsletter, or membership site, and began receiving regular, quality information?  Did you ever think, "How can someone keep coming up with this stuff on a regular basis?"  The chances are, there was not someone creating and sending out the messages on a daily basis. The messages were probably created a while ago, and just sent to you on a schedule based on your membership date or the day of the year.  These are what we call, "Smart Autoresponders".

Smart, or scheduled autoresponders are perhaps a marketer's favorite tool.  It is way to ensure that each member gets all the information the marketer wants to give them, on the schedule the marketer wants to give it to the member.  Best of all, it is all automated!

Features and Benefits

• Create and send unlimited autoresponders for one monthly fee
• Send messages in plain text or HTML
• Use the online editor to compose your HTML messages -- without needing to know HTML
• Enter a custom "from" address for each responder
• Choose to include full access members, limited access members, and/or newsletter subscribers in each message
• Use the optional "offset days" feature to hold off sending automated messages to members/subscribers until they have been registered for a set number of days
• Newsletter subscribers can opt out of messages at any time.
• Full or Limited access members can opt out of mailings without cancelling membership 
• "Important message" option will send your message to members even if they opted out of non urgent messages
• A complete delivery report can be sent on a per autoresponder basis
• Set up autoresponders to be sent based on the number of days subscribed, number of weeks, number of months, a given calendar date, and even on a member's birthday
• Choose what time of day you want your autoresponders to be sent out
• Advanced sorting options for easy autoresponder management

Some Examples of The Smart Autoresponders

Think of the smart autoresponders as an extension of your communication system.  You can use these ONLY to send messages to your full or limited group members, and/or your newsletter subscribers.  They cannot be used to send to any other lists.  There are many circumstances where these would be very useful.  Here are some examples:

Example #1: You want to send regular mailings to your newsletter subscribers.  You do not want to have to keep writing messages every few days, and you want to make sure that each subscriber get all your message -- you may even want them to get the messages in order.  This is where smart autoresponders come in.  You create and upload your autoresponders in advance, associate each responder with a membership day.  So for example,  Bill who signed up today (day 1) will get the responder associated with day 1.  Phil, who signed up last week, is on day 7 and will get day 7's message -- even though Bill got day 1's message.  And you can sit back and let automation sell for you!

When messages are being sent to your newsletter subscribers, the custom and standard footers are appended to the messages being sent.  This will always give the subscribers the opportunity to unsubscribe and give you the opportunity to up sell with your custom footer!

Example #2: You want to send regular mailings to your members.  Let's say you run a group where you want your members to receive the same messages all at the same time, no matter when they joined.  You can use the communication system and manually send your members a new message each day, or you can use the smart autoresponders and create all 365 messages in advance, and schedule them to go out one day at a time throughout the year, while you site back and focus on other parts of your business!

The possibilities are endless.  Smart autoresponders keep your name and website in the eyes and minds of your subscribers/members.

The E-commerce Module

Holy Shnikies!  It is finally here.. the long awaited e-commerce module!  We have incorporated about 95% of all the features you've asked for, plus added more.  We have created what we believe to be the ideal membership site e-commerce solution that is full integrated with iGrOOps, and works wonderfully with the affiliate and autoresponder modules.

Features & Benefits List

• special pricing for products sold for limited and/or full members
• accept offline payment / checks
• integrated with PayPal / PayPal Subscriptions
• integrated with AuthorizeNet / AuthNet ARB (automatic recurring billing)
• sell products with one time price or recurring price
• assign admin access to groups or individual members
• unlimited number of products / services
• easy to use shipping schedules that do not require weight/size calculations
• option to charge tax or not per product
• custom thank you message per product sold - ideal for redirecting customers or selling electronic products with immediate downloads
• integrated with the iGrOOps reviews application
• full inventory control
• product pages SEO friendly
• add options to products that add to or subtract from the price
• optional sale price
• affiliate commission per product - two tier
• recurring charge option with optional customer set trail period ideal for forced continuity
• the ability for members to be "assigned" to products, ideal for selling products on consignment and giving your members a portion of the sale
• shipping schedules that can be setup to specifically charge customers shipping to a specific state a different price
• tax schedules that allow for multiple taxes, either country or state based
• use iGrOOps custom web pages, homepage editors and autoresponders to instantly insert products into pages or emails using product teasers or full products
• simple navigation to maximize the number of completed orders
• easy reorder / returning customer system
• integration with autoresponder module
• integration with affiliate module
• uses the secure domain https://www.safeonlinepayments.com for secure ordering -- a generic URL with no easy traceback to iGrOOps
• quick e-commerce system - single page product system fully integrated with sales letters
• option to use group headers or not use group headers, to maximize people staying in the order system

Examples

There are many ways you can incorporate the e-commerce system into your iGrOOp.  Here are some ideas with some examples:

1. Product Teasers.  You can place product teasers in the right and left columns in your group, on the homepage, in any custom member or admin webpage, and even in HTML autoresponder messages.  This is done with 2 clicks -- first click the new shopping cart icon that appears on the HTML editors for these areas then click the product and format you want to include in your HTML. 
2. Sales Letters.  Using the custom admin webpages, you can create sales letters used for online marketing campaigns that incorporate audio/video and the selling of a single product.  Our e-commerce system was designed for selling a single product or service at a time to maximize the conversion of prospects to customers by making the process as simple as possible. 
3. Individual Product Pages / Direct Links.  Upon creation of a product, an individual sales page is already created you for the product... on that you can use with or without headers.  This is the most simple and basic way to start selling right away. 
4. Searchable Product List.  A searchable product list is automatically created for your for all of your products.  Although this is not a "shopping cart" type solution, members can browse through all available products and choose purchase the ones they want one at time.
   
   

(Updated January 16, 2013)