WishList Products | Powerful Web Solutions For Today's Small Business Owner

WishList Member Critical Update re: PayPal

WPWL Team — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:48:53 +0000

We have just issued a critical update related to the communication between WishList Member and PayPal that may affect your membership site.

If your site relies on payments made via PayPal this update is critical and required.

If your membership site does NOT use PayPal then you can disregard the rest of this message.

Please be assured the update is very simple to implement but you must apply it immediately. You will not need to modify anything on your site other than upgrading your copy of WishList Member.

You can get the full details of the upgrade at:

http://customers.wishlistproducts.com/paypal-critical-update/

Once again, this is a very simple upgrade but it is VERY important to understand that it MUST be done at your earliest convenience.

The mandatory change initiated by PayPal takes place on February 1, 2013 so this upgrade must be implemented prior to February 1, 2013.

Make sure to get the step by step details here:

http://customers.wishlistproducts.com/paypal-critical-update/

Thanks for your immediate attention.

Happy 4 Years WishList Member!

WPWL Team — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 02:29:20 +0000

Do we call it our Anniversary or our Birthday?

Nobody really knew.

But what we did know was that it has been 4 years since we launched WishList Member and it’s time to celebrate.

So we decided to do something special for all customers and anyone who purchases WishList Member during the month of October:

Get WishList Member Today!

For more details read below…

Birthday Gifts For New Customers

Anyone who purchases WishList Member during the month of October will be sent the physical copy of our brand new book called “How To Build A Vibrant Community”.

Inside the book you’ll learn from multiple NY Times best selling authors, media moguls and world renowned bloggers on how they’ve built their loyal community.

You’ll hear about their grassroots tricks for attracting and connecting with members, delivering value and keeping members interested in what you have coming up.

This book is the perfect companion for anyone starting a new membership site.

The books will be shipped out during the second week of November so if you haven’t purchased WishList Member yet, now is the best time to do it!

Get WishList Member Today!

Birthday Gifts For Existing Customers

You guys know we have a lot of love for our customers so we wanted to include you in all the “goodies” as well.

So here’s what you have coming your way…

1) Videos of All Interviews + MP3 Versions

Hearing first hand how someone built a community of thousands of people (even millions of people!) can not only be inspiring but also extremely informative – because inevitably you’ll be able to pull nuggets that you can apply to your own situation.

That’s why we assembled a world class group of online community professionals who have built an amazing, thriving community. Many of these interviews are not provided anywhere else as we went to great lengths to bring you the best of the best, asking specific questions about how their experience applies to your membership.

Multiple NY Times best selling authors, magazine mogul and a world class blogger – it doesn’t get any better than that!

You’ll hear from Gary Vaynerchuck, Chris Guillebeau, Lewis Schiff (Inc. Magazine) and Leo Babauta.

2) Digital Version of the “How To Build A Vibrant Community” Book

You’ll be hooked up with the PDF version of the book so that you can go through and soak up the wisdom as well.

It’s a great read chock full of valuable insights for building a community that people love being part of.

So print it out, grab a highlighter and have at it… you’re bound to find something you can apply to your membership or community!

How Can You Get Everything?

Everything will be delivered in the first week of November inside the Customer Center and you’ll be able to download and consume everything accordingly.

Stay tuned because the goodness is coming your way!

Birthday or Anniversary?

WPWL Team — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 17:38:02 +0000

Did someone say it was our 4th Anniversary coming up?

The office debate has begun… but here’s teaser number two for the upcoming promo!

Happy Anniversary WishList Member

WPWL Team — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:35:06 +0000

Around the office, we’ve been gearing up for a celebration.

It’s been 4 years and it’s nearly time…

Can We Feature You In Our BlogWorld Presentation?

WPWL Team — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:36:34 +0000

Roadtrip!

Some of the WishList crew will be heading to New York in June to soak up the wisdom of many and support Stu McLaren (WishList Co-Founder) as he delivers a brand new presentation called “8 Proven Membership Models: How To Go From Sporadic Sales To Recurring Revenue”.

(so if you’re heading to BlogWorld be sure to let us know because we’d love to “hang out”… ok that sounds cheesy… but you know what we mean. LOL)

With that in mind, Stu has already begun preparing his presentation and would like to show the audience a variety of membership site examples.

The question is, can we feature your site?

If you’re interested, here are the details to have your site considered:

Instructions For Submitting Your Site

Given the large volume of submissions we expect, please know that we won’t be able to accept all that we receive.

