For decades since internet marketing started, membership sites are perceived as goldmines of profiting massively in the quickest time possible. And the reason why is because you do the work once as an owner and get paid over and over again by people who are interested and want to continue learning from you. Or they like to use the resources and tools continuously since they needed them to run their own online business.
The question is despite knowing that membership sites are the best and fastest ways to earn, why do so many people procrastinate on having their own? The most common reasons I discovered are from their feedback in surveys are they are not technical. They have no idea how to build a website let alone membership. And moreover it involves a lot of work and time which is true since you have to provide value in the form of content, tools and resources continuously to those who wish to stay on as members. Even if there are free ones like Mark Ling's AffiloBlueprint, the same principles apply since most marketers not only want to make more sales but getting more leads as well. Because to them and myself as well, every subscriber is worth a dollar and every paying customer is worth two dollars and more depending on what they buy.
The way I see it, building memberships do not have to be that hard. You just have to signed up for courses on those, learn and implement and then you are good to go.Over the past 9 years since I began my internet marketing journey, I have invested into numerous membership courses. Besides AffiloBlueprint, I have access to Omar Martin's My Unfair Advantage, Adam Short's Niche Classroom and AmaSuite by Dave Guindon and Chris Guthrie. They all consisted of a set of 20-40 video tutorials, PDF manuals and software applications and other resources.
Although there are many themes on building membership courses, the one I have and been using for the past 5 years is Optimize Press. Designed and founded by James Dyson from UK, it is designed for building blogs, landing pages, salespages and membership sites. It is also the costliest but in terms of quality and customer support, they are among the best. Having learn and implemented what they teach in their video tutorials, I have build many landing pages, salesletters and membership sites in multiple niches. Besides internet marketing, I have other topics like health, personal development and technology.
So with that said, how do you build a membership site?
It might surprise you if I tell you the answer.
Which is -
You don't start out building a membership site.
Instead you began by finding a profitable niche.
As in forums and Facebook groups which you can search on related to what you are interested in or having problems but managed to overcome them.
Then what you need is to get connected to those groups of people as in introducing yourself and getting to know, build rapport and understand them as how you normally make friends. Find out their interests, challenges, strengths and weaknesses before compiling them into your notepad. And then from those, more or less you know what they are looking for.
I hear many people talking about finding, knowing and targeting your market first before starting any business. Which is true. And in internet business, those I mentioned above are those markets.
Then use those points you compiled them and write a series of articles on those. Then put them together into Microsoft Word or Open Office before saving them as PDF e-book.
Once I have done that, the next thing I will proceed is copying and pasting the content from those articles into power point slides. At the same time, I will sign up for the 30 day trial of Camtasia Studio to do and produce video recordings simply by reading from and adding more stuff to those slides.
When it comes to videos, there are two ways you can go about. The first is a straight 10-20 video series which will be best for low to middle-priced online courses. But if you are looking into high priced coaching programs, I will recommend 10-20 modules with each module covering a series of another 10-20 videos. The first module can be about niche and keyword research while the second and third touches on finding profitable affiliate programs and creating engaging content etc.
Once I got the PDF guide and videos done, I will add in other bonuses as resources. It can be interviews with other experts in the same niche, software tools and additional PDF and video series.
When it comes to building the site itself, I will touch on building optin pages, sales offers and membership sites from Optimize Press. Instead of using posts, I will focus more on pages and do certain settings and add plugins to enhance the look and use of the membership site.
I will also add menu on top to allow customers to find what they want quickly and easily.It will comprise of Home, Guides, Videos, Resources, Affiliates and Contact Us Page. Under Videos, there will be more pages with each dedicated to one video on one particular topic.
Finally I will buy Wishlist Members to allow certain customers in with their username and password which they will receive via email and redirection after signing up from the registration page they will be directed to after securing their copy.
In terms of pricing, members can choose to pay monthly and yearly. They can also cancel anytime if they do not wish to continue as members.
Finally I I will invite them to join my Facebook community group in which they can interact with one another and even do Joint Venture business deals.
Amuro Wesley has been marketing online for close to 9 years since starting in 2008 part-time and doing this full-time in 2010.
By promoting other people's products as well as his own.
For more tips and strategies, feel free to check out his blog at http://www.amurowesley.com and latest course at http://www.amurowesley.com/membership-authority-builder
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