4 Membership Sites Facts Every Marketer Should Know

Running a membership site is a dream for many internet marketer and entrepreneur hopefuls out there. The dream of having a sustainable monthly income coming from a number of members who thirst for the content you give out to them.

The sheer number of membership sites out there might seem crushing at first, and you might think that you could never compete with the existing sites holding massive amounts of members in their books.

However, what you must realize is that while not every membership site can become successful and filled with actively participating members, there’s still room for more quality sites out there.

Even if you feel like you’re not ready to take on the challenge of running a membership based site, keep in mind what Ali Luke’s first tip in her Copyblogger article says: “You’ll never be completely ready. Start it anyway.”

1. Engaging with your community is super important

The first fact you need to grasp and memorize is that people subscribe to membership sites to receive their money’s worth of engagement and education.

Even if your content is absolutely brilliant you still need to engage with your subscribers, show them your personal gratitude for being your loyal fans and subscribers by conversing with them and helping them out with their questions and problems.

A good way to handle a lot of engagement from your community at once is a Q&A session, or if you prefer the Reddit version if this, an Ask Me Anything session.

During that specific time slot you’ll be answering questions your subscribers have submitted beforehand or that they’ll come up with during your AMA session.

Depending on the number of subscribers on your site, you should figure out what type of session suits your purposes best.

(A survey works great for finding this type of information out, whether it be via email or within an associated Facebook Group)

For a small subscriber base an AMA might not be as active as it would for a massive Reddit audience, but then again, if your subscribers are extremely loyal and love conversing with you and each other, go for it!

2. Variety Is Always A Good Thing

Selling a membership subscription is already difficult enough, don’t make it more so by only offering certain types of content.

There are numerous different ways in which you can educate your audience while keeping them entertained and interested.

If the main selling point of your membership site is an awesome collection of eBooks about fly fishing, why not make a video tutorial about it?

Another interesting and exciting form of content for your audience could be reviews of different products and your recommendation for beginners and more advanced fly fishers.

Whether you make the reviews on video or in writing, affiliate income is an added bonus opportunity with this type of content if you register with established partners who are already in the industry.

You could also spice up your offerings by setting up a shop on your site, where your subscribers would receive an extra discount, and insight information about the product, which means they can watch or read your review about said product.

The discount should do the trick, and you’ll get the sale as well as a satisfied and happy subscriber who’ll love staying with you for years to come.

Podcasts and webinars have also gained a lot of attention and popularity, which makes them the perfect addition to your membership site.

A live webinar that allows the users to comment and ask questions is the perfect platform for improving your relationship to the subscribers as well.

You could also invite other experts in your niche, such as a famous fly fisher, to join in on your webinar or podcast and share their experiences and thoughts on the subject.

What makes this really fun is when you start to re-purpose your content.

By recording a video, this then gives you an audio clip you can use and means it can also be transcribed into a PDF if your members are more of the ‘reading’ type.

3. Understanding The Concept “Barrier to entry”

For those of us who know a thing or two about economics the concept barrier to entry is a familiar one.

In fact, we secretly cherish the fact we understand it, because it can be used as the backbone for pricing literally anything.

Especially subscriptions.

The term originates from the idea of having a barrier preventing you to enter a certain market, for example the cost is a barrier preventing nearly everybody from entering into the market of commercial aircraft manufacturing, with the added barrier of having extremely strong competitors.

When used here, in the context of internet marketing and more specifically membership sites, what I mean by it is don’t price yourself out.

An interested visitor might really wish to subscribe to your service, but if you try to charge them 100$ per month, the odds are really stacked against you when they make their decision about it if you’re targeting the general market.

You might argue that 10 members paying you 100$ per month is more profitable than 50 clients paying 14.95$ per month, and I won’t argue with that.

But, imagine yourself as the subscriber, would you pay 100$ per month for longer than the first few months?

There’s no right or wrong answer to selling a high ticket or low ticket membership site as each membership site has their own specific target market.

There’s membership sites (some just Facebook groups) which are charging anywhere from $37 to $97 a month with thousands of members, while there’s also a market for premium workshops and programs at $3,000-$10,000.

