In today’s How to Run a Profitable Membership Site post, we’ll look at the various ways you can take advantage of these highly lucrative programs. Many successful entrepreneurs have done just that.
They’ve expanded their businesses to include membership programs. This means they’re receiving a steady monthly income from these sites whilst continuing to build their membership.
What Are Membership Programs?
Membership sites come in different guises. Sometimes they’re referred to as “subscription sites”. They offer their membership a variety of benefits. However, the purpose of these sites is to sign up members for an ongoing monthly fee and deliver either new products or training each month to those members. Often these are offered on an exclusive “member only” basis. For instance, the price is normally marginally lower and generally includes additional benefits and bonuses that non-members don’t have access to. So, building up your membership can result in you making a very profitable regular recurring income.
The truly amazing thing about membership sites is that you can charge a small monthly fee, as little as $9.99, and if you have a large growing membership then you’re going to make a healthy income every month. For some more specialised niches, where your membership would be significantly smaller, you charge a higher monthly fee to make sure you cover your costs and still make a profit.
We’re all Accustomed to Monthly Fees
Nowadays, many of us pay monthly for our phones, internet, mortgages, rent, magazines and so on. In addition, we even pay monthly fees to be members of coffee, chocolate and wine clubs! As a result, people are already enthusiastically supportive of the idea. Furthermore, they don’t need much convincing to sign up for the products, services, or information that they want and need.
It’s important to work out which kind of membership program would be most appropriate for your target audience. Also, think about what type of offer you could make that would convert your one-time customers into monthly subscribers.
Planning how and what you’ll deliver to your members is imperative before you set up your program. Above all make sure you have the skills and resources in place to provide what you’re promising. A great way to get your head around this is to create a mindmap of the first 6 to 12 months of your program. This gives you a clear picture of where you’re going and how you can run your site proficiently.
7 Membership Ideas to Inspire You:
1. Group Coaching Program
Do you have knowledge and skills that you can share with others? Perhaps you already have a coaching business. You can offer group coaching as a starter and then upsell one-on-one coaching that requires more of an investment from your members.
2. Private Forum
No matter what niche you focus on be it, internet marketing, fitness, weight loss, travel, etc., people like the concept of being able to have private discussions which don’t appear in the search engines. You can allocate an area with a “members only” message board where members can strike up conversations with like-minded individuals.
3. Topic of The Month
These types of memberships are extremely popular. You can create a membership site with any kind of product. For example, software, templates, PLR content and so on. Many businesses set up these types of memberships for physical products such as specialist food, books, etc. Make sure to calculate your costs accurately if you’re sending out physical products. For example, these would include, development, production, postage and returns.
4. Perpetual Memberships
This is an ongoing membership that never ends. Companies like Amazon Prime and Netflix have this model down to a tee. They offer their members all kinds of incredible benefits for a low annual membership fee. The key here is that every month they bill a small amount to a member’s credit card. This is hardly noticeable to their members as they’re paying this smaller amount on a more frequent basis rather than paying the annual fee in one go.
5. Learning and Certifications
A high percentage of the population want to learn how to do new things. This is where you can use your expertise and resources to create eCourse or “How to…” memberships. Someone who has done this extremely successfully is the award-winning entrepreneur, Richard McMunn. His How2Become website is the UK’s leading career, testing and educational specialist.
6. Inner Circle
This is a very exclusive membership that is normally limited to a certain number of people. As a result, the fees for joining are significantly higher. Typically, members will have personal access to you, your knowledge and top-quality content. You’ll connect with them on a regular basis via webinars, podcasts, one-to-one calls, etc.
7. Association Program
These are some of the largest membership organisations in the world. For example, Nursing, Engineering, Chartered Accountants and so on. Associations provide their members with a huge amount of value including accreditation, certification, education, networking opportunities, annual conferences and so on. In order to access these resources members pay a fee. The crucial thing is that if you set up an association for a specific group of people you must create offerings that are in line with the type of content they’d expect to receive.
When you’ve decided on the kind of membership program you’re going to offer you’ll need to establish what type of products to incorporate. Think about the needs and wants of your target audience and what they’ll expect to gain from being a member. Also, make sure to consider the investment they’ll have to make and if it’s realistically affordable for them.
