Webinar Wednesday 179 – May 22, 2024

Free iPad Giveaway 00:01:45

• Brilliant Directories is running an iPad giveaway in the Facebook group.
• To enter, comment on the giveaway post with your desired iPad color.
• If 1,000 comments are received, two winners will be selected for two iPads each.
• The giveaway ends on May 31st, and the winner will be announced on the same day.
• Viewers are encouraged to invite friends, colleagues, and family members to join the Facebook group and comment on the giveaway post.

ADMIN: See Members who “Joined Today” in Member Snapshot 00:03:52

• Members Snapshot now shows a "joined today" statistic.
• You can still search by join date in the search members page.

EMAILS: New Email Newsletter Features to schedule, send & segment 00:04:28

• New features to schedule, send, and segment recipients of newsletters.
• Many users have canceled their third-party emailing systems in favor of the native email newsletter functionality.

HOMEPAGE: Display star ratings with recent & featured members 00:05:18

• Can add star ratings to recent and featured members on the homepage.
• Can require members to have reviews to be featured.
• Can limit featured members to certain membership plans.
• Can choose to display the location of featured members.
• Can choose to display a "View Profile" button for featured members.

LEADS: Multitude of updates resolved with automatic lead matching 00:09:25

• Automatic lead matching based on category and location is now more accurate and precise.
• Follows more of the settings that have been set for automatic lead matching.

DIGITAL PRODUCTS: Custom donations and recurring subscriptions (this week) 00:09:52

• Custom donation amounts and recurring subscriptions for digital products will be released this week or Friday at the latest.
• Members can subscribe to other products and services offered by the site in addition to their primary subscription.
• Example: Ongoing SEO services, marketing, or coaching services.

TAGS: In Admin, Create Custom Tags to Pin Members (soon) 00:10:42

• Custom tags can be created in the admin to segment members and lists.
• Use cases include segmenting members and lists for targeted communication and content delivery.

EMAILS: Email Outbox to see emails sent out from your website (soon) 00:11:05

• An email outbox will be available to view all system emails sent from the site.
• Includes lead matching emails, review emails, and a count of all emails sent.

BUSINESS DATA: Access millions of business records to populate your directory in just a few clicks (soon) 00:11:32

• New add-on to search and import business records to the site by category and location.
• Every BD site will receive 50 free business listings to import.
• Strategic and competitive pricing for additional business data.
• Useful for pre-populating a site with data to appear seasoned and established.

POST COMMENTS: Email notifications for new comments/replies (soon) 00:12:30

• Users can follow comments and receive email notifications when a post receives a comment or one of their comments receives a reply.
• To use this feature, users need to register at least for a general user account or as a free member on the site.
• This update aims to provide convenience to users and also helps the website register new members based on post-commenting activity.
• Expected release date: This month (May 2023).

Deleting Spam Comments / Report Post Comments 00:14:24

• Currently, there's no specific "report a comment" feature to notify the admin about spam comments.
• Spam keyword list can be used to block comments containing certain words.
• Adding a "report this page" icon in the sidebar can be an alternative way for users to report inappropriate comments.
• Admins don't receive emails when someone comments on a post, but they can moderate comments before they go public.
• Future update: admins will receive a notification when a comment needs moderation.

Blocking Spam Comments 00:16:35

• Using the "report this page" icon can help block spam comments.
• Spam blocked keywords can be added to prevent comments containing those words from being submitted.

Email Outbox API Settings 00:17:12

• Dan asks about the email outbox API settings and if it includes emails with the S grid API key.
• The response is that it should include the outbox, but reporting may be limited depending on the S grid API settings and it would need to be checked on a case-by-case basis.

Favorites / Show Likes Count 00:17:36

• Dave suggests adding the option to show the number of likes or favorites on member profiles instead of star ratings.
• The suggestion is noted and Colette's suggestion to report a post comment is also added.

Add-On Update: Sell Digital Products & Services – Subscriptions, Donations & More 00:18:21

• The new and improved "Sell Digital Products and Services" add-on is introduced.
• The add-on allows website admins to sell non-physical goods and services to members and website visitors.
• New features have been added, including recurring payments and the ability to accept donations.
• An overview of the add-on's features and uses will be provided, along with details on the new updates.

