Memberships sites are a great way to earn recurring revenue. You offer something and have people pay to access what you offer. You can offer newsletters, information, products or a pluthera of other ideas. And despite what you think, it is quite easy to start.
But before I start telling you HOW you can build a membership service, let me tell you why you want to: Recurring Income. Imagine if you will that you are an expert on polar bears. You know so much, you decided that you are going to write a monthly newsletter on polar bears. But you want to make money with this so you charge a monthly fee of $4.95 for people to access your newsletter. Now, not many people like polar bears enough to subscribe. But, there are people like you that live for polar bears. So you grow your list to about 500 people world wide. $4.95 x 500 = $2475.00. So basically, because there are 500 hundred people in the world who share your passion, you are pulling in close to $2500 a month, just for writing an indepth newsletter once a month on a subject you are passionate about.
Easy, right?
Now replace “polar bear” with whatever your passion is. Find a price. Find people to pay. And you are making money.
Now I am going to cover the different types of things you can offer with a membership:
- Newsletters: Newsletters are simple. You make them once a week, or once a month, or even once a year, depending on what you are writing about. My fitness newsletter goes out twice a month. If you have a subject that many people want and are interested in, you can charge more. You can also charge more if you send it out more often. If you send it out infrequently, and have a very niche topic, you may want to consider a smaller price tag. Check out the service at aweber to see how you can automate your newsletter.
- Website: Membership websites are the most common of the membership services. You have content or features on a website that is behind a portal. The only way to access the portal is to pay you a monthly (or yearly) subscription. The amount of content drives the price for these.
- Software Applications: If you are, or know a programmer, you can create different software applications and then charge a subscription fee for people to use them.
- Forums: Creating online forum boards for certain topics is another great way to make money. This can either be a one time access fee, or you can do the monthly subscription fee. Make sure before you charge you get plenty of postings up. No one wants to pay for access then have nothing to look at. Also, it isn’t a bad idea to offer a free section to tease people to sign up.
There are quite a few ways you can make your ideas into something like a membership. From custom applications to very basic ones, there is something for everyone. Here is a list of some of the better, more well known applications:
- Membergate: The rolls Royce of membership software. Easiest, most integrated, best staffed service you will use. But it is pricey. $4000-$30,000. Get a good following before you convert over.
- amember: A less expensive membership software, but still feature rich. Great if you are just getting started and want to get use to a great platform.
- Easy Member Pro: Another great, feature full platform.
- PHPmember: A script that you just lay in your website that creates a portal for payment before they can access your site.
- Vbulletin: This is THE software you need to use if you are going to run a forum board. It is by far, hands down, the best software you will use.
- Aweber: If you are going to the newsletter path, and you want to make any impact at all, you need to sign up for aweber. They are not that expensive considering the return, and they basically take care of everything for you. You can even pre-write everything and have them automatically go out when you set it to.