Can I do this with my free level?

Hi guys, please permit me to post several related questions in this one thread to save time waiting on responses to them individually.

1. For now, all I want is the free level for my membership. I’d like for visitors to be able to see snippets of my blogs and then be prompted to register when they click to read more. I also have a 5 lesson video e-course that I’d like to include with the free membership. Here’s my question.

I have been using Aweber for some time now to deliver this e-course one lesson at a time. I also e-mail new blogs to all subscribers to the list. I’ve been wondering what to do about the people in my aweber list who are somewhere in the middle of that course, vs. new people who will be joining as a member after I go live.

It seems to me that sense I already deliver the e-course that way, and I have integrated that aweber list with S2 member so new members are also subscribed to that list, it would make sense to just leave everything the way it is for new members? I.E, a visitor sees one of my blogs in Google and comes to the site to read it. when they click on it they are prompted to register for a free membership. On the Member Options page they see that they’ll also get a 5 day course. The course is delivered via aweber. Now the related questions.

1. I have 100 blogs already up. I did see that when you post new content S2 gives you the option to set the security level for it right there. My question is how do I get all of the old blogs set up to show a snippit? Do I have to just go through one by one and add the short code?

2. If I am going to go edit each blog one by one, I may as well set the restriction level for each one of them right then. If I do that, do I still need to do anything under “Post Restrictions”?

3. I don’t quite understand what to put on the welcome/ logged in page. The videos are each set up on a private page on the site, which I link to in the aweber e-mails when they go out. The blogs are just posted as any blog. Does all this stuff show up on the members welcome page automatically? If not, what do I put there so that they see content when they log in? I hope this makes since.

4. Is the welcome page updated dynamically according to the level of the person logged in? Aside from putting the short code for the profile update feature there, I’m not sure what to put on that page.

Thanks in advance,

Ron

Hi Ron. I’ll go ahead and answer the questions:

1. I have 100 blogs already up. I did see that when you post new content S2 gives you the option to set the security level for it right there. My question is how do I get all of the old blogs set up to show a snippit? Do I have to just go through one by one and add the short code?

If you use the more tag, then what’s before it will be shown in the list of posts as a snipet. Or maybe try something like the Auto More Tag plugin to save you from editing all the posts. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/auto-more-tag/

2. If I am going to go edit each blog one by one, I may as well set the restriction level for each one of them right then. If I do that, do I still need to do anything under “Post Restrictions”?

You can protect all posts entering [hilite mono]all[/hilite] in the Posts Restriction panel. [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› Restriction Options -› Post Access Restrictions[/hilite]

3. I don’t quite understand what to put on the welcome/ logged in page. The videos are each set up on a private page on the site, which I link to in the aweber e-mails when they go out. The blogs are just posted as any blog. Does all this stuff show up on the members welcome page automatically? If not, what do I put there so that they see content when they log in? I hope this makes since.

You can enter what you want there, it can be a “welcome back” with a list of updates for members. Or a reminder to add your email address to their contact list to get your email course. Anything you want to tell users.

4. Is the welcome page updated dynamically according to the level of the person logged in? Aside from putting the short code for the profile update feature there, I’m not sure what to put on that page.

No, it’s not updated automatically, all s2Member does is protect it at Level 0 (logged in) and redirect people there after login. The content is like any other page’s, you put whatever you want there.

I hope that helps!

Ok. So it sounds like the most sensible thing to do is continue using aweber to drip-feed the e-course. If I read correctly, once you integrate Aweber with S2 Member, new members who join are automatically subscribed to my list in aweber, correct?

I didn’t know about the “more” tag or the plugin, thanks for that! I don’t think it’ll be that bad since I only have 100 articles to go through. Since members at the free level will get most of their content via Aweber, I don’t see a reason to update their welcome page weekly, do you? Maybe I can just have the update profile link there and announcements, special offers and such.

A couple more questions and I think I’m getting close.

1. All of the course videos are hosted on Amazon S3, but I don’t plan on making them downloads. I just want to stream them from the site. I did put my S3 credentials in, but I didn’t set up any of the other stuff for downloads. Is it necessary? I was confused about what to do there as well. The training video said that my settings inside Amazon S3 should NOT be set to everyone. Is that true even if I’m not having them download?

2. Are all these settings independent from level to level? For example, can I designate that people who join at level two (which will be a paid level) be subscribed to a different list in Aweber?

