Membership Sites, Blah Blah Blah

I don't think so.

Chances are you have encountered emails, promotions, articles and teleclasses about membership sites (or pay sites) and you already know the benefits of recurring income. You know the spiel, each month your members contribute to an ongoing residual income…. blah blah blah…

If you ever tried to set up a membership site you may have found it either technically challenging or financially challenging - or both. There is a much easier way - but first let's have a look at the main membership site models.

Large Membership Site Strategy

Set up a rather large site using one program or putting together these components - a forum, blog, an advanced gateway script and masses of content.

A few examples of large membership style of site are:

WealthyAffiliate - Affiliate Marketing training, tools and forum. This site has an army of affiliates who promote the membership site to others and they become more effective as they learn more affiliate strategies. So the site "feeds itself". The members get access to free hosting and a website builder called siterubix. This is a one-stop-shop for new >> advanced affiliate marketers. The tools include keyword tools, clickbank tools and link re-direction.

MembershipMillionaire - Membership "how to" site with audio, video , forum and JV alerts. The "FREE" entry is a great way to build a massive list of membership site prospects who want more information about making recurring income sites on a larger scale.

ArticleUnderground - Article marketing mega site with hundreds of PLR articles each month and a Blog network to place links on plus a forum and training videos. The SEO benefits from links alone are worthwhile because the network is so carefully managed and the personality of the owner shines through.

These membership sites require a fair bit of work mainly because of the forum aspect. This is constantly changing and needs moderators. In the case of some PLR style sites the content must come each month.  The size of them creates an authority position and a tribal culture is established.

There are very high end membership site scripts and "total package" providers who provide all in one solutions and you are looking at thousands per year in license fees and maintaining the site. You will have script issues and hosting issues and password issues etc….

This large style of membership site can be very rewarding but are the most taxing on time and you will need a huge amount of commitment to launch one of these sites. Billing dramas, backups and managing a community take effort. Chances are you won't build one of them because they are too difficult.

Medium Style Membership Site

For this style of membership you will either have Just a forum, or Just training videos and content or a lighter blend of these. The tools you use will be easier to manage and less expensive. You can have a blog or simple sales letter page website at the front directing to either a paypal button or a simple membership gateway .  You add all members to an autoresponder to maintain member broadcasts and you have a protected members area.

In the protected members area you can have either a blog, a forum, or a single page with links to other materials such as video, audio and PDF material. 

These membership sites can be free, a one time entry fee, or a monthly fee. You may even bill quarterly or yearly. The one time fee sites are often a better option for ebook resellers to put bonus materials and updates. The monthly fee sites require monthly effort.

Examples of medium membership sites:

InstantCashGenerators - This is a one page site with links to mini lessons. There is an email series that is sent frequently with simple cash earning tips. The creator of this site was J D Swanson and he "flipped" it after he built it. It is simple yet very rewarding financially.

SimpleCashBlog - This is a sales letter / Blog setup where the blog has reports each few weeks. They added a forum as well as it grew and many of the powerful reports on the site are able to be resold by members. The Rhodes brothers have buily up a huge reputation in a short space of time by delivering high impact proven reports about membership site strategies, PLR techniques, Traffic tips and affiliate marketing techniques. This is probably the best value membership site for new >> intermediate marketers.

Earn1KaDay - The format of this membership site is mainly forum based. The forum has plenty of discussion relating to make money strategies. The idea is that anyone can make $1000 a day applying a combination of these strategies. The group of clients here are many members of the popular warrior forum and the smaller size of this forum creates a very personal atmosphere of positive members. The forum also obtains copies of all PLR style Warrior Special Offers - so the monthly fee is a bargain for members.

They are easy to set up, inexpensive and have a moderate amount of maintaining. If you pre-load the site with valuable content and then have timed releases via a blog you can reduce the maintainence. If you have no blog - just tutorials on video etc you may not need to add much at all. These can be fully automated.

Simple Cash Sites

The trend I am predicting is the massive roll-out of simple paypal button sites. The very popular viral marketer Jimmy D Brown has released his version of this strategy on a site called membernaire. The strategy is simple. A fixed membership term. The idea behind this is that many members quit a membership site after 3- 4 months so if you have a 6 - 12 month site delivering content on autopilot via autoresponder, then you will keep members for longer.

Let's look at some numbers:

• One ebook = $67
• Standard membership site $27 p/m for 4 months = $108
• Fixed Price membership site $17 p/m  for 12 months split into 52 weekly lessons = $ 204

Can you see how powerful this is?

All you need to set up one of these is a one page sales letter site, an autoresponder, a paypal button and the first weeks content!

You can be ready in about a day. If you need to have content made you can buy PLR (private label rights) for articles, ebooks, or hire a writer at elance.com or guru.com.

More Content Ideas

Most people struggle to get content. It is really easy to make products. The key is you only need the first few parts for the Simple membership site method. Here are some ideas for getting content:

• Audio Interviews (learn how)
• Audio Books
• Email Newsletters
• How To Courses
• Resource Lists
• PLR or Resale Products
• Articles (add photos or mix them)
• Video Tutorials
• Software

The main point about membership sites is this - You NEED to have one!!!

The best type of membership site is an "Evergreen" market. This is a market that will be around for a while and has a broad range of content you can provide. If you choose a market that is a very specialized niche - you can set up a number of small sites for small recurring payments. If you go for large hungry niches you can increase the price to match the value of your information. You can set up one main password protected backend and share that with a number of sales letter sites taking payments at the front!!! 

These smaller sites may have less of a community feel than the larger ones but they will probably cost less per month than the larger ones and you will get more members for longer.

The automated paypal / autoresponder sites have lowered the barrier to entry to almost non-existent, and will increase in volume from now so are you in, or are you out?

We will be hearing about membership sites for a long time yet - the business model is great.

Recommended Resources



Fixed Term Memberships

Free Video about Simple Memberships

Free Audio and Video Resources

Ideas For Making Easy Money