A membership site is a website that can be accessed with a password. People usually pay a one time or monthly fee to become a member and gain access to the information inside. I think membership sites are a powerful way to generate an income online, and I’m hoping to get involved with this very soon.
Pros:
Immediately creates a sense of membership and community within the site.
Continuously updating and providing information in this way can guarantee that people will stick around and keep feeding you money each month.
As an owner and administrator of a membership site, you’re immediately seen as “the expert”. This is powerful because it can help you bring more members in, and also have the ability to easily sell things to the members you already have. (Although, you should never become too greedy!)
The payment system in a membership website, and is kind of a snowball effect. For instance, month one, you have 10 paying members. The next month, you gain 10 more paying members, for a total of 20 paying members.
Cons:
Creating a membership site definitely takes a lot of hard work, time, and effort. You want to make sure that you are able to give your members what they are paying for. If you don’t, they’ll feel betrayed and leave.
Again, it can be difficult to bring in members if you don’t have an established audience or reputation already. Some money may be needed to invest in marketing the membership website to be able to get it off the ground before it takes off.
Although money is generated automatically, you can’t just dissapear and leave the content static. It’s reassuring to the members if new there is new stuff available every once and a while, which is good because it decreases the potential number of cancellations.
How Money is Made:
Members will be charged a one-time lifetime fee or a monthly fee for access to the information on the site.
Helpful Links:
The Continuity Snowball at Continuityblueprint.com (warning: 30 minute video, but it’s worth it)
In addition to the methods above, you can also sell tools and templates, newsletters, audio or visual products, and learning methods.
As you can see, you have a lot of options to choose from. You can also combine two or more of the metods to create an even bigger resource for people – it’s really up to you and what you feel most comfortable with.
If you are in no rush to make money, I would recommend starting with a blog, building readership and trust, and then sell an ebook or start a membership program to take your informational marketing to the next level.
