4 REASONS TO OWN A MEMBERSHIP SITE – How To Get Started Right Now!
A Membership site is a highly desirable choice for so many today because it can offer great benefits. It can allow you to earn residual income form subscriptions and create a business which will require fairly little tech ability if you can create a site with the right software and experts to help you.
There are more than 4 reasons to own a membership site to be honest, but – I wanted to keep it quite simple here for you.
A membership site is a business model so the first thing to become aware of is that you need to treat it like a business as it is one.
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STARTING A MEMBERSHIP SITE – Let’s get To It Right Now!
Q: WHAT IS A MEMBERSHIP SITE?
A: Anything where people are paying you as a member of your site and it can run practically on automation with minimal operation. In simple terms people join you and you give something of value. This can vary based around price points and what you wish to deliver
Q: WHAT IS TYPICAL MEMBERSHIP SITE?
A: A DATING SITE, A MONEY TIPS SITE, RELATIONSHIP TIPS SITE, WITH VARIOUS PAY LEVEL OPTIONS
Q: HOW CAN I START A MEMBERSHIP SITE?
A: It’s Quite Simple. You will have a niche market area you want to become involved with – and which you would love to share value in, as you create a website with membership options, but you may need some tech help with this.
In today’s economy automation is a great way to earn an income as it can be achieved in a great variety of ways but this is certainly my favourite way.
The beauty of this kind of platform is that ‘you or i’ can build a great revenue stream and even hire a team to run something for us.
But it takes some work, research, marketing, planning, backoffice management, positioning and few other things to get it right.
Now, as per usual I have done a ton of research for you and found some amazing software platforms.
Having a WordPress blog myself I wanted something that would work with any of my WordPress sites. There are two companies which have the greatest quality tools and top notch customer service which I always look for. It is vitally important that you can contact your backoffice team with any questions you will have as you go ahead and build a membership site.
So these two sites are:
1 MEMBERGATE
2 WISHLIST
Now, Membergate is an amazing system and it should be for $3,995. Where as you can get a package for WISHLIST for £200.
This may seem strange that there is such a price difference but really BOTH do ave their merits and downsides.
I would personally always conduct research on everything I use as it pays to understand the tools, system, structure and what will be required in order to set up a fully functioning site.
Wishlist is compatibale for WordPress – so if you have a wordpress site then great.
Membermouse also is compatiable for wordpress and this is the most widely used platform for membership sites, as it claims to have best ‘ease of use and set up’. There are tons of other membership site platforms and software out there and review sites are often a great place to look at the features and benefits of each of them. So, it’s up to you ‘how’ you wish to progress with your research – but if you are keen to get moving and want to start your Memberhship site then from my own research I found Membermouse to be my primary option.
I started my own site with Membermouse platform recently and I can conform that it is quite an easy tool to use and I am not that techy.
There are many things to consider when starting a membership site of course, and if you have literally no idea where to begin then let me give you some important pointers right now – take notes:
1) FIND A STRONG NICHE THAT YOU KNOW ABOUT – ensure that you can dominate in this area and offer something unique to competition
2) LOOK FOR ANYTHING THAT YOU ARE GOOD AT, OTHERS TELL YOU YOU ARE GOOD AT, WHAT ARE YOUR PASSIONS, SKILLS, AND EXPERIENCES, KNOWLEDGE – formulate a plan and research other membership sites in this area to get a feel for it
3) START TAKING NOTES – and build a small team to help you maximise your productivity levels in order to have roles for each person
4) ASK YOURSELF WHAT YOU WOULD WANT TO EARN REALISTICALLY. DO YOU WANT TO REPLACE FULLTIME OR PART TIME INCOME
5) LOOK AT YOUR PRICE POINTS. WHAT WILL OFFER FOR THAT PRICE AND IF YOU HAVE HIGHER POINTS WHAT WILL DO FOR THAT COST
6) LOOK AT CONTENT YOU COULD SHARE – VIDEOS, PDF’S, EBOOKS, OTHER PEOPLES CONTENT. YES YOU CAN USE OTHER PEOPLES CONTENT AND PEOPLE WILL PAY YOU but it takes discussion and relationship building in order to create a mutually beneficial deal
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4 REASONS TO OWN A MEMBERSHIP SITE – How To Get Started Right Now!
NEXT, choose your weapon. I chose Membermouse but it might not be right for you. MAKE SURE YOU STUDY the various sites and be sure to fully explore every aspect of the platform software to note the plus’s and minus’s and the for and against’s. 
