People are willing to pay for online content. In fact, the "Online Publishers Association" said that pay-for content is emerging as a hot revenue model. Business content, personals/match making, and entertainment are the hottest niches. But even smaller niches, like DVD authoring, sports coaching, marketing services, and dieting are producing profits.
Can you build an income selling subscriptions for online content with your own membership site? Selling online content by way of a password protected website has become big business. Not only is it fast to set up, but the start-up and running costs are minimal. Work from home entrepreneurs and big businesses alike are tapping into this new-found revenue source.
Less than nine percent of online users currently pay for online content. This means the market is wide open for the savvy entrepreneur. Paying for content in 2004 was more than 5 times what it was in 2005. And those numbers of more than doubled in the last six years. That’s a whopping 500% growth! Those who capture the market first in their niche will have the obvious advantage and it’s an international market, so anyone can play.
One of the great things about starting a membership site is you can take your hobby, specialized knowledge or profession and turn it into a profitable business. Your challenge will be finding exclusive content. You can start it part time but it will likely develop into a full time business.
Planning for and setting your site up for autoresponders, automated sign-ups, credit card processing, automated cancellations, etc is all part of a successful membership website. Starting and running a membership site can be a lot of fun and very exciting, however you need to know what’s involved in setting one up, and then managing it effectively.
This whole process can seem a bit daunting. However, as complex as this seems, many companies offer a low cost, easy-to-use software solution. This makes it possible for almost anyone to start and market a membership site at a very low cost.
Various Types Of Membership Sites
There are basically two types of membership sites. There are free sites and there are paid for sites. The two types of membership sites have one thing is common. Their memberships are made up of people who share a common interest or have a common need.
You can, of course, buy a domain, set up a website and not charge for memberships but choose who to admit and who not to admit. This is done when the profit is intended to come from sales to members after they join the site. There are free network sites that might be used for this purpose.
Paid-for membership sites are set up by businesses or individuals with the objective of making money by supplying hard to find information, access to specialized data or lists, or instruction in various fields. Membership sites are owned and operated by people who either own the sites or who are hired by the site owners to monitor and administer them. The topics for paid for membership sites are even more varied than the free sites and certainly more specialized.
Choosing Your Niche or Suject Matter
If you choose to start a membership site about…say….dogs. Just dogs in general won’t attract many members. You'll need to choose a specific breed….and possibly even narrow it down further. Instead of Poodles, your theme should be; Tiny Toy Poodles, Miniature Poodles, or Standard Poodles, for example. Millions of people are dog lovers and the theme of a specific breed of dog should do well.
If you're really into video or computer games, start a membership site devoted to one specific game… not just video games or computer games in general. People all over the world and from every walk of life get really involved with a specific video or computer game and love to talk to others about the game and give each other hints.
There are thousands… maybe millions… of people who love certain crafts and hobbies. However, those who love to quilt aren’t interested in woodworking so your membership site should be about a specific craft or hobby.
Professionals like to talk to other professionals in the same field. Each professional field speaks their own language and find the same things to be interesting, informative or funny. So if you start a membership site for professionals, you should get a good response.
A membership site with the theme, ‘Resell Rights’, should do well, also. This kind of site will need to be kept updated on a regular basis.
Whatever the theme of your membership site is, it should always be your main focus. Every piece of written content, audio content or video content should be about the main theme of your membership site. Little side trips into very closely related fields is alright now and then, but even very closely related subjects should never detract from the main focus of your site.
When you choose the theme for your membership site, you should choose it because it's something that you know a lot about and/or are passionate about.
No matter how many distractions you have, you must still keep new, fresh, relevant and timely content on your website that pertains to the theme of your site.
Your ezines and newsletters need to be filled with helpful and useful information. Be sure to continually check for new products that would be helpful to your membership. New products come out daily and you don’t want to fall behind.
You need to make full use of your autoresponder to keep your members informed and to keep them focused on the objective, as well.
Your blog, forum or message board topics can become unfocused and off-topic very easily. They must be monitored daily…maybe even several times each day.
Benefits of Owning and Operating Your Own Membership Site
Most people realize that there's a lot of money to be made on the internet. What many people don't realize is that it doesn’t take a lot of money to get started with an online venture and begin to cash in. This is certainly true with a membership site. Here are some of the solid reasons why you may want to consider a membership site as your home based online business:
1. There is great potential to create a passive revenue stream. Sometimes referred to as residual income, your membership site can be structured to include a monthly membership fee. That means once you sign someone up, they stay a member month after month. Ultimately, you make a great deal of money from each member who registers with the site.
This really is an easier way to make money than choosing to sell individual products. With products, you basically start all over again every time you pitch a unit to a new customer. This is not true with a membership site. Once you sell someone on joining the site and paying the monthly membership fees, you can turn your focus away from selling and toward ways to keep your site interesting.
