Grow Your Online Business with a Membership Site!
Are you a creator, coach, or solopreneur looking to unlock the potential of your business? It's undeniable that having a membership site can be an incredible source of recurring income – but the task of getting one up and running can seem overwhelming…
Fear not, because this blog post will discuss what a membership site is, how to start one, and what makes it successful. From product offerings and pricing strategies to building an online community and finding the right membership site software, you'll find everything you need to know here.
So get ready, get set – let's go ahead and take the plunge into creating your very own memberships site!
What is a Membership Site?
A membership site is an online space where your host your membership programs. It's a place where your clients gain access to content and resources by paying a subscription. A membership is a popular business model for creators who want to give their students and clients access to content and community in an ongoing capacity.
Your membership site should have a way to take payments, an online community, programmed emails for events, and daily community digests. Additionally, it should be simple for your clients to navigate so they can easily find what they need.
As an added bonus, your membership site should also allow you to create multiple types of products, such as an on-demand library, courses, and individual coaching (more on that a little later).
With the right platform, content, payment options, and promotion strategy in place, you can create a successful membership site that will bring you predictable, recurring revenue.
How to Start a Membership Site?
When deciding on a platform for your membership site, it's important to find one that meets your needs, offers easy navigation for you and your clients, plus has good customer service and technical support. You want something user-friendly, visually appealing, and reliable. This is why we created Marvelous!
Creating Content for Your Membership Site
Once you make the bold decision to build a membership, it's natural to have big plans for content-filled sites that will draw in potential clients. But don’t forget–you can kickstart your success with small steps! And the first step is a process we call sleuthing.
Sleuthing is our signature process for market research. It’s an essential step in understanding the pain points of your quintessential client and how they want to work with you. You want to find out what type of content they are looking for (i.e., do they prefer video over audio?) and what their pain points are that could possibly be solved by your membership.
Choosing the Right Platform for Your Membership
Making a membership site does not have to be hard. You simply need to find the right software. The best platform for a membership program depends on the type of content you are offering, your budget, and how much customization you’re looking for.
For most creators, Marvelous is an ideal choice because it has specifically designed features, like tools to make landing pages, send customized emails, create playlists, s student dashboard, and it integrates with payment gateways and Zoom. Plus, with a few clicks, you can create an integrated community group, complete with chat rooms and direct messaging.
Setting up Payment Options for Your Members
After setting up all of the content on your membership, it’s time to think about how people will pay for access.
On Marvelous, you can use PayPal or Stripe for single-step sign-up and credit card information entry or subscription models with monthly, quarterly, or annual payments to suit members' budgeting preferences.
What to Offer in a Membership?
Memberships can be built around any kind of structure that you’d like, from exclusive content and resources to personalized support and coaching services. You can have a membership that’s comprised of strictly on-demand content, one that includes zero pre-recorded content, or one that’s a hybrid of live coaching and on-demand classes. If you can dream up a membership structure, chances are that there’s a way to build it on Marvelous!
Exclusive Content and Resources
Offering exclusive content can be a great way to attract members. This could include access to e-books, templates, videos, or audio recordings that are only available through your membership. Offering supplementary materials, such as bundling your membership with online courses or one-to-one coaching, is a great way to draw in members.
Access to Community and Networking Opportunities
A key element of any successful membership site is providing members with an opportunity for networking and community building. Allowing members to interact and connect on topics of mutual interest can help establish a sense of community while also cultivating client loyalty.
Special Discounts and Deals
Offering discounts on products or services associated with your membership can be an effective way of increasing engagement among current members while attracting new ones at the same time. For example, you could offer discounted rates to all members on your one-on-one sessions.
What Makes a Successful Membership Site?
Creating a successful membership site requires more than just setting up the platform and adding content. You need to establish an environment that is immersive and attractive enough to keep people subscribed. This takes a lot of planning and hard work, as well as having a good understanding of what your members actually want.
Regular Updates and Communication
Keeping members informed about new developments in your membership is essential if you want them to stay engaged over time.
Sending out regular emails about upcoming events or changes helps ensure that everyone stays in the loop, so they don’t miss out on any important news or updates related to their membership benefits.
Additionally, responding promptly when someone has questions or needs assistance shows clients that you value their feedback.
When setting up pricing plans for your membership site, it is important that everything is laid out clearly so there isn't any confusion regarding costs associated with different levels of access available in the membership.
Offering various payment methods will give your clients flexibility when deciding how they would like to pay while ensuring secure transactions occur each time someone purchases something from your site.
Beautiful, User-friendly Design and Navigation
A well-designed online membership platform makes it easy for clients to find what they’re looking for quickly (without having to search through multiple pages or menus).
Marvelous is not only visually stunning, but it’s also easy to use for both you and your students. There are drop-down menus and quick links to a student dashboard, community, notifications, and direct messages. This makes it easy for your members to find what they need without being overwhelmed by too many choices.
Membership Site Examples on Marvelous
Marvelous has empowered our clients to make over $43m in revenue. Our platform helps creators build and sell courses, memberships, and live-streamed programs.
An example of a beautiful membership site on Marvelous is SheeRevival which describes itself as "A space for you to find all the tools you need to RE-ALIGN to your Inner Knowing & come into RELATIONSHIP with your Wellness."
How to Launch a Membership
Contrary to popular belief, most memberships should not be open all year round. We recommend that you open and close a membership like you would a course.
When launching your membership, you should consider the following strategies:
Beta Testing: Reach out to the people you did your research with and ask them to join your membership for a discounted rate. They will be your founding members who will test out the membership for you. Part of this will be for them to provide you with feedback so that you can make improvements based on their suggestions.
Choose a start date for your membership: You want to promote your membership for a few weeks before you start delivering your membership. Choose the date that your first cohort of members will get access to the material and work back from that date. When working backward, you can figure out when to open the shopping cart for purchases and when to close the shopping cart a day. Typically you close it a day or two before the membership start date.
Offer free content during the promotional period: Creating a few free pieces of content on the lead-up to the cart open date will give your ideal audience a preview of what to expect from your membership. This builds buzz and increases interest. You could also consider running a multi-day challenge, a live webinar, a Q&A session, or promoting an Ultimate Guide to ... in PDF that is available the day before the cart opens (or a few days prior if offering a multi-day challenge). This is an excellent way to build excitement and encourage purchases.
If you want to learn more about how to launch online, read our articles How to Grow Your Business With an Online Launch and 5 Key Steps to a Successful Digital Product Launch.
How to Price a Membership
Time and time again, we’re asked what’s the "right" price for a Membership. Truth be told, it comes down to knowing the value you're providing your clients.
If you've spent the time on your sleuthing process, you will have identified your quintessential clients' pain points, learning styles, and other key pieces of knowledge that helped you to create the ideal membership program for them.
We pulled together 4 Tips for Deciding Your Online Membership Pricing to help you work out what price your membership should be.
Final Thoughts
Starting a membership site can be an incredibly rewarding experience. To be successful, you must think about what your student’s needs are, how your membership will meet them, the cost of access, and how to both retain and draw in new members. With some hard work and dedication, your membership site could become a thriving online business that generates passive income for you for years to come.
We invite you to build and grow your online business with Marvelous. Our beautiful platform provides the tools you need to create and manage successful membership sites, courses, events, communities, and coaching programs.
