Membership Subscriptions - Which is Right for You?

Which Membership Model Makes the Most Sense? These are questions online business owners ask themselves everytime they set up a membership site based business.

The membership model you choose makes a huge difference on the profits that you will see today and in the future. Of course, which membership pricing model is right for you depends largely on the type of site you have.

Here are a few guidelines and tips to help you keep your subscription list growing.

Pricing model, which one is right for you…

Weekly subscriptions

Weekly subscription models are not used very frequently for membership sites. They require a rapid turnover of content, as members need a reason to renew their subscription each week. They tend to rely quite heavily on forums and blogs to keep members engaged.

If you are using a weekly subscription model you can make more revenue than with other models. Your members will feel that they are paying small amounts, but because they are paying so regularly, the revenue soon mounts up. However, you will have to work hard for the extra revenue with frequent updates.

One of the main problems with weekly subscription sites is members that just join for one week, download all the available content, and then cancel their membership.

So a key to keeping your members from doing that would be to have new fresh content added daily/weekly but new members would not get access to back content. You could then charge them the same weekly fees paid to get access to back content.

Monthly subscriptions

This is one of the most popular pricing models for membership sites. It still requires a lot of effort to provide fresh content each month, but the pressure is a little less than with the weekly subscription model. Again, these sites tend to rely quite heavily on forums and blogs to keep their members engaged.

Quarterly subscriptions

Quarterly subscription membership sites sometimes make a little less subscription revenue overall, but you have the advantage that you have more capital upfront from your members to invest in your site.

You also have a guaranteed member for three months to sell additional products to. You do need to keep in regular contact with your members, however, as they don’t have a regular monthly or weekly payment going off their credit card to remind them about the site.

This model is better suited to a site that has time consuming content. One example of this type of content would be training courses that take place over a period of several weeks.

Annual subscriptions

The annual subscription model is ideal for sites with very high content value. To convince your members to pay a full year’s membership fees up front, you will have to prove that your site is worth the investment. You might consider a short trial period with limited access, or a money back guarantee within the first month if they are not satisfied.

This model will usually generate less subscription income overall than the previous models, but again you will have the capital sooner to invest in your site. You will have guaranteed members for a year, but you will need to remind them to visit the site regularly with targeted marketing and newsletters.

One-off subscription

The one-off subscription model, also known as lifetime membership, is ideal for membership sites that are designed to gain more revenue from building large databases, selling products, affiliate programs, and advertising, than from just membership subscriptions.

Although you will need to update your site regularly to retain your members’ interest, and keep them buying from you, there is less pressure to provide fresh content to hold onto regular subscriptions.

When you are deciding on a price for your one-off subscription, you will want to determine your lifetime membership value.

Here are a few ideas to consider.

• Offer a free or reduced fee trial period. You could invite your members to join your site for a trial period of between a week and a month, to get them involved in the site.

• Some of the membership site software packages available enable you to upgrade your members to fully paid membership automatically when the trial period is over.

• Most membership sites that offer this trial period take the credit card details of their members up front, and then charge for the continued membership automatically, unless the member cancels.

• Have different access levels. Have various categories of member who have access to different content and parts of the site, depending on which subscription level they choose. Tantalize your members with limited access with the premium content they could find in the more expensive member areas.

• Many membership software packages allow up to five subscription levels, including one free level.

• Change your subscription model. You could offer your members monthly subscriptions when they initially join your site. After three months you could ask them if they would like to change to a quarterly subscription for a slightly reduced rate. You could even offer to take the amount that they would have saved if they had taken quarterly subscription from the start, away from their next quarter’s subscription.

• While this does mean that the subscription revenue you get from that customer decreases, it also means you keep that customer for a longer period, during which you can sell them other products. You also have more capital up front to spend on advertising and optimizing your site, so your revenue will increase in other ways.

Advanced Marketing Ideas

Estimate the value of your site for 1 year - let's just say for example being a member of your site for one year and having access to all the content, products and services you offer is worth $1,000.00. Take that amount and divide it by 12. That's about $83/month right?

Okay, now create a one time offer and show it after your free members sign up or your trial members sign up. Show them the value of your site, how much it normally costs then offer it to them at anywhere from 50% to 75% off. So they could get your site for less than $20/month if they pay a one time fee right now of $197.00 or $297 etc.

Tell them if they buy an annual or even a lifetime membership right now they will save $XXX.XX etc and that this is the best deal you could ever offer them. Special offer just for new trial members for example.

Then for all those who say Yes to the $197 offer you show them another offer that is even better. Something complimentary to what they are getting.

For example, maybe you have private coaching or maybe you a seminar coming up or maybe you have a home study course. All of these could possibly be worth anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

It's simple, offer them an offer they cannot refuse then offer then a second glass while they are in the buying mood.

Tell them because right now, they are saying Yes to your incredible initial offer that they could have even more by getting 20 hours of private coaching from you for just $997 or they could get it later and pay $997 per hour.

Or you have a seminar coming up in 4 months that they should really attend and you'll give them a ticket at 65% off, they just pay whatever minimum you need to recoup costs so you can get more people to your seminar. Instead of the usual $1997 they just pay $497 or something for example.

Or maybe you have a great home study course on the niche topic they are saying Yes to in the first place. Offer it to them for just the cost of shipping for $19.97 and they pay only $497 in 30 days which is a full 50% off the regular price of $997.

Or maybe you have other membership sites they may be interested in also. Make them an offer to get access to some or even all of your other sites for one low price. (Note: certain industries do this all the time and there is a reason for it....it works.)

These are just some examples but do you see how you could do this kind of marketing for any niche you are in as long as you have the product line to do it with?

Hands Off Advanced Tip

If you're thinking right now, "I don't have a product line, I barely have a membership site set up." Then you could search for joint venture partners, get them to make special offers to your customers in your sales process and you take a commission instead.

So you see, the only thing stopping you is probably yourself.

Now go get some systems in place:)