Starting A Membership Site For Profit
Starting A Membership Site For Profit
Now that I am in my second year of owning a membership site, I thought I'd share with you some of my experiences in case you ever consider starting your own. I can tell you first hand that it can be an excellent business model to use online. It is becoming more acceptible for internet users to consider joining a site which has specific content to their needs. While there is a tremendous amount of free information available online, many people (myself included) don't have the urge to surf endlessly to find good, quality content.
Less Noise
Another benefit is that a good membership site greatly helps to "filter out the noise" which can appear on free forums, where anyone is allowed to post. Those forums typically fill up with a lot of self promoting affiliate links or misinformation.
Proven Results
I have been lucky enough to attend some very good subscription web site related conferences lately. The results, when done right, can mean a tremendous amount of money to the site owners. Although I won't speak specifics, I have personally talked to one and two person operations who are pulling in multiple tens of thousands of dollars every month with their sites. Usually their monthly costs are very minimal. Sometimes as low as $50 - $70 a month... and their time investment of course. You don't necessarily have to start a new membership site. You can always start off with a small area of your site which you password protect and offer access to. Some of the excellent benefits of running a membership site:
- recurring billing - as members sign up, a majority of them are going to stay on month after month. You not only keep a lot of the ones you have, but you are adding more each month. The powerful and profitable effect is that you earn more each month you are online.
- it is easier than ever to get started - there are software solutions available that can have you up and running literally in a matter of days. This site is run by one of the most powerful ones available which significant automates every aspect of the site.
- people join multiple sites - don't think that just because a niche you are interested in is covered, that you are out of luck. Do it better, smarter and with more passion.
I'd like to share with you some of the lessons I've learned along the way. That will be in some upcoming articles. Even if you have a traditional online business (whatever that means!), you may want to pay attention. There are more ways to benefit from having a membership site in various forms, then you ever might have imagined. I believe so strongly in them that I am currently in the process of launching a second site. It is totally unrelated to this site's topic but covers a niche that I really enjoy... In the meantime, if you have any specific subscription site questions or comments you can send them to me here: http://www.smallbusinesswebsite.com/public/department6.cfm You are free to post them in the forum as well of course.
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