When it comes to earning income online, there are a lot of methods that promise to provide steady, passive streams of predictable revenue. Yet very few of these methods actually work. If you’re serious about earning some significant income online, you need to weed out the promising ventures from the pretenders. And if you really dig in and do some work, you’ll discover that launching and running a membership site is one of the few proven models that continues to generate profound results for entrepreneurs who are willing to work hard. You can use a reliable subscription billing service to make sure you don’t have any issues with your signups.
Why Run a Membership Site?
The subscription business model has been around for decades, but the growth of the internet has given it wings to soar beyond in-person services and physical newspapers or magazines. It’s now a viable method for running an online business – particularly membership sites where you offer premium content and services.
Membership sites are highly beneficial to both the business owner and the customer. From the business owner’s perspective, automated billing with Ezypay provides a predictable and steady stream of income that renews automatically over time. It’s also a highly relational business model that allows you to foster a sense of community. Furthermore, it gives you a pre-qualified audience that allows you to market other products and upsell your service over time.
5 Powerful Tips for Success
Membership websites are a dime a dozen. For every successful site, there are a handful that underperform and ultimately fail. If you want to generate sustainable results, you need to approach it from the correct angle. Here are some suggestions:
- Just Do It
So many aspiring-entrepreneurs have what it takes to be successful, yet they don’t realize it. They feel as if everything needs to be perfect before they can get started. Unfortunately, perfection never comes. This leaves them on the outside looking in for months, years, and even decades. Don’t be like this. Sometimes you need to heed the advice of one popular shoe company and just do it!
- Study What Others Are Doing
The best education you’ll ever receive in the membership website business is to study what others are already doing in the space. It’s a good idea to join other membership sites, follow these entrepreneurs on social media, take their courses, etc. This will give you a solid foundation of what to do. It’ll also provide some clarity on what not to do.
- Interact and Engage
People enjoy membership sites because of the high level of engagement it gives them with fellow members. Don’t make the mistake of assuming you can pump out some static content and people will be happy with it. You need to interact with them – personally. While you can’t directly interact with every single member in a face-to-face manner, you can do things to amplify engagement. Live video chats are a great example. Not only does this put your face in front of your audience, but it also allows you to directly engage hundreds or thousands of people simultaneously.
- Continue to Add Value
You can’t sit back and watch. A membership site has to be dynamic – continuously growing and improving over time. The value you add today is only enough for today. You must continue to enhance your offering if you want to retain your members. And if you expect to raise member dues over time – which can help to skyrocket your revenue – you have to add new services and programs. Be strategic about this!
- Automate as Much as Possible
While high engagement is necessary, you don’t have the time or resources to give every member precious moments of your day. What you need is an automated system that provides the perceived benefit of one-on-one interaction.
“My solution was a private member forum,” says John Yeoman, who once ran a membership site on blogging. “Members critique each others’ work there, and I nod in occasionally. Obvious, in retrospect. But it took me three years to think of it. In that time, I’d been driven mad by folks who thought they’d found Santa Claus, grabbed all my goodies, mailed me a joyful testimonial, then canceled.”
Your automation may look different. The key is to find a system that works with your business model and limited resources.
Adding it All Up
The beautiful thing about this business model is that there’s so much room for creativity and innovation. What’s working today, won’t necessarily work tomorrow. And if you aren’t getting the results you want right now, you can make a few simple tweaks and get immediate feedback from your audience.
Whether you already have a membership site or you’re thinking about launching one in the near future, you’re well on your way to generating meaningful income. Dive in and give it everything you have.