WHAT ARE THE REAL BENEFITS OF OWNING A MEMBERSHIP SITE?
Once you have set up your membership site you are really owning an automated money making machine and a piece of online real estate.
This is great for many reasons, some of which being, having a way to create a revenue stream which gives you more time for yourself and your family. Another being, you may create more freedom to follow your other passions like travel etc. Or you may wish to build other membership sites also. Once you know the processes required to do so.
BUT I’M NOT TECHY GREG HOW WOULD I DO IT?
There really are many ways to do this. One way is to outsource your work to someone else, so they build your site for you.
There are many freelance experts who can create a site for you very quickly and easily.
The costs will vary depending on how much detail goes into the building of your site.
For example, if you have an S.E.O expert working on your site to get targeted traffic and create optimization of keywords to dominate your niche, this can cost a fair bit extra as they will help you with creating targeted traffic, and also help you with off page S.E.O.
Another option is to build a MEMBERSHIP SITE yourself with tools like WordPress.
With this you can be up and running in a couple of weeks or so. Of course, you will need to be able to understand how to drive targeted traffic to your site and you will need to have some technical abilities.
You will also need to be able to understand your numbers, so you can look at retention rates, those who leave and join and those who stay.
By understanding how your site is working and what is required of you you will be able to learn and test your processes so you can tweak what is necessary and either let go of or add features and other elements in order to measure how effective each component is.
For example – by monitoring your numbers or having a team or member to do so, you or they can look at the trends in growth to see what works best and what doesn’t. This will enable you to increase funding into certain areas or decrease it depending on costs and revenue.
So, just like any other business model this is a real business which needs real application and attention applied to it on a daily basis.
BUT I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN GREG?
Ok, let me help you.
Here is a list of things that you need to consider to be up and running fast and in the right way:
- 1) GET TO KNOW YOUR PRODUCT AS MUCH AS YOU CAN AND HIRE EXPERTS WHERE NEEDED AND BUILD A SOLID PLATFORM BECOME FAMILIAR WITH THE SOFTWARE
- 2) NOTICE WHAT YOU ARE A MEMBER OF. WHY ARE YOU A MEMBER? TAKE NOTES AND GET IDEAS HOW OTHERS DO IT
- 3) HOW CAN YOU BE BETTER THAN YOUR COMPETITION OR AT LEAST INNOVATE ON A CURRENT IDEA? AIM FOR THIS
- 4) IS YOUR MARKET SATURATED WITH COMPETITION? IF SO CONSIDER BRANCHING OFF SLIGHTLY OR CHOOSING ANOTHER NICHE. WHAT AREA INTERESTS YOU NOW AND WHAT BRANCHES OFF OF THAT.
- 5) DON’T CUT COSTS IN THE WRONG AREAS TO SAVE MONEY. ENSURE YOU SET IT UP PROFESSIONALLY.
- 7) CONSIDER DIFFERENT PRICE POINTS AT YOUR MEMBERSHIP SITE, FOR EXAMPLE SILVER GOLD AND PLATINUM MEMBERSHIP THIS GIVES OPTIONS AND MANAGE THESE. LOOK AT WHAT WORKS MORE THAN SOMETHING ELSE
- 8) TWEAK YOUR OPTIONS OVER TIME AS YOU WILL INCREASE YOUR CONVERSIONS – AS PEOPLE LIKE CHOICE
- 9) ENSURE YOU DRIVE TRAFFIC OF THE RIGHT NATURE. MEANING, DON’T ADVERTISE JUST ANYWHERE. TARGET SPECIFIC TYPES WHO WANT WHAT YOU HAVE AND BE THE SOLUTION
- 10) KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER AND START WITH THEM IN MIND. THIS IS KEY TO SUCCESS. START WITH THE PRODUCT AND YOU MAY FAIL.
- 11) TEST A FREE TRIAL OPTION AND PERHAPS TEST HOW THIS GOES AND STUDY OTHER SITES WHO DO THIS ALREADY
- 12) BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR MEMBERS ENSURE YOU SEND EMAIL OFFERS, UPDATES AND OTHER INFO
- 13) KNOW YOUR INCOME GOAL AND GET CLEAR ON YOUR GOALS AND VISION TO MEASURE GROWTH
Membership Site
EXPLORE SITES LIKE www.Upwork.com TO OUTSOURCE WITH ANYTHING YOU NEED BY USING AN EXPERT
MY ADVICE IS START NOW BY WRITING DOWN WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED BEFORE YOU CREATE A MEMBERSHIP SITE
The key to success in anything is to take action and learn as you move. No matter where you begin just begin and if you don’t know how to drive traffic here are some ways that you can begin when you have a fully functioning membership site set up.
