There are many ways to earn money online, and membership sites are a favorite of many marketers. With a membership site, you can offer content, products, or services only to people who have paid to get access to the site, and it will involve recurring payments for the site to remain active.
There are many reasons to start a membership site, but it’s essential to take a balanced look at the subject because there are some challenges to running a membership website too.
The Pros
1. Recurring Income
The best reason to start a membership site is the ongoing revenue. Instead of selling an item and getting a one-time payment from a customer, if you start a successful membership site, you’ll get paid every month or year as long as the customer remains active.
If customers have a convincing reason to keep their membership active and keep paying those fees, the value of the average customer will be high.
2. Predictability of Income
Membership sites provide a great level of stability of income. As the site grows and you build a solid base of paying customers, you can calculate stats like your retention rate. This will give you a good idea of how long the average customer will remain active.
Also, you can calculate the average number of new customers that sign up through you per month. This information will help you predict how much revenue you can generate month to month from the site.
3. High Value of Each Member
The fees members pay vary from one membership site to another depending on what members are gaining. But a site that keeps a customer for about a year will earn more revenue per member than would be possible selling the same product with a one-time fee.
The best way to increase your income through membership is to focus on increasing the amount you earn from each member, instead of trying to bring in more new members. A membership site makes this possible through the retention of paying customers and by getting them to upgrade to higher-cost membership levels.
The Cons
1. People Don’t Like Signing Up for Recurring Payments
Some people don’t want to sign up for ongoing payments. Yes, it’s true that customers will sign up for an ongoing payment in the right situation. So the offer needs to be compelling and you need to make them see the benefit of joining that membership site.
2. Getting Started Can Be Difficult
If you start a membership website and you don’t have an established audience, it’s challenging to earn significant revenue. Establishing a solid base of paying members will be difficult and growth during the first year will be slow. But, don’t give up. Nothing worth having comes easy!
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