If you’re here, you've likely recently completed the Launchpad section of your CustomerHub application. Great work! This section was designed to get you familiar with the admin section of CustomerHub and to give you an overview of the steps you need to take to get your site started. Let’s take a moment for a brief review of what you have learned so far, and what the next steps are for each section.
- Choose a Theme – The theme of your CustomerHub site defines the look and feel of your site that your customers will experience. By completing this step you've chosen which theme you will use for your site – you can always change it later. The next step is to make sure you customize the colors, fonts, and set your logo so that the site matches your brand. Learn More
- Set up Member Groups – Member Groups are used in CustomerHub to give your members access to content that you provide for them. To be part of a group, your member must have the associated tag or subscription in Keap that was defined in the Group setup process. As you add pages and media to your site, you will have the option to restrict access to certain Groups if you choose. Learn More
- Create Pages – As an administrator - this is the most common activity you will be doing in CustomerHub, creating pages for your content. After uploading video, audio, or other content, you’ll need to add it to a page so that your members can view it. Now that you've built your first page, you will want to keep working to get your site built and your content uploaded – the more you build the quicker you will become. Learn More
- Get Members – There are many ways to add members into CustomerHub, most commonly using either a web form from Keap, or using the Public Registration page that is built into your CustomerHub Application (register now link on the sign in page). Once you have a way for your members to sign up, the next step is to start promoting your site to everyone you know and get members to sign up for access. Install a premade campaign.
Define your strategy
Before you get too far along, it is advantageous to take the time to define a strategy for your site. Doing this will clarify the vision for your site, how you will serve up your content, and how much time you will need to invest to keep your site engaging for your members. It will also help you build an action plan that you can stick to so that your site is built in a timely fashion. There are many different approaches and every business is different, but here are some of the most common strategies that are used by CustomerHub customers:
- Freemium model – The Freemium strategy is a commonly used method for engaging with new leads and then upselling to a subscription or one-time purchased content. The idea is that you are first establishing yourself as an expert in your field by providing some valuable content at no charge to members. After engaging with your content, to unlock more premium content they will need to pay to get access – this is where the Member Groups come in to the equation.
A simple hypothetical example would be purchasing access to a series of pages that are part of your ‘Gold Premium’ Member Group in CustomerHub. When you created the Group, CustomerHub automatically created a tag in your Keap account called ‘Gold Premium’ – this is the tag that a member will need to gain access. To accomplish this, simply tie the ‘Apply Tag’ action to a purchase trigger in Keap in either the campaign builder or legacy that applies the ‘Gold Premium’ tag. When your member purchases the upgrade, they will get the necessary tag to add them to the Group and unlock the premium content. - Training Platform – this is another common use for CustomerHub that is employed by many companies to train their employees, customers, or partners through a combination of video, audio, downloads, and other visual content. Using Member Groups, you can easily segment your content and use the same CustomerHub account to provide training to all of your various groups. This means that your members will only be able to see content attached to the member group they are in. For internal training purposes you likely would not charge any fees to access the training, and just apply the member group tag through a web form or manually in
- Keap. If this is paid training, you can use the same method outlined in the Freemium section.
Set up billing automation
Did you know that CustomerHub was originally built to be a billing and subscription management plugin for Keap? It has since evolved to provide much more functionality, but it still retains all of the same benefits to allow your members to manage their billing on their own. Fortunately, this feature will work with relatively little setup on your part.
- Add your Merchant Account – First item on the list is to connect your Keap merchant account into CustomerHub. You will need this connection so that you can process invoice payments through CustomerHub.
- Publish ‘My Account’ pages – In CustomerHub we've provided a set of default pages that are used for viewing Invoices, account information, and making payments. When you first start using CustomerHub, these pages will be in a ‘Draft’ state and will need to be published before your members can use them.
- Set Billing Automation triggers – Next step is to setup any billing automation triggers that you’d like to automatically happen over in Keap. Common triggers are sending an email if there is a failed payment, expiring credit cards, or successful payment.
Set up an Online Community
The social aspect of a website is important to many businesses – it provides a way for their users to interact with each other, promote your content, and even generate new leads for you automatically. CustomerHub allows several options for adding community features to your site:
Member Commenting Integrations
Facebook commenting
Setting up the Facebook commenting platform on your site will allow your members to comment on any pages you choose as long as they are signed in with their Facebook account. The genius of this option is that you are able to setup the redirect link that new leads will be sent to if they click on any of the shared comments on your members’ Facebook pages. For example, Your member Laura leaves a comment on one of your videos saying how great it was and what she learned – that comment is also posted to her wall on Facebook. You've set the default redirect link to be a link to your landing page for new members, and any of Laura’s friends who click the link are directed to that page so they can opt-in to your site.
Disqus commenting
Add a forum for your members
CustomerHub does not currently offer any built-in forums, but there is a great option for integrating external forums into your CustomerHub website for your members to use.
- Tender Support – Tender Support is a simple help desk application that integrates with CustomerHub. Tender Support allows logged in members to participate in community driven discussion boards, submit support requests for your review, and view any knowledge base articles that you've made available for your members. When a user is logged into CustomerHub, they will automatically be passed through to Tender Support without having to remember a separate sign in.
Increase Sales with Smart Upsells
Depending on which study you read, you’ll probably find that it is 5 to 10 times more expensive to get a new customer than it is to retain and resell to an existing customer. You already have a database of customers who have signed up for offers, have clicked through on specific emails, and have purchased other products; each time they take one of these actions they are telling you about themselves. They are segmenting themselves, providing you with information for you to understand their needs and interests. You can leverage this information in a number of ways in CustomerHub to intentionally and intelligently upsell relevant products and services to your existing customers.