3. How do I test everything? Thanks for all your help.

Ron

Sorry, I forgot to answer your AWeber question. Yes, that’s what I’d do, just keep using AWeber to drip those, then you won’t have to migrate previous users or have to set something else up for the new ones.

You can integrate AWeber with s2Member. [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / List Servers -› AWeber®[/hilite]

Here are a couple of articles that help with this in case you have trouble:
Knowledge Base » AWeber email parser for s2Member
Knowledge Base » Debugging the AWeber integration

To automate list migration based on the user’s s2Member Level, go here: [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / List Servers -› Automate Unsubscribes/Opt-Outs[/hilite]

I don’t know how previous subscribers in your AWeber list would be matched to users in your WordPress userbase. I’m guessing that based on the the emial address, but I’ll email Jason to confirm this.

To test I recommend to do real registrations, following the steps your user would instead of creating a user from the admin side.

To test the AWeber subscription, use a different email address each time, remember AWeber keeps track of the addresses and if you keep using the same one after unsubscribing and such, you won’t get the same experience. If you have a Gmail account, you can have multiple addresses off of it: yourname@gmail.com, yourname+test1@gmail.com, yourname+test2@gmail.com, etc. http://gmailblog.blogspot.mx/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to-get-more-from-your.html

For the paid upgrade, do a live transaction, not a sandbox one, even if for just 1 cent to test it. This way you’ll avoid all the extra trouble the sandbox gives, and you’ll have the actual experience a live transaction will give to your customer.

I’ll have to ask Jason about the S3 permission to everyone.

Hey Cristian,

I set up the aweber integtration last night. I’ll have to try testing it again though. I wasn’t clear from the instructions how to do it. I used the information from the instructions. It seemed to imply that I was supposed to copy and paste the sample e-mail in there.

As far as Aweber goes, you can set up rules to automatically unsubscribe someone from one list when a certain event happens. For example, if the capability is there in S2, I can set aweber up to automatically unsubscribe a free member from the current list when they subscribe to the level 1 list. All I need to know is whether or not I can set up the integration so members scribe to a different list at different levels.

Also, I don’t see the more tag. Where do I find it?

Also, I don’t see the more tag. Where do I find it?

http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/more-tag/

All I need to know is whether or not I can set up the integration so members scribe to a different list at different levels.

In the panel for the AWeber integration, you enter the AWeber lists assigned to the s2Member Levels. In the Automation panel for the List Servers API, you’ll configure it so that the user gets moved between lists in AWeber based on his Level changes in s2Member.

[hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / List Servers -› AWeber®[/hilite]
[hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› API / List Servers -› Automate Unsubscribes/Opt-Outs[/hilite]

Awesome! And the “more” tag? Where do I find that, or can you post it here?

This article should help: http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/more-tag/

I don’t know how previous subscribers in your AWeber list would be matched to users in your WordPress userbase. I’m guessing that based on the the emial address, but I’ll email Jason to confirm this.

Just got confirmation from Jason that an email address match between the WP user and the AWeber subscriber would be enough for the integration to work.

Hey Cristian,

Still trying to get the free level set up properly. Here’s what’s happening;

I have all my blog articles to post on a page on my site called “blog”; They’re not set to show on the front page.

1. When I set post restrictions to “All” my Blog Page gives a 404 error. What I’m trying to do is have that page show snippets of all the articles (I have installed the auto-more tag plugin) and then prompt the reader to join when they click to read the rest of the article. Instead, nothing comes up at all. I’m using the “all” command under post restrictions.

2. I also tried using category restrictions. I only have two that posts fall under. I entered both those categories under the category restrictions tab. Same thing, I get a “page not found” error when I click on the blog page.

3. I have links to blogs posted on my fan page also, so I tried clicking on one of those. I was sent straight to the membership options page from there.

But basically any way I add post restrictions causes my blog page to come up as “not found”. In wordpress I have my error page settings set to show random blogs on the page. Those blogs show only the title, none of the content. When I click on one of the titles I’m sent to the membership options page.

I’m assuming that just logging out of my wordpress site will allow me to test it as a new visitor would, correct? Tell me what I’m doing wrong here.
To summarize, I’d like my page to show normally to all un-registered visiters. When they click on the Blog page I’d like them to be able to see all the post titles and the first few lines of content. I have the more tags set up and in place.
When they click the more tag that’s when I want them to be sent to the membership options page. I can’t figure out the proper restrictions to make this happen.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by  Ron Cross.