> Use your social media connections first. Send your followers to your site from facebook, twitter, linked in and instagram
> Build a fanpage and group on FB to tailor to your specific audience – this is free and simple
> Write content, create videos and use backlinking to drive quality traffic to your site
> Look at YouTube and google for ideas with your competition and traffic strategies and learn from others
> Study my ‘Online Income’ area where there are the latest free traffic generation tactics
> Study membership site experts who you will find from Google searches one I can recommend is Wild Apricot
4 REASONS TO OWN A MEMBERSHIP SITE – How To Get Started Right Now!
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
Your goal is to BUILD YOUR SITE or get help with it – and to develop your model as you grow a loyal following with the right tools. But it is critical that you conduct research first as you will be going into it blindly and create a site which has no intrinsic value to others. Don’t waste time and money thinking of the $ signs only and rushing through production.
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Don’t panic about this seeming overwhelming either as it really doesn’t need to be. By going through a step by step process you can create something very powerful and even enjoyable to run. It can help you to create greater revenue in your online business or in any business you may already be running. Or if you are just starting out – it can give you a healthy monthly income which can be built and grown.
Membership Site
Let’s look at what you can explore now:
Let’s say you have a dog training membership site and you teach people how to train their dog’s in various videos, posts and e-books that you offer.
You have your 3 price point option there with a SILVER, GOLD and PLATINUM LEVEL for example…….
SILVER = $9.95 per month
GOLD = $19.95 per month
PLATINUM = $49.95 per month
If you have 20 people paying you $9.95 per month you have an extra $199 per month
If it’s 100 people you have $995 per month.
Now, of course you will probably start off with more members at the lower price point which is natural.
But if you offer way more perceived value as the price rises you then will get people UP-GRADING ALSO. For example- my father-in-law owns a Dog, he always has had dogs, so I know what he buys. And also I know what could be added to a membership site as a way of increasing offers, products, services etc. So, we only have to look around to see how we might create more gifts, products, services or offers of some kind. It might be that for the Platinum package you offer a free gift once a month, or you give money off of other pet services which the dog owner would use. You are essentially increasing the value whereby the member feels special.
It might mean that you create a luxury, premium or high end offer to make them feel special and the Dog feel pampered or spolied. It might be pet insurance discounts of training videos, and the beauty is that YOU can choose. And you can test what works best.
Also it would pay you to ask for feedback as some will leave so you can ask them why they left to gather deeper insights into their behaviours and see what you might do to get them back.
So, you have your $19.95 price point. X100 people this an extra $1,995 per month. How would that feel as an extra source of income?
NOTE: You have to take into account that you will have various running expenses and team members who are running it with you ‘or’ for you and this is where your plan comes in. By having a plans which accounts for all costs, unexpected expenses and cashflow and cash reserves you can then ensure you have it covered when there may be upgrades needed or roles to hire for. You may not need team members though, so this all has to be explored.
I am sure you can see the potential here of having a Membership site in your chosen niche right?
Let’s look at the options.
There are many Membership site experts out there and I have myself used some of them to help me out – such as MemberMouse, but I also recommend Wild Apricot as another option as their products and support are second to none. So these are my top two picks and I won’t share others here as I don’t rate others in quite the same way, but it will help you to do your own research as you may require different features and benefits to me.
There are many options out there, but I always look for 1) ease of use, 2) Great Customer service 3) Flexibility in case I want to make changes.
Hope this helps
Oh and what were the 4 reasons for starting a MEMBERSHIP SITE???
1) MORE TIME = yes I mentioned this but a reminder is that automation is powerful and can allow you to do other things
2) MORE MONEY = another stream of income
3) MORE FREEDOM = the ability to do other things
4) MORE CHOICE = it will enable you to set up more of these or work on other projects also
Check out my resource section named ‘Online Income’ and contact me if you get stuck I will be more than happy to help you get started with your own MEMBERSHIP SITE. In ther meantime do get started on creating your own after your research into your ultimate area.
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As always I wish you the very best
Greg
TRY MY $10K PER MONTH PASSION TO PROFITS SELF STUDY COURSE HERE
VITAL:
If you want to start a site NOW today, as you have applied research and discovered the area which most works for you then get started now with Member Mouse and start building your very first membership site.
4 REASONS TO OWN A MEMBERSHIP SITE – How To Get Started Right Now!
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