Posted by Have you got a membership site yet? If not, WHY not?
Maybe it’s because creating all the content forever and ever scares the bejeebers out of you. If so, I don’t really blame you.
Once you start a traditional type of membership site, you NEED more content all the time. ALL THE TIME. You’re continuously updating and adding and it can become rather time intensive.
But I’d like you to consider a slightly different kind of membership site.
Have you ever gotten one of those mailing inserts from Franklin Mint or Danbury Mint or one of those places that wants to sell you a ‘trinket subscription?’
For example, maybe they have these beautiful porcelain birds. Each month, they’ll send you a new bird. At month three, they also send you a shelf unit to hang on the wall to hold all your bird statues.
Then at the end of one year, you have all 12. The complete set! And it’s pretty and interesting and you lose interest and it collects dust.
Yeah, one of THOSE subscriptions.
I know a marketer – okay, I know SEVERAL marketers – who use a similar business model for their membership site.
First, they choose an evergreen niche. It can’t be something that’s always changing like Facebook advertising or SEO. It’s got to be something that stays pretty much the same year after year. Like health. Or dating. Or personal development. Or persuasion and sales techniques. Or…
There are ton of possibilities. Just keep your eyes and ears open for one week and write down every single idea that comes to mind.
After the week is up, choose the one you like that has plenty of people willing to spend money.
Now that you’ve got your topic, you’re going to create a simple PDF course with 52 modules. Yes, 52. But don’t worry, you only have to create 3 or 4 to get started.
Outline your 52 modules so you have a basic idea of what each one will cover.
Put together your membership site, along with software that drip feeds content each week.
Create PDF’s of the first few modules. Even if you just get 3 or 4 done before you launch, you’re going to be fine. Continue to create a new PDF each week, so that you stay ahead of your first subscribers.
Run your course over a year, with 52 weekly lessons. Why 52? Because testing shows subscribers will stay with you LONGER when there is an end in sight. When the membership is ‘open,’ meaning it never ends, they tend to drop out sooner.
Also, the idea here is to build your membership site ONCE and then continue to make nearly passive income for several years to come, or as long as you can.
Why PDF’s? Because they’re easier to upload and download than video. They’re easier to handle than video. People generally get more out of them.
Of course, not every topic lends itself to the written word, so choose accordingly.
Offer email support and even some personal 15 minute consultations to your subscribers. Only about 10-20% will ever ask for email support, and only maybe 10% will ask for the consultations.
But these can be a goldmine – when you’ve got them on Skype, you can always upsell them to your personal coaching program. Or not. It’s up to you.
Outsource the email support to someone else, so you don’t have to spend time on that. You might pay someone $1,000 a month to handle it for you.
The marketers I know who are using this model are averaging about $8,000 per site after expenses, including outsourcing support.
And that’s just for the monthly subscriptions, which are usually around $47.
They also promote products within the membership site and offer special deals that are exclusive to their members. And they offer paid coaching to the people who are interested enough to grab their included 15 minute Skype session.
These three things generally double their monthly income from their membership site.
Wait… you have a question, don’t you? You want to know how to get subscribers to your membership.
The usual ways. From your own list. From affiliates. From Facebook ads and so forth.
You might even offer a free version of your membership, one that lasts for 4 to 6 weeks and encourages them to sign up for the much bigger and infinitely more attractive PAID membership site with the truly great insider info and special perks.
And if you want to create scarcity to get people to sign up even faster, limit the number of subscribers you’ll take. 200 is a good number.
Or run special deals once a month where they get in for half price – $47 a month instead of $100.
As you see, all the usual marketing tactics and methods will work to get new subscribers. And because your membership is finite – it runs for one year – you’ll be surprised how many people will stick with you to the end, assuming your content is excellent.
This is such a simple, easy income model, I can’t understand why more marketers aren’t doing it.