There’s even some markets where you only want mastermind clients which charge upwards of $50,000+ per year!

So it really depends.

Other comforting features and offers include money back guarantees and free or cheap trial offers, which can really help improve your membership subscription numbers.

Yaro Starak even suggests that a membership site without a never ending recurring monthly fee would do worse in comparison to a site with six months of recurring payments, after which the subscriber is allowed access to the content for free forever.

He uses this very subscription model for his own membership sites.

4. It’s Never Really Set and Forget

Yes I know many of you dream about truly passive income and I’m sorry to say this, but it just won’t happen that way with membership sites.

People have opinions, wishes and ideas about your membership site and how you could improve it.

Listen to those thoughts, because they’re the ones paying for it.

Word of mouth is a strong sales point for a membership site, as a friend’s or family member’s recommendation is much stronger than that of a random testimonial on your membership site.

One of the easiest ways to convince people to recommend your subscription site to others is by making them happy, and what would make them happier than showing them you actually listen to them and care about them?

I mean, it’s a given you’re delivering value in your site so if they come out with a glowing recommendation of your service, you really can’t go wrong.

Adapt to your members’ wishes, not by doing everything they say, but instead try measuring their engagement levels, looking at the most popular suggestions and actually communicating with them about the different ideas, whether good or bad.

It was Henry Ford who said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

So make sure to keep a balance between getting feedback and following your vision.

Also, don’t get stuck with an idea that you think is awesome but none of your members seem to be excited about it, because that idea probably isn’t so great after all.

Membership sites, as well as all the other website types, require constant care and affection on their part, maybe even more so than a blog.

You really need to put your back into it, but the pay-out could be very handsome at the end of the day.

So what have we learned today?

After these four facts, and hopefully memorizing them, you are ready to face the fierce difficulties and obstacles that membership site owners face and confront each and every day, all over the world.

Remember to be there for your members, communicate with them and be open about the future of your site.

Carefully consider the pricing structure, and think about the possibility of losing members without careful planning.

It won’t be easy from the start. It’ll take work.

ClickFunnels has given you the tools to build your membership site, now all you need is to implement.

However, you mustn’t dwell in fear, get started as soon as you think you’re even somewhat ready, because you’ll never truly be ready.

If you’ve already owned and/or operated membership sites before, I’d love to hear your comments about the different difficulties and obstacles you might have faced, but also the positive sides of running a membership site!

And naturally, if you are like most of us, you’ve signed up to at least one subscription site (other than Netflix) I’d love to hear about your experience.

What did you like about the site and what could have used some improvement? Be sure to drop me a line in the comments below!

ClickFunnels Action Steps

It’s very easy to create a membership funnel with ClickFunnels. To show you just how easy initial set-up is, check out this walkthrough.

How to Set Up a Membership Funnel

Step 1: Log in to your ClickFunnels account.

Step 2: Click Add New Funnel on your dashboard

Step 3: Create your new funnel accordingly

1. Choose Collect Emails if you want to create an opt-in funnel

2. Choose Sell Your Product if you want to create a sales funnel

3. Choose Host Webinar if you want to create a webinar registration funnel

4. Choose Create a Custom Funnel if you want to create a funnel with a custom layout

Your membership funnel can start with an email opt-in or a subscription depending on whether membership is free or if members need to pay a premium for the membership. In this example, we’ll use Collect Emails type.

Step 4: Choose among the pre-made templates or create your own layout for the pages.

Step 5: Add elements to the Sign Up Page.

Step 6: Add elements to the Membership Access page.

Step 7: Add elements and content to the Membership Area page.

1. Click Add New Lesson Section to create sections or chapters

2. Click Add New Lesson to create new pages for lessons

Step 8: Add a new lesson section and enter the name of the section and set if the particular section requires products or subscriptions to be purchased before access.

Step 8: Add a new lesson and enter the following information:

1. The lesson section it will be under.

2. The name of the lesson.

3. The template to be used for the lesson. (optional)

4. The number of days before the lesson will be available.  (optional)