2. You have a lot less administrative work to do when you run a membership site. Because people are effectively buying over and over again each month automatically, record keeping is a lot more simplistic. Plus you do not have to put as much effort into sales efforts.
Think about it this way. When you sign up forty new members in a given month at $10.00 per month, that is an additional $400.00 you will earn each month. Over the course of a year, that comes to $4,800.00. Essentially, you do nothing after that initial effort to sign them up. The money just keeps coming.
Now, think about how much money you could make if you signed up 400 new members EVERY month. You can easily build up enough of a membership base to life the life you want –without having to work a second job!
3. Not only do you earn residual income with your members, there is also the chance to earn a few more extra dollars by making backend products available to them. While this is a secondary source of income, it is something you can cultivate when and as you choose.
Because the task of building your customer list is an ongoing thing, your target audience for those backend product offerings is constantly increasing. That is a sales environment that just doesn’t happen in a lot of other situations.
Would you like to be able to market your products directly to what amounts to a list of qualified prospects instead of having to dig for leads? Of course you would!
With the right type of products, you can easily create a steady income above and beyond your residual income.
4. You don’t have to do all the selling yourself. There is always the opportunity to set up an affiliate program. You immediately have hundreds and maybe thousands of people selling for you.
Setting up an affiliate program is not complicated. There are plenty of resources to help you pick a format that is right for your membership site and your budget. As long as you make the compensation worth the time of the affiliates, you can stand to make a great deal of money for yourself.
5. Time. Don’t you often feel that there is not enough of it? How much of your time do you devote to working in a dead end job, for other people?
How many times have you felt like your efforts were not appreciated, much less properly compensated? How much better would your life be if you didn’t have to deal with that sort of thing? With your membership site making money, you can tell your boss goodbye and start using your time for other important things, like family.
6. You create financial security. There’s not much of that these days. But with your membership site making money with monthly membership fees, and the other income you get from selling backend products to your members, you can look toward a secure future. Think of that that means when it comes to planning for your retirement years.
7. You get to do things you never could before. Want to vacation in Florida? How about a ski trip to Colorado? With your membership site up and running, affiliates doing the selling and a steady stream of income showing up in your bank account each month, you have what you need to go wherever you like.
These and many other advantages could be yours. While it takes some hard work on the front end, you have the joy of seeing your efforts pay off.
Take a moment and think about what you would do if you never had to worry about money again. Consider how you will feel about yourself when your work pays off in a big way?
Getting Started
Whatever you call them - member only, membership, subscription, or mentor websites, they all have one thing in common. They are bringing in steady and constant cash flow for their owners, month after month, from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. The array of the topics of these websites is endless.
Some of these paid membership sites provide mentoring or coaching, others publish useful articles or information in a particular field or product. Still others publish the results of tests and studies or product reviews. Some membership sites provide specialized service or act as a meeting place for people with a common interest and then there are those that provide step-by-step instructions for such things as painting or music.
All these sites have one thing in common: to access the website (or the best information on the site) you have to pay for it! Which begs the question…why would anybody pay for information on the Internet?
The answer is simple. People buy information that they could probably find for themselves if they looked long enough and hard enough, because they want to save time or because they think the information will be better or more specialized or because the information just isn’t available to them unless they pay for it.
Just a few short years ago it was almost unheard of to charge for access to a website and almost no one was doing it. Today, however, it's the norm and not the exception. Actually we have internet dating sites to thank for this huge money making opportunity.
It takes some work and certainly the right tools to set up a members-only website but the rewards (monetary as well as personal satisfaction) can be huge.
Setting Up Your First Membership Site
So far, you've identified the niche or subject matter for your membership site (I hope). You've also taken stock of your aims, goals and abilities and decided you have what it takes to operate the site. You've also determined that you're willing to make the commitment necessary to be a success. This is where you get down to the process of designing and setting up your site.
There are several important considerations that will have to be addressed, regardless of what market your membership site will serve. Take a look at each one of them.
Deliverables – What Kind and How Often
If you want to have members who pay for the privilege of using your site, you have to give them something for their money. What you supply in exchange for that monthly membership fee is known as deliverables. There are basically two kinds:
1. Deliverables that are constantly available as long as membership is active. This may include posting privileges to a message board or sending a private message to another member.
2. Deliverables that are provided on a consistent basis, but are not automatically available. These may be products that you develop and release from time to time as part of the membership program. They may also be products you offer at a discounted rate to members only. Ebooks, audio files and video files are some examples of these types of deliverables.
Many membership sites have a combination of both types of deliverables. Doing so helps to keep the site fresh, and also makes the member feel like he or she is getting something over and beyond simple membership.
How many and what type of deliverables is up to you. Deciding on your slate of deliverables should include careful consideration of the following:
- What market is the membership site aimed at?
- What are the other sites engaged in that market doing?
- What would I like to see as a member of this type of site?
- What can I include and still keep the membership fee competitive?