However, we will be going through them all and to do so, we ask that you keep your submissions brief and to the point by following the template below.

Also, please note that we will need your submission prior to: April 30th, 2012

In addition, it should be noted that we will need you to create a “temp user” for a membership level so that we can see the inside of your site (we’d like to show the audience examples of how different sites are setup). If that’s something you’re not comfortable with, then please don’t submit your site.

Finally, since Stu will be talking about these 8 membership models, please make sure your site “fits” one of them (otherwise it won’t serve as a good example! LOL):

Membership Models:

Publisher Model – Publish fresh, new content on a regular basis
UPS Model – Publish a “package” of content each month (Ex. CD, DVD, Video Tutorial, Newsletter, Interview of the Month or PLR type site)
Micro Continuity Model – A “fixed” term membership (3 months, 6 weeks etc.)
Modular Course – Site that delivers a modular course
Protected Download – Site that uses WLM to control access to digital downloads that have been purchased
Community Center – Primary purpose is to give people a place to connect (protected forum)
Private Members Area – Centralized place to deliver a variety of protected content and to communicate with members
Coaching Site – Site using the protected area to deliver content/consulting to private clients

So if your membership sites one of those models, here is what you’ll need to do next…

Send Us This Info:

Send An Email to support @ wishlistproducts.com (minus the spaces)
Use the subject line: BlogWorld Case Study
Please make a note of #2 above – it’s very important you use that subject line
Please copy this template for your submission:

Name:
Membership Site URL:
Test Member Login Info (login URL, username, password):
Membership Model (pick 1 of the 8 that fits the best):
Summary of Your Site (200 words or less):

Ex. Who is it for? What do you provide inside the site? How much do you charge? How long have you been running the site?

If you have any other questions please let us know.

And remember, the deadline is April 30th, 2012.

Otherwise we look forward to seeing you in NYC and thank you in advance for letting us show off your site

Word of Mouth Marketing

WPWL Team — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:40:37 +0000

For the month of April 2012, WishList Products will be giving every new customer that purchases a license of WishList Member a FREE copy of the brand new book by Andy Sernovitz called “Word of Mouth Marketing”.

Purchase WishList Member

Plus, all existing customers will be getting access to an exclusive 45+ minute, one-on-one interview with Andy, practical worksheets to help you apply what you’ve learned, AND the chance to join us live in Austin Texas (FREE) for the Word of Mouth Crash Course featuring some of the world’s best word of mouth companies, case-studies and professionals.

Here are the details…

Purchase WishList Member during April 2012 and you’ll get Andy’s book FREE!

One thing is certain in life; people are going to talk.

The key is understanding how to create a situation where people naturally talk about your business (in a positive light) so others feel compelled to check out what you have – all without you having to “push” anything in front of them.

No more “pushy salesman” needed

So how do you do this with your membership site?

That’s what we set out to discover and we teamed up with world renowned “Word of Mouth” specialist Andy Sernovitz to tell us exactly how this phenomena could be applied to membership and online community websites.

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Promotion Recap:

WishList Products will be teaming up with the founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Andy Sernovitz, to include a FREE copy of his brand new book “Word of Mouth Marketing” with any purchase of WishList Member made during the month of April 2012.

But wait… there’s more!

Existing WishList Member customers will given a bunch of cool stuff as well, including…

Access to our exclusive one-on-one interview with Andy talking about how these word-of-mouth marketing strategies apply to membership sites and online communities
Worksheets and support materials to help you implement what you’ll learn during the interview
The chance to join us in Austin Texas for the Word of Mouth Crash Course which is a one-day extravaganza featuring the best companies in the world practicing word of mouth marketing.
and much more!

So when you purchase WishList Member anytime during April 2012, you’ll get the book shipped to your door, the interview as well as all the other goodies!

Important Details:

The book “officially” goes on sale mid April and therefore will be shipped the first two weeks of May.

Shipping will be free.

The interview and accompanying worksheets and support materials will be posted online in the WishList Member Customer Center for all existing WishList customers to access.

This special offer expires on April 30th, 2012 at 11:59pm PST.

Purchase WishList Member

Existing Customers

You’ll be able to access the interview and materials from within the Customer Center.

1) Login to the Customer Center

2) Click on the “Word of Mouth” book from the Dashboard page (first page you see when you login)

Wishie Winners

WPWL Team — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:46:27 +0000

You made the nominations AND selected the winners!

So who walked away with the Wishie awards?

