Making Money with Membership Web Sites
You will want to be well informed and careful (utilizing some strong research) before you start working on making money with a membership web site. So please do your research before jumping in to this business opportunity.
Don’t want to read all this? Listen to or download this free audio interview that walks you through membership website success!
On the other hand, managing a membership website can be a very lucrative online business (where you can make quite a lot of easy money) once you have the pieces in place of your membership based website.
All the initial work (defining a strategy, choosing a lucrative market, keeping an eye on competition) will be worth your trouble. And if you pick a topic you are passionate about the ‘work’ involved will be more fun than effort.
The main caveat is that many of the membership web sites are little more than a big pile of re-distributed content that can be found for free in many other places on the net. You don’t want that – you’ll want to offer your paid subscribers quality information, products and services that they simply can’t get elsewhere.
Finding Content, Products and Services for Your Membership Web Site
Anybody can spend a day online now finding a bunch of free reports and software to give away, and many of these types of web sites now exist for the internet marketing crowd. But you’ll be a step ahead of the trend if you steer away from the rabid ‘make money online’ surfers and dedicate your membership site and time into the wide variety of popular niches easily defined and discovered with some research.
On the other hand, if you do have an internet marketing related idea that is original or of phenomenal value to website owners and you can write a spectacular sales letter, you may just have begun your trek to fun and easy money.
How to Ensure Success with Your Subscription Based Site
The key is to find that unique edge that blows away any other subscription based sites available for your target market. If you look like just another site with the same info, you probably will not make many sales! Be one better than the current best and you’ll see sales, renewals for subscriptions and your income grow.
Most subscription based web sites are somewhat of a resource, which can be good. People don’t mind paying someone to save their valuable time. If you have all of the resources about a certain subject in an uncluttered fashion, and give some unique info about it (cheat sheets, strategies, reviews), then they won’t mind one bit paying you for it.
The Value Points of A Successful Membership Website
Let’s have a look at a very successful membership site to use as a guide – The Internet Marketing Warriors. When I first looked at the warriors it had a lot of mail order information and resources, a few software programs, and a few fresh and inspiring reports written by the owner Allen Says.
This paid membership web site originally had a 2 tier affiliate program, a great sales letter that was hard to say ‘no’ to, and a 2 page website that focused solely on one product -your subscription.
Since then Allen has added more reports, helpful software that he bought the rights to, insightful e-books that he bought the rights to, and a few other services helpful to the internet marketing crowd.
The point is, is that he had a few key elements in place that made his site successful.
- It was unique because he was one of the first people online to come out with a site like this (there are hundreds now).
- By the time there were hundreds of competitors for him, he already had a huge affiliate network, so he was getting much more exposure than any new ‘up-and-comer’.
- His site was focused on one thing and one thing only. Allen calls the membership website a “Buy, Bookmark, or Leave” site. This means that those are the only three things a visitor could do. There is no clicking or surfing, reading free stuff, downloading reports, etc. without a membership. You either pay, bookmark to return later and pay, or leave.
- Allen had an excellent sales letter that converted visitors into subscribers by the hundreds, day after day.
- The price for the value was incredibly reasonable (at the time, it was $39).
So with all of these factors into play – uniqueness, a great sales letter, and a strong affiliate network – Allen’s membership web site grew to be an extremely successful website. He has since moved onto other ventures – the first of which was web hosting. He used his membership site affiliates to promote the hosting sales (a win-win for both the owner, the customers and the affiliates). It took off like gangbusters!
The only thing that was missing from his strategy back then was a strong back-end sale marketing system. He likely would have doubled his income if he sold a back-end product for twice the price of his membership product.
The Biggest Hurdle to Making Money With Membership Web Sites
In closing just let me reiterate here:
When creating a membership site, you have to be different than everybody else. Many new online money seekers who started out with a membership idea didn’t do the research or ground work before they started their subscription based web site. If you’re unique, serving a viable market with little competition, and you give great value for the price, you should do well. Just remember most of the work is in the beginning, get over that hump and the rest should be smooth sailing.
A big key to success is to learn from other people’s mistakes. Don’t re-create them.
At 123webs.com you will find an inexpensive membership website and marketing ebook available for sale. This will give you a head start in launching your own membership website.
Find it here: membership website setup, profit, and management.
Another facet to running a membership website you will have to consider is the software – the backend script that manages your users, payments. These scripts are often expensive. The less expensive ones are known for being full of scripting bugs and errors and light on the features.
Just recently a new script has been developed that is full featured, reasonably priced, and operates as a plug-in to WordPress. (WordPress is an easy to use content management script, widely known and supported by a variety of tutorial sites and marketers.)
