A Few Questions Please

Hi, I’m just venturing into membership sites for first time having so far only done free email courses. Having spent last 3 or 4 hours looking around your site it appears s2member is ideal for what I need. Course content dripping, product downloads, etc. But I have a few questions….

1. I saw somewhere there is a capability to link to 3rd party autoresponders, I use trafficwave at the moment (aweber got to expensive) Is there an idiots guide to link to my trafficwave account?

2. Is it possible to have members subscribe to a specific email course and have only that web content available?

3. I like the idea that I can allow downloads for specific member levels, that was something I was planning, but I would also like to offer a buy it now for each product regardless of member level eg:

On sales page would be 2 options;
a) one off buy now
b)register/upgrade to receive 1 free product per month (different products per member level)

Is this possible? how?

4. I know I can set download limits for each membership, but can I specify limits for categories, so for example limit to 1 theme, 1 plugin, 1 course per month, or would it be easier to leave limits open and drip feed downloads. If either is possible how please.

Sorry for lots of questions at once, but its easier for me to catch replies and saves bugging you all to much, any help, advice and especially idiots guides would be helpful.

liza shaw (hoping she didnt miss all this while browsing)

Hi Liza,

Please see my replies below:

1. I saw somewhere there is a capability to link to 3rd party autoresponders, I use trafficwave at the moment (aweber got to expensive) Is there an idiots guide to link to my trafficwave account?

We currently integrate with AWeber and MailChimp. It is possible to link with 3rd part email services, but you’d need to handle the custom coding yourself or pay a programming to do this — there isn’t a simple step-by-step guide to doing such integrations since it would be different depending on the 3rd party.

2. Is it possible to have members subscribe to a specific email course and have only that web content available?

s2Member allows you to integrate with a specific email list for each s2Member level. To separate each course and its corresponding web content, we would recommend using an s2Member level for each course, along with a Custom Capability that associates the content with that course. Then, when you create pages/posts on your site you would tag that content with the corresponding course custom capability (e.g., “course1”) and only those members who have been given the “course1” custom capability would be able to access that web content.

You can learn more about Custom Capabilities here.

3. I like the idea that I can allow downloads for specific member levels, that was something I was planning, but I would also like to offer a buy it now for each product regardless of member level eg:

On sales page would be 2 options;
a) one off buy now
b)register/upgrade to receive 1 free product per month (different products per member level)

Is this possible? how?

Yes this is possible, however you’d need to create duplicate content pages: one for membership content and one for buy now content. Due to the way restrictions work, you cannot sell membership-only content as a Buy Now transaction. If you want to offer both, you’ll need a page that is restricted to a level (for members) and another page for selling as a buy now (one-time transaction).

4. I know I can set download limits for each membership, but can I specify limits for categories, so for example limit to 1 theme, 1 plugin, 1 course per month, or would it be easier to leave limits open and drip feed downloads. If either is possible how please.

You can restrict certain categories to specific s2Member Levels in Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Restriction Options -› Category Access Restrictions, however there is not currently any way to restrict categories for a specific amount of time (unless you simply offer an account with 1 month access… the account would expire and access to the category would be removed).

3. I like the idea that I can allow downloads for specific member levels, that was something I was planning, but I would also like to offer a buy it now for each product regardless of member level eg:

On sales page would be 2 options;
a) one off buy now
b)register/upgrade to receive 1 free product per month (different products per member level)

Liza, could you explain that a bit more? Thanks!

Oh WOW Raam, that was a very fast and extremely helpful reply thank you!

I’ve now installed the plugin and set up the register/login page, looks good blending into rest of site.

The email issue will have to wait for a bit sadly, but I’ll figure it out – even if have to get aweber again damn. (maybe consider trafficwave in future update? lots marketers using it now)

As for the buy now/with members, as you say will be double content – think using a cart plugin might be easier, not sure will have a play.

And the other issue will need to be dripfeeding, so they get new content free each month, or they can buy it.

So with drip feeding, can I hide a page from a member (in menu’s, etc) until they allowed to see it?

Cristian, what I meant was like a shopping cart for all members, with option to get item for free if they upgrade. Raam in his reply solved that one for me, I think.

liza

Hi Liza,

So with drip feeding, can I hide a page from a member (in menu’s, etc) until they allowed to see it?

The s2Member Content Dripping features allow you to drip the content itself over time (e.g., show the first half of a post right away, then the second half after they’ve been a member for 1 week). If you want to actually drip the pages/posts themselves into the menus of your theme, you’d need to customize your theme a bit so that it only displays those links after a certain amount of time. You can use the same dripping functions as you would inside a post/page, but you’d need to modify your theme menu files to drip from there instead.

Ok cool thankyou Raam, think I’m sorted now and the site is beginning to take shape.

Glad to help, Liza! :)