Did you kill your Membership Site?
Recently I joined a number of membership sites. Sites which I have subscribed to a private members area to receive targetted information on a specific subject. I pay from $19.95 a month ro $397 a month for some of these sites. Here’s what really burns my butt… you would think that if a person is going to charge you monthly for their information, they would have a plan and a back end system to handle the disbursement of the information and a system in place to handle questions… NOT SO! Here’s what I found…
What I found was utterly shocking!
- No Back End System – Many times no backend system whatsoever. In fact one company, all I received was access to a message board with absolutely no instruction whatsoever.
- No Direction -. As I just stated, many of these sites promise to deliver a "system" to help you achieve success on a certain subject, but after you search and search, you find there is no STEP BY STEP plan left out. In fact, some of the companies even tell you up front they are not going to give you all the details. Stupid on their part and also made me unsubscribe immediately.
- No Automation – Some of these sites had a huge influx of orders and they didn’nt even know how to automate the process. This can be a real membership site killer if you don’t have understanding members.
- Lack of Information – The reason why someone would pay for a membership site is to receive new and updated information monthly. Why would a person continue to pay for their membership if there is nothing new to be updated on.
My urge to you is this… prior to releasing your membership site, simply be prepared. The idea is to retain as many members as possible each month. Certainly you won’t keep them all, but you can greatly reduce the number of dropouts by simply adhering to these simple ideas that I have mentioned above.
Hi Armand,
I’ve been a fan of yours for some time. You make some really fantastic products and I have been to and enjoyed your Big Seminars in the past.
As the owner of MemberScript, one of the leading membership softwares on the market, I fully agree with you.
Many times I actually try to discourage people that want to buy our software because they really don’t have a clue of how to present a viable site that will make a great and impactful contributtion to their members.
Great that you have a blog now–I’ll enjoy your sharings.—All the best, Dave
Hello, Armand
Congratulations on the blog site.
Please note, the navigation bars at the top of all of your blog pages are not active:Archives, Calendar, Articles, AM2Gold.
I look forward to returning and seeing what each of these site pages hold in store.
All the best,
H.L.
As I was starting my membership site, I found a site that is well worth the investment to teach people how to plan their membership site – it’s called MembershipSiteAdvisor.com
They have case studies, pdfs and many great articles of successful membership sites. They also give you great ideas for starting other profitable membership sites. And of course, the best part, all of the different ways that people have monetized their sites!!
Enjoy – I thought this would be a great resource for your readers!! Keep up the great work Armand!!
Wade Thomas
MarketingCoach.com
Yup, and I’ve been grappling with that very issue as I consider starting my member site.
Got some tips/resources for us?
Wanna do a teleseminar about it?
I’ll host you. 😉
From day one our philosophy with our membership site that is grilled into everyone who works with us is that at the end of each month every member has to be able to ask herself, “Did I get more than the $20 bucks I spent this month?” and be able to answer, “Absolutely!”. Otherwise, we’ll be out of business.
Jan Myers, Business Coach
QuiltingResourceCenter.com