Membership Marketing: 7 Tips To Find The Perfect Market And Products For Your Membership Site

So you're planning to create a membership site; but you have no idea how and where to begin. Well, don't worry! In this article, I'll show you how to find the ideal market or niche to venture into, and create products that will satisfy your members... all while exploding your membership site profits.

Tip # 1

To achieve lasting success with your site, choose a niche that: 

-         You are passionate about.

-         You have intensive knowledge in.

-         Has a high profit potential.

-         Has a healthy level of competition.

You can skip pass the passion or knowledge requirement if you’re looking to outsource most of the content-creation or service tasks to highly qualified professional freelancers.

The important thing is that your target audience must be willing to invest money on what you’re offering. They should be desperate or passionate about the topic. Examples would include people with hobbies, collectors, or those who want financial security.

If the market has tight competition but you find it to be worthy of pursuing, you must have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to gain an edge over your competitors. Analyze what makes your offer or products different from the rest. If you can’t find anything that makes your product one-of-a-kind, then create your own USP. For example, you might find that most sites in your market offer only eBooks; you can get the upper hand by offering audios or videos, in addition to eBooks. 

Tip # 2

Don't create your products without doing thorough research on your market. Most marketers commit the mistake of falling in love with a certain niche, creating products related to that field, and then finding the audience to sell them to.

This is a big blunder as they might later realize they only have a few prospects to market to. You should find a hot or in-demand target market first, before diving neck-deep into creating your website and products.

Tip # 3

A membership site will mostly entail you to provide products on a consistent basis. So it is recommended that your niche can branch out to many other subtopics.

For example, if you’re targeting people who are passionate about their physical appearance, then you can offer your members various products on related topics such as acne prevention, getting clear skin, increasing height, etc.

 Tip # 4

Know the limitations and opportunities of venturing into a certain field. Would it be practical to create products in various formats - e-books, audios, or videos? Could you hold web or tele-seminars with your members? Can you easily find JV partners or affiliates from complementary markets who could help in promoting your membership site? All these should be taken into consideration before pursuing your endeavor.

 Tip # 5

Some people find it tough to brainstorm for ideas on what field to enter into, so here’s a list of potential markets to get your creative juices flowing...

Travel

Beauty

Bodybuilding

Parenting

Real estate

Photography

Fishing

Gardening

Investing

Collectors

Career/Jobs

Video Games

Dating

Cars/Planes

Weight Loss

Pets

Music

Business Management

 Tip # 6

Money has always been a motivational tool. So here’s a strategy you may use to entice more members to sign up:

Offer Private Label Rights or Resell Rights to your products. A Private Label Rights (also known as PLR) license allows your members to change the content, resell the product, or do just about anything with it (unless you put certain restrictions). A Resell Rights license allows your members to resell the product (Their customers and any subsequent customers could resell them too if it has Master Resell Rights.).

You could also give reports that they can rebrand with their affiliate links to your main products. Members can give them away or sell them. They could earn some nice affiliate commissions, while you profit automatically through their efforts.

Many people from different niches are not familiar with selling products online, so it would be best if you could also create reports, audios, or videos that will give them step-by-step instructions on how to generate traffic and make money from these products.

 Tip # 7

 You could stumble upon a potential goldmine niche or best-selling product creation idea by paying attention to hot trends and news items.

Here are some ways to be updated of the latest news and trends:

 - Browse around social bookmarking sites, article directories, blogs, and forums to see what the hot topics are. For example, you can go to Digg.com and evaluate if the sites with the most Diggs could be potential markets you can do further research in. Likewise, you could see what articles has the most views, what blog posts have the most comments, or what topics forum members are mostly discussing about.

 - Use Google Alerts to get the latest tips, blog posts, articles, and other information related to your field of interest. You can set to receive these email alerts on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

 - Some websites will notify you when new trends or stories emerge. They include:

news.google.com, news.yahoo.com, msnbc.com, cnn.com, trendwatching.com, cnet.com, and pulse.ebay.com. Some of these sites offer RSS feeds you can subscribe to, so you can be alerted automatically of important updates as they arrive.

 - To find out which products are currently in-demand, see the top-sellers in Amazon.com or eBay.com. Scan through magazines on your field of interest and see what advertisements keep on appearing issue after issue.

  - Find out what keywords people are typing online. Use keyword tools such as http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ and http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

The free Wordtracker tool shows you how many people are searching for your chosen keyword (and its related keywords) on a daily basis. It extracts data from Dogpile and Metacrawler.

The Google Keyword Tool has more features. You can find synonyms to your keywords. You can evaluate the profitability and competitiveness of a market by looking at how many ads are being placed for certain keywords. You’ll also get an idea on the search volume being made on those keywords, both locally and internationally.

Hope these 7 tips help you find the ideal market and create the appropriate products for your members. Remember to give insider information not found freely on the internet, so your members will feel that they belong to an exclusive group.

 And of course, be results-oriented and over-deliver. If your site claims to help them lose at least 10 pounds within 30 days, strive to help them lose 15 pounds or more. Lead them by the hand if you must. At the end of the day, your special treatment will pay off in spades.