- What can I add that the other guys are not doing?
Pick a Domain Name
You may think this is no big deal. But it's more than a formality. Your choice of domain name is what your site will be known by. It's how people will find your site when they do searches. It's what people will tell their friends when they urge them to visit the site. In short, your domain name needs to possess these essential characteristics:
- It must be easy to remember – this is for both repeating the web address to friends and for members to easily remember the URL even when they aren't at their own computer with its bookmarks.
- It must be keyword optimized . You thought your page content was the only place to think about keywords? Think again! Your domain name also should be optimized to show up high on searches.
- It must be relevant. You may think it would be cute to call your dating site something like “pinkcanary.com” but do you really think people will take the time to find out what your site is all about? Choose a name that at least hints at the subject matter of the site.
- It must be easy to verbalize. Not all your members will email a link to your site to their friends. Some will mention it in passing in casual conversation. For this reason, the name should be easy to say as well as easy to remember. “Artichokehearts.com” is always easier to say than “tenwaystoprepareartichokes.com”. And it is also easier to remember the next day.
- You have to like it. After all, it is your business. Make it a name you can proudly pass on to others when you invite them to visit your site.
This is simply the software you need to create the site with all the bells and whistles you have decided is needed to stand out from the rest. As you look around, keep the following in mind:
- You may or may not find one script that has everything you want. Be prepared to have to purchase more than one. (But for sure, there are some great “all-in-one” solutions.)
- Don’t buy anything until you look around a great deal. The idea is to get as many features in one software package as possible.
- Read reviews of various scripting software. It helps to know if others found the software easy to use and versatile enough to allow them to set up their sites without jumping through a bunch of hoops.
Choose a Payment Processor
Since you do want to get paid for your efforts, you need to put something in place to process payments. It is good for you and also good for your members. When they want to join, they want to do it now, not later.
Different payment processors work different ways. That means you need to decide what payment methods are acceptable:
- Debit Cards
- Credit Cards
- Checking Account Deductions
- Online Payment Services
There are many types of scripting software packages that will include a payment processor. Make sure it is a good one before you buy the software and you can take care of two concerns at once.
Mailing List Manager
Ideally, you want one that will allow you to maintain separate lists. This is helpful in several scenarios:
- You can create an opt-in listing for prospects. With this feature, your members can suggest email addresses of their friends that they think would be interested in the site.
- You can maintain mailing lists for several levels of membership. If your site functions with a free limited
membership, then two or three levels of paid memberships, you want to house a list for each level. This allows you to send out periodic promotion emails that are targeted to each level in your membership base. - If you go with affiliates as a way to build up your membership, you can also create a mailing list just for the
affiliates. This can come in very handy. - An opt-in newsletter list is also a good idea. That list can be composed of members from any membership level. They just have to let you know they want to be included in the mailing.
Regular Publishing Schedules
The people who have paid to join your membership site depend on you to provide relevant and timely information. It is their right to expect that information to be updated on a regular basis because they may be depending upon it to make decisions. When a person joins your membership site they should be told what your publishing schedule will be so that they know when they can expect to get fresh information. Adhering to that announced schedule is vitally important.
Deciding what your publishing schedule will be for your website is important. Keep in mind the kind of information you will be supplying to your membership. Information that changes hourly will require a RSS feed. Information that needs to up-dated on a daily basis will most likely require a content management system. For weekly publishing of content, you can do that yourself but a content management system can make it a lot easier.
When you are planning your newsletter, you need to decide how often your ezine or newsletter will be sent out to your subscribers. Basically, you need to create a schedule and stick with it. But how often should you publish? How much is too much and how often is not enough? When it comes to frequency, the usual choices are daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.
Daily - that means 365 newsletters a year. You could wear out your welcome even with your most devoted members.
Weekly - that is still a lot of work…52 letters a year…a little over 4 a month. Would your members appreciate that much mail from you?
Bi-weekly - Publishing an e-zine twice a month is just often enough to keep you fresh in your subscribers' minds but not so often that they become annoyed with you.
Monthly - doesn’t seem often enough. Your members may forget about you and where your website lives on the Internet.
Conclusion
Owning and operating your own membership site opens up a great deal of potential for you. There is the chance to do something you enjoy while also devoting time to a subject that you care about. Best of all, you can make a lot of money and have time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do.
Just remember that your site needs to be a great one. It has to offer something that is not offered by everyone else. And you have to market it properly or you will never attract members. Spend some time today finding resources that will help you make the best membership site in your hungry market. You could be up and running in less time than you think.
Additional Resources
Multiple Membership Site Script
Instant Membership Site Software
Controversial Memberships (free ebook -instant download)
Membership Site Profits (free ebook -instant download)
Okay, that's today's home business idea. If starting a memership site is something you might like to do, I wish you all the best. And as always, don't forget to have fun building and running your business.
Until tomorrow,
Terry