—————

Congratulations to all the finalists and winners! We were again blown away by all the incredible submissions and hope that the Wishies have provided you plenty of inspiration for your next membership site.

Wishie Award Voting is Now OPEN!

WPWL Team — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:12:47 +0000

*****VOTING IS NOW CLOSED*****

*****THANKS TO ALL WHO VOTED. WE WILL ANNOUNCE THE WINNERS SOON*****

The submissions have been collected and the finalists have been determined for the 2nd Annual “Wishie” Awards.

We want to know who YOU want to win

We ask that everyone please make their selection for each of the 5 categories.

Best Design
Best Marketing Strategy
Most Unusual Membership Site
Best Overall Membership Site
Most Valuable Insider Member

Voting closes on Wednesday February 1st, 2012 at 11:59pm PST

Unexpected Situation

Stu McLaren — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:10:07 +0000

During the weekend WishList Products experienced an unexpected situation that effected roughly 10% of our customers (which has since been resolved).

We’d like to inform you of what happened along with what we have done to correct it and prevent it from happening again.

When WishList Member is purchased, each customer is issued a “license key” to verify the purchase.

With that in mind, WishList Member checks the license key on an ongoing basis to verify that each site is using the correct license and to also issue product updates to these sites accordingly.

–

The problem that occured this weekend resulted because the “activation server” that verifies the license key, went down.

So for the sites where WishList Member wanted to verify the license, there wasn’t anything there to verify it was a valid license (because our server was down).

This caused roughly 10% of our customers to receive a “500 internal error”.

–

As soon as we heard about our server being down (we heard first from our customers vs. our hosting provider), we immediately sprung into action to resolve the issue.

This being the first time something like this has ever happened in our company’s history (3+ years), we weren’t sure what was all of a sudden causing this server to crash.

Nevertheless, we got the server back up, everything was fixed and after monitoring it for several hours, it looked to be running smoothly.

Then, the following day it happened again.

This was baffling to us as this was two times in as many days and prior to that, it had never occurred.

Why was this all of a sudden happening?

We immediately got the server back up and then went into “investigation mode”.

After hours of analyzing the situation, we found out that it had to do with specific limitations of the server we were using (something we didn’t initially foresee).

That’s when we decided to make some significant changes in the way our verification process operates.

–

We have now implemented a situation whereby the “verification check” must fail multiple times before the WishList Member license is deactivated.

Plus, even when it is going to be deactivated, the customer will have a number of days prior to the deactivation and will be made aware of that with several messages.

This will eliminate the situation we had this weekend because the sites would continue working fine until the next check. If the next check failed as well, the customer would still have plenty of time to prepare as well.

The time for this whole process to complete before the final deactivation would be roughly a couple of weeks. So, as you can see, this changes the situation completely from what happened this weekend when our server was down for a few hours.

Furthermore, we have made significant upgrades to our server environment introducing load balancers, mirroring servers (so if one goes down, the other kicks in to verify licenses) etc.

We are deeply sorry to those customers who were effected.

We take this very seriously as we pride ourselves on our products and the service we provide to our customers.

In addition, we too have sites using our own software (and we were effected as well – and we don’t want anything like that happening either).

Moving forward, we are very confident in the changes we have made and look forward to continuing to hear about your success.

Take care,

Stu McLaren
Co-Founder, WishList Products

2011 Customer Christmas Gifts

WPWL Team — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:12:44 +0000

We like treating our customers.

So for Christmas, we decided to put together an awesome package jammed packed with all kinds of goodies including a HUGE exclusive, custom drawn icon set, membership site graphics, 3 kick-butt plugins and a 3-Module training.

All the promotion details can be found here.

If you’re an existing WishList Member customer, here’s how to begin downloading them in 3 simple steps:

Step #1 – Login To The Customer Center

All the interviews will be provided from within the Customer Center. You’ll need to login by going to:

http://customers.wishlistproducts.com

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Step #2 – Click On The “2011 Christmas Gifts” Link on the Dashboard

As soon as you login to the Customer Center you will be taken to the Dashboard.

From here you will be able to find the “2011 Christmas Gifts” icon:

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Step #3 – Click On The Gift You Wish To Access

As mentioned above, each of the gifts will be delivered within the Customer Center.

Simply click on the post title of the gift you wish to access and you will see the download links for that particular gift:

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That’s it!

Enjoy the gifts. We know you’ll gain tremendous value from what each of them and look forward to hearing how you’ll use them