Sell More Products & Services 00:19:27

• Allows selling additional products and services to members and website visitors.
• Not a full-on e-commerce solution.
• Can list and accept payments for physical goods, but lacks features for fulfillment, shipping address collection, etc.
• Useful for digital products and non-tangible services.
• Offer both free and paid products and services.
• Automatically send emails to buyers after purchase.
• Set up success or thank-you pages after purchase.
• Boosts member numbers as buyers need an account to make purchases.
• Collects email addresses and names for future marketing.
• Added additional payment types:
• Recurring payments (monthly, quarterly, annually) for digital products or services.
• Donations:
• Ability to accept donations, a highly requested feature.
• User-defined purchase prices:
• Users can type in the donation amount.
• Applicable for non-profit organizations and website visitors.
• Option for recurring donations.
• Support for member credits:
• If the member credits add-on is enabled, members can purchase credits using a digital product.
• Purchased credits can be used for additional purchases or payments on the website.
• Option to allow or restrict the use of member credits for purchasing digital products or services.

Create Buy Pages for Almost Anything… 00:23:12

• Create buy pages for various digital products and services.
• Examples of digital products:
• Ebooks, white papers, guides.
• Examples of website services:
• Profile optimization service.
• Visibility boosts on a monthly/recurring basis.
• Marketing use cases:
• Ad placements on your website.
• Including businesses or sponsors in newsletters, press releases.
• Events:
• Sell access to events by publishing the digital product.
• Collect registrants for an event.
• Track which members purchased it (RSVP feature).
• Professional Consulting:
• Sell professional consulting services.
• Export buyers list for each digital product.

Support for Member Credits 00:26:09

• Support for Member Credits add-on.
• Add credits to a member's account after purchasing a digital product.
• Allow the use of credits for purchasing digital products.
• Members can't use existing credits to purchase a digital product to prevent an infinite loop of stacking up credits.
• Sell credits at a discounted price to incentivize members.

Let’s See the Add-On In Action! 00:27:11

• Buyers can register or log in to purchase digital products, which can be downloaded immediately if free or purchased using credit cards and promo codes if paid.
• Recurring products offer monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual subscription options.
• Website owners are notified of purchases and can take further action, while buyers can view their purchase history and manage subscriptions in their dashboard.
• Website owners can offer digital products as additional subscriptions or one-time purchases, separate from the primary membership plan.
• Custom donations can be set up with various payment cycles, and website owners can control the call-to-action text for each digital product.
• The Member Credits add-on allows website owners to offer credits to members after their initial purchase, which can be used for other purchases on the site.
• Website owners can view their sales history for digital products, including buyer names and purchased products, and can export lists of buyers for specific products or search for buyers of a specific product in the transaction history.

Product: Home Page Top Banner / Instructions on how to upload Banner Image 00:39:57

• Create a new web page called "Confirm Homepage Banner Page".
• Decorate the page with a congratulatory message and instructions.
• Add a form to the page using "form equals form name".
• In the form, ask for additional information such as the month they're interested in.
• Use "file uploads for forms" to allow users to upload the banner image.
• Send a confirmation email after purchase reiterating the instructions and dimensions for the banner.
• Update the product description to indicate available months for purchase.

Recurring Payment Type 00:42:56

• Recurring payments do not stop after a certain number of months unless the user cancels.
• To offer options for different durations (e.g., one month, two months, three months), create separate products for each duration.
• Pre-purchasing multiple months with a small discount can be offered as a one-time payment instead of monthly payments.

Creating a form: Paid vs Non-paid Member 00:44:15

• For paid memberships, the city and state fields in the registration form are the same as the credit card information.
• The billing address in the system is separate from the member's address.
• To test if the billing information is saved as the user's location, create a $1 membership plan and enter the billing information.
• If the billing information is not the location information entered for the member, there may be a workaround.

