Aug
25

Membership Site Benefits

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Membership Site What is it

A membership site is an electronic place for you to store and distribute your valuable content.  You control access to your content by putting it behind a “gate”.  Once the content is behind the gate only your members or subscribers can access it.  In most cases, this is done using password protection.  You can charge money for your membership site, it can be free or a combination of both.

Remember the days of paying a monthly fee to get a magazine?  In my family, it was Readers Digest.  An electronic membership site performs the same, it provides a select group of people with access to your content.

Benefits of a Membership Site

Loyal Customers

Your customers will have an easier time accessing your content. Make it easy for your customers! When our content is spread all over the web it makes it hard to consume.  One of my favorite benefits of a membership site is that it brings everything you have for the product in one place.  Once you have it all together it’s equally important to set up the flow of your content in a manner that is easy to access and consume. I personally have left memberships simply because the owner made it hard for me to access the information.

Develop Relationships

Make it easy for people to contact you and get their questions answered.  When you are helpful and assist them in consuming the content of your site you help them succeed.  Because we all go back to the people who help us succeed!  Answering questions, being available and encouraging success all contribute to the development of relationships.  I have stayed with one coach for years because he has everything I have ever purchased from him in one spot.  I only have to login once and everything is there.

Value-Focused on Your Niche

It’s easy to add value when you are focused on a highly specialized segment of an audience.  Most importantly, there is a greater chance for success when you cater to a unique niche.  It can also be very cost-effective to focus on a targetable part of the audience.  With the likes of Facebook ads, it can be relatively easy to target a small segment of a very large audience.  For example, if you are a personal development coach for older women you could target one of the many issues that are specific to older women such as sleep, bad bosses, grandchildren, and many more.

A Steady Flow of Income

Charging a fee, large or small for your membership site can work a couple of different ways.  One is you charge a one-time fee, this way you won’t be required to continuously add content.  Number two is to have a monthly fee.  Both of these strategies work, but they definitely require different tasks from you.  If you charge a one-time fee you will either have to create new products for people to buy on a consistent basis or invest your time driving new traffic to your membership site.  Initially do whatever is easiest for you.

Security for Your Valuable Content

Going to all the work of creating a valuable product only to find it available on the internet for free is extremely frustrating.  When you protect your content behind the password protection of a membership site you are decreasing the chances it will be posted for free. You limit your content to those who are willing to pay and find your information valuable. It will not totally stop this from happening, but the majority of people who purchase memberships are honest and trustworthy.

Leverage your expertise

The concept of one to many is not new, the more you leverage and engage your members the more they will get from your membership.  When you first set up a membership site my recommendation is to limit the membership.  With a limited membership, you are able to connect with each of your new members, help them consume the product, and become an advocate for your product(s).  When you add tons of people in at the very beginning you cannot provide the personal service.  Once you have your initial core people in they will help you find the bugs, provide ideas to enhance your product, and even ideas for new products.

Leverage button pointing x10 position with two fingers, blue and grey tones,

Automate It

This is my favorite benefit of a membership site.  It takes a little doing connecting all of the pieces that go together to automate your membership site but it is definitely worth it.  Once you have the site set up it’s a fairly easy task to add more products.  There are a number of tasks you’ll need to complete such as;

  1. Product Development
  2. Sales Pages
  3. Shopping Cart
  4. Autoresponder
  5. and many more

There is lots of software available that will make this job a lot easier!  After lots of research and playing around with different software I discovered one that is simple to use, easy to set up, and less expensive than most others.  JVZoo Membership Platform Take a peek!

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