Are Free Membership Sites Worth Building?

The newest hot trend on the Internet is membership sites. Not that membership sites are anything new, in fact I became a member of many sites when I first started on the Internet. Along with paid membership sites, another popular option is the free sites, open to anyone that is ready to register.

Paid membership sites are most usually limited to a specific number of members. This is certainly true of those that offer private label and resale rights. This means that marketing is limited to that specific number. Limiting marketing possibilities is never a positive thing no mater what products or services are being promoted.

Of course, there are obvious reasons for limiting paid membership sites but the fact remains that a free membership site can be operated right along side a paid membership site and there is never any reason at all to limit the memberships available to a free site.

Three to six months is about the duration of a paid membership to most membership sites according to many paid membership site owners. Three to six months isn’t very long in terms of Internet marketing. Once a paid member drops his membership, the site owner must then replace him and that can get expensive.

On the other hand, membership cancellations at free membership sites are easily and cheaply replaced. Marketing to the members of a free membership website is absolutely unlimited. You can continue to market to these members for as long as you want to. Free membership sites are easy to run, they cost almost nothing and yet the owner is supplied with an almost unlimited number of customers and potential customers to market all kinds of products and services to.

Let’s face it: Every Internet marketer must now have an opt-in mailing list in order to send bulk marketing emails. That’s the law that went into effect with the passage and implementation of the CAN SPAM act. There is nothing