Dedicated Section for Services / Products 00:46:49

• Create a dedicated section or menu section on your website for services or products.
• Link to the digital products section from the dedicated section.
• Rename the "digital products" section to something more relevant to your business, such as "services for chiropractors".
• This will help you showcase not only digital products but also membership plans and lead services.

Different Membership Interfaces 00:48:27

• Members can purchase additional services like social posting or spotlights.
• There are three ways to engage users inside their member dashboards to encourage upgrades:
• Displaying calls to action for additional services prominently when members log in.
• Highlighting the benefits of each plan when members are upgrading.
• Bypassing the upgrade page and directly sending members to the upgrade page if there's only one other plan available.
• You can create a dedicated landing page on your site that explains upgrading outside of a member's dashboard.
• You can then link directly to the upgrade page after promoting the upgrade on an alternate landing page or static page.

Dynamic Category Filtering 00:53:32

• The user is creating a website where people can register to sell their boats, displaying only the boat name and not the seller's name.
• It is recommended to use member categories and subcategories to organize boat details, allowing for dynamic category filtering so users can search for boats based on specific criteria.
• The multi-member manager add-on enables boat dealers to list multiple boats under one parent account, while the Custom Donations & Additional Subscriptions add-on lets users create different classifications for their listings.
• The "Basic Information" tab in user profiles can be customized to include relevant information such as "boat make" and "model" instead of first and last names.
• The "Member Category" template facilitates the import of categories and subcategories in bulk using an Excel sheet, including the option to set up checkboxes for sub-subcategories by marking "yes" or "no" in the sheet.
• A video on the add-on page provides instructions on setting up checkboxes and explains how the feature works.

Utilizing Members Only Feature 01:02:36

• Creators can offer different digital products to free and paid members by cloning the post type and protecting it with the Members Only Content add-on.
• The cloned post types should be renamed to clearly indicate which products are for free members and which are for paid members.
• The Members Only Content add-on should be installed and activated to protect the post types.
• Membership plans can be assigned access to digital products by editing the membership plan and selecting the appropriate post type under "Visibility of Post Type Post Publishing."
• The Custom Donations & Additional Subscriptions feature allows creators to sell digital products and offer exclusive content to their top-tier members.
• Digital products can be created by going to the "Products" page and clicking on "Add New."
• A title, description, and price can be added for each product.
• Categories can be assigned to products to help with search functionality.
• To make a product available only to top-tier members, go to the "Visibility" section and select "Members Only."
• Permissions for who can publish or create digital product posts can be assigned by going to "Admin Blog Author" or "Content Contributor" and selecting the appropriate permissions.

Separate Stripe Accounts for Payment and Donations 01:10:48

• Stripe has embed options that allow users to bypass the digital product and have a landing page for donations.
• The donation will still go through the same Stripe account as the site.
• An alternative is to use a service like GiveButter that routes donations directly to another account.

Options on Where to Use Credits 01:12:16

• Users will have the option to specify where credits can be used in the advanced settings for digital products.
• Credits can be used for digital product purchases, membership plan payments, pay-per-post, or leads.
• Credits cannot be used for membership plan payments by default, but this can be changed in the settings.
• Credits can be used for leads, paper posts, and digital products as additional perks on the site.

Auto fill-in Spotlight / Featured Members on Newsletters 01:14:39

• Automatically fill in spotlight members on newsletters by pulling information directly from their member ID.
• This feature is currently in development and will be released in the future.

Smartlist for Birthdays 01:15:42

• Create a smart list based on member birthdays, allowing for easy identification and targeting of members with upcoming birthdays.
• This feature will be made possible through the upcoming member tagging feature, which will allow members to be tagged based on conditional fields they fill out.
• The new digital product services add-on is expected to be released by midday the following day, with a potential delay to the end of the day if any issues arise.
• The next webinar will be held in two weeks and will showcase several new updates and releases.
• A free iPad giveaway contest is ongoing in the Facebook group, with the winner to be announced on May 31st.
• A replay of the webinar will be posted in the Facebook group shortly.
• Subscribe to the Brilliant Directories YouTube channel for future updates and webinars.