Why a Membership Marketing Site
Membership Marketing sites are a good solid method to make a recurring stream of cash. Anyone with a WordPress Blog site can incorporate a membership area for sharing additional detailed instructional information or free products for members or for anything you wish to offer. For instance I have a membership site called Making Money on the Inter.net where I offer varied levels of membership for my Coaching Area which has everything from deciding if you want a website, how to build a WP website, how to get traffic, Search Engine Optimization Techniques, Free Products, Online Business Practices, Limited Liability Company (LLC), Legal Information you need on your site, site monetizing and a bunch of other stuff.
A membership website is an information website that offers content and products related to one niche or topic to a community of like minded individuals that share, learn and teach. Membership sites are one of the most profitable and successful business models around today. Most likely, you have come across many membership sites online without really taking notice.
Whatever title you choose to give them…membership, subscription, or members only sites, they all have one thing in common. They are bringing in a steady, reliable income for their owners. Membership sites are simply the best Internet business model available and a very, very hot trend in the world of information. A big benefit is that membership sites are user name and password protected and the content is available to members only.
Content can be presented through articles, pictures, video files, audio files, CD’s, DVD’s as well as digital downloads. Your membership site could contain course material, reviews, spreadsheets, surveys or the results of tests and studies.
For more detailed information on membership sites I suggest purchasing and studying an eBook written by Kathy Dobson called Crazy Cash Membership Sites. It is around 64 pages long and has no fluff. All detail and can even provide you good ideas you may wish to include on how to use a membership site.
Membership Marketing Site Options
- You can charge a monthly membership to get a recurring income if you choose.
- You can charge a yearly fee for a recurring annual income stream if you choose.
- You can charge a one time, lifetime membership fee if you choose.
- You can offer levels of access for a series of fee’s to the Membership Marketing site.
- You can use the entire site as a membership site or small portion(s) of the site.
If you add a Forum to your membership site, you can engage your members with monthly member challenges with prizes to the winner, or provide one on one guidance directly to your members.
Membership Marketing on the Cheap – WP Cash Cow
How cheap can you make this happen? For free if you have the knowledge to build it on your own. But if you need guidance with video instruction and what free tools to use, Matt Wolfe has a great product for a measly $27 called WP Cash Cow. I did a write up on WP Cash Cow on my Making Money on the Inter.net Website Blog.
I suggest this method if you are going to try out adding a membership area on your WordPress site. Once you follow Matt s instruction, loading and activating the plugins you can test with it and see what a membership site involves.
I should also mention that if you join Matt’s Learn To Blog Membership site to learn WordPress, Blogging techniques, Traffic Building, List building and Marketing techniques that there is a course based on his WP Cash Cow for building a membership site.
Membership Marketing – Jay’s Pick – WordPress eMEMBER
Although the WordPress eMEMBER plugin costs around $50 for an unlimited sites license. It is only one plugin that you download and then activate unlike several with WP Cash Cow. Setup is easy. Just follow the directions build into the plugin.
WordPress eMEMBER does just about everything you need in a membership plugin but at a much lower cost.
Trust me, WP eMember Membership Plugin is a great plugin for much less money than Wishlist Member ($297 unlimited license) that I actually use on my Making Money on the Inter.net site. I wish I would have found WP eMember before buying Wishlist Member.
This is a secure membership plugin meaning that it has user id and password protection and can also even protect downloads you want to share with your members. It does much more than this. Check out the details at WP eMember.
Membership Marketing – WishList Member
WishList Member is no doubt a great secure membership plugin. Like I said, I use it on one of my sites. The cost for one site license is $97 and the unlimited license is $297. Thinking that they may have lowered the cost due to the competition I verified the pricing today. I was really surprised to see no change in the price.
Price is very important to me. If I need to spend more money for the right product to accomplish things, I do not mind spending it. But if there is a comparable product for much less that does the job, I buy the one with the lessor cost because I always have new tools to buy.
Wishlist Member does everything that WordPress eMEMBER does, and loads just as easily. The set up process is a bit more tedious but still following the directions gets the job done.
Suggestion
While I prefer WordPress eMEMBER, I hope you take the time to follow the links to all three products and make you own assessment for your own needs. This is very important for any tool you purchase. Your business, your money, your decision.