Desktop Publishing
How Do I Make Money Online Part II
Membership and Subscription sites are an excellent way to make money online. The way they work is that you create “premium” content, such as tutorials, training guides, downloads, and/or exclusive news/info and charge for access to your content. The object is to get as many members as possible to join your Website. The more people that join and remain members, the more money you can make!
Membership and Subscription sites are an excellent way to make money online. The way they work is that you create “premium” content, such as tutorials, training guides, downloads, and/or exclusive news/info and charge for access to your content. The object is to get as many members as possible to join your Website. The more people that join and remain members, the more money you can make!
How Do I Get People To Join my Membership Site?
The main challenge is to entice people to join your site. There are a few common ways that most Membership/Subscription site owners pull this off. Here are some of the most popular methods:
Method 1: The Upsell Approach
You offer a “free” version of the membership site with limited access, and offer the option to upgrade to receive access to all the “premium” content.
Method 2: The Straightforward Approach
No access unless they pay upfront!
Method 3: The Sales Letter
You create a one page sales letter that explain why people should join your site. You can use text, videos, and testimonials to convince your prospects to join your site.
Method 4: The “Free” Tour
This is most often used by Adult Websites. You create a convincing “teaser” presentation of your best content to entice users to join.
Method 5: The Mailing List
This when you have grown a mailing list to promote affiliate offers to. You simply send them an email announcing your “latest and greatest” membership system.
Method 6: Affiliate Marketing
This is when you create an affiliate program that gives other affiliates a share of the profit for every new subscriber that they refer. This is actually a very popular approach and works very well when you limit the number of people who can join the membership site. Scarcity creates the perception of value.
You'll Have Unlimited Money Making Potential!
The beauty of Membership and Subscription sites is that you only create your content ONCE but can sell an unlimited amount of memberships. The key is so create content that is so compelling that people will want to pay for it.
That entails providing value – constant updates, and exclusive information that your audience won't be able to get elsewhere. The minute your content gets stale is the day you start losing members!
That entails providing value – constant updates, and exclusive information that your audience won't be able to get elsewhere. The minute your content gets stale is the day you start losing members!
What kind of Membership Site Software do I need to start a Membership Site?
There are a ton of membership site software on the market that range from free to thousands of dollars.
Here's a quick list of some of the one's that I've used and are working pretty good for me:
Joomla Membership Extensions
Joomla Membership Extensions
- OSE Membership Control (with JomSocial or Community Builder)
- AMBRA Subscriptions
- JUGA – Joomla User Group Access
Wordpress Membership Extensions
- Wishlist member
- aMember
- Wordpress Drip
- Digital Access Pass
Standalone Membership Web Software
- PHPMembers
Disclaimer:
Most of them are NOT free but the return on your investment is worth the cost by far.
Explaining the Different Types of Membership Sites
I'll now go into the different kinds of Membership sites to give you an idea of the kind of Membership site that you could potentially create.
Exclusive News Site
A news site could cover exclusive news and information not available to the general public. An example of this is the site PWInsider.Com, that provides inside information and storyline spoilers about Pro Wrestling. The owners of the site know many wrestlers in the industry, and get the inside scoop about upcoming storylines and gossip before the information is publicly available.
They in turn sell this information to their readers in the form of podcasts and blog posts if they subscribe to their “premium” membership subscription. It seems to be working pretty well for them, because they have three full-time writers who work exclusively for the site!
They in turn sell this information to their readers in the form of podcasts and blog posts if they subscribe to their “premium” membership subscription. It seems to be working pretty well for them, because they have three full-time writers who work exclusively for the site!
Special Interest
A special interest membership site is a site that is built around a hobby or niche. An example would be a cooking website that provided video cooking tutorials, a recipe of the day, and cooking tips. Imagine if you launched a Rachel Ray style video blog, and offered exclusive time-saving cooking techniques and recipes for working moms? You could charge a very low amount ($4.95 a month for example) and promote it to all the career women you know and target working women via Facebook ads. You could call it “15 Minutes Meals for Moms” and get busy! The opportunity is there, will you take it?
Tutorials, Guides and Systems
This happens to be a VERY popular membership site category. The way this works is you create a tutorial, guide or simple system to learn how to perform a task. Its basically educational courses. You would take a complex system and break it down into easily digestible and hopefully entertaining courses that would educate your subscribers. Some notable examples of this are John Reese's OutSource Force or Ian Fernando's Infinite Facebook Guide.
You are telling your prospects that by subscribing to your “course” that they will be able to master the subject matter more easily. The only downside here is that if your subscriber doesn't learn the subject matter as well as promised or don't get the results they expect you can get a negative backlash against you. Your best best is offering a money back guarantee here, which also leaves you open to exploitation by unscrupulous people.
You are telling your prospects that by subscribing to your “course” that they will be able to master the subject matter more easily. The only downside here is that if your subscriber doesn't learn the subject matter as well as promised or don't get the results they expect you can get a negative backlash against you. Your best best is offering a money back guarantee here, which also leaves you open to exploitation by unscrupulous people.
Scarcity Creates the Perception of Value
People generally respond faster to deadlines, and perceive things to have more value when they are in limited supply. You can use this to your advantage with your membership / subscription site. Rather than offering and “open” registration opportunities, you could limit the amount of people that can register and limit the “open “ registration period. This will drive people to sign up quicker because they won't want to miss out on the “opportunity” of becoming a member of your site. You could limit membership to the first 50 people to sign up, or leave registration open for a limited time, like a one week period. You can do either or both!
You can tell your prospects that you don't know when you'll be accepting new registrations so they better sign up now! This will push those on the fence to act faster than if they had an unlimited amount of time to sign up. Be careful, because it could also backfire and leave you with very few registrations, if you don't get the response you where looking within the timeframe you have laid out!
In closing...
Hopefully I've given you a good starting point to get started with your Membership site. There are a ton of free and paid resources available out there that can be found by doing a simple Google search for “Membership sites”. Believe it or not, there are a ton of membership site courses on how to create your own membership site! These guys are making money with their own Membership Sites by teaching others how to create Membership sites, there's a lot of irony there. Be sure to read part three of this series tomorrow where I'll show you how you can make money online by Blogging!
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