13 Ideas for the Type of Content to Include in Your Membership Program:
- eBooks
- eCourses
- eReports
- Checklists
- Mindmaps
- Webinars
- Video tutorials
- PLR content
- Templates
- Exclusive bonuses
- Group coaching
- Certification
- Affiliate program
Things can quickly get out of hand and overwhelm you if you don’t have the right tools and software. So, to guarantee a smooth operation you need to invest in at least a few essentials. You obviously want to provide your members with the best possible experience and prevent yourself from having to spend countless hours managing your program.
7 Programs and Software That Will Help You Run a Profitable Membership Site:
1. AWeber
The perfect solution for automated email marketing and much more including landing pages and notifications. Building an email list and nurturing that list is key to growing your business. AWeber makes it super easy. It integrates seamlessly with the majority of membership software.
2. aMember
We’ve used aMember and find it flexible, fast, easy to navigate and user-friendly. It integrates beautifully with WordPress. In addition, it’s packed full of features and offers a responsive support service.
3. PayPal Pro Business
It’s critical to have a reliable payment processor set up to collect payments before you launch your membership program. PayPal is a well-known, trusted brand and your customers will feel safe making payments through their system.
4. Wishlist Member
Wishlist Member is a sleek, powerful, easy to use membership plugin that integrates with a hosted WordPress powered site. It includes a variety of functionality and features including the ability to drip-feed content to your members.
5. Invision Community
This leading platform for building active communities uses forums, message boards and image galleries and so much more to help you cultivate a dynamic, exciting space for your members to hang out in.
6. EasyMemberPro
Another capable fully featured membership software. This easy-to-use software includes a built-in affiliate program, auto responder integration and unlimited membership levels. Importantly its enhanced security features give you peace of mind that your community and products remain safe.
7. JigSawBox
Do you aspire to share your knowledge and passion and turn it into profit? Then this could be the platform for you. Created by a coach for fellow coaches it allows you to deliver courses and coaching via unlimited scheduled modules, discussion areas, materials, assignments and so much more. You can try out the free 14-day trial to see if it works for you.
Remember – if you think all the technical aspects seem beyond your capabilities don’t despair. You can always hire someone to help you get your membership program up and running quickly.
Don’t struggle on when there are good people out there on places like Fiverr and Upwork who will willingly help you for an affordable investment. You could always employ the services of a virtual assistant to work alongside you so that you can focus on the areas you’re confident at and experienced in.
Marketing Your Membership Program
This is of course an essential part of the process otherwise you’re going to have a fantastic site with absolutely zero members. Make sure to do the appropriate research in order to target the right audience.
Here are 7 Marketing Ideas:
1. Blogging
Don’t underestimate the value of providing ideas and information that people care about. Utilise your product funnel to build up to your membership program offer.
2. Become an Expert in Your Niche
Build your reputation for being the leading expert in your niche by doing guest blogs, speaking at events, giving podcast interviews and writing high profile content for media channels.
3. Get Your Membership Price Right
As well as targeting the right audience it’s crucial you find that sweet spot when it comes to the price. If you price too low, people may think they’re not getting the value they expected and you risk leaving money on the table. Similarly, price it too high and fewer people will invest.
4. Use Your Social Media
Regularly share your membership program across your social media accounts. Create curiosity and buzz around your posts and focus on the benefits that people will get from joining your program rather than just trying to hard sell them.
5. Recruit Affiliates
This is a great strategy for expanding the reach of your membership program. Recruiting affiliates, especially super affiliates, could see your membership program gain 100s if not 1000s of members in a very short time. Remember – there has to be something in it for them, for example a higher commission on your entire product funnel.
6. Pay Per Click Marketing
If you’re confident about running your own ads, then market your membership program via Google Ads and Facebook. You can use PPC to build up your email list before you launch your membership program by giving away something that your target audience needs and also solves a problem for them. You do need to invest a certain amount of money to achieve that all important winning ad. However, be careful with running ads as you can quickly find yourself out-of-pocket especially if your ads are not converting.
7. Freebies and Giveaways
Everyone loves to receive something for free especially if it’s useful, helpful and of value to them. You could easily offer people a short eCourse or invite them to a webinar. Your objective here is to create a buzz around your new membership program and to reach as many people as possible in your target audience.
One of the most important, but often challenging, aspects of running a membership site is creating enough valuable content for your membership. I mean content that they’ll actually want to continue paying a monthly fee for in order to receive.
It’s imperative that you have this all organized before you consider launching. You don’t want to be scraping around on month two trying to source relevant and quality material for your members.
I hope you found my How to Run a Profitable Membership Site post of value. With careful planning and management your membership site has the potential to provide you with an extremely lucrative passive income.
To Your Success!
