A membership site is basically just a website that has a members’ area. In other words, the visitors to your web site would have to register in order to access the content reserved exclusively for members. If you have already been dabbling in internet marketing, that light bulb in your brain should already have flickered on. When someone gives you their name and an email address, they are opting in to receive your content via email or web site visits. Through a membership page, you can also allow the members to subscribe to exclusive social media content. (The light bulb is getting brighter, isn’t it?)
Your membership site can be free, paid, or both. The power in having a membership site is the fact that you build a database of members that can be or are your customers. You have a bigger audience for your content, sale promotions, coupons, and other relative material. Once you have a good list of free memberships, you can offer a paid membership that offers your members even more value in product samples, informational products, and other incentives. The fees can be a one-time charge or a recurring charge for residual income. Either way, it’s a back-end source of residual income for your business.
You can also offer multiple levels of memberships. For example, you can have the free membership, a deluxe membership, and a premium membership. But for multi-tier memberships to work well, you have to be sure that you are offering products or services that are of value to your membership. If they are not getting what they perceive to be an excellent value for the price of a membership, they will cancel even the free one and not return.
If your site includes a membership area, tell us which platform you use and the success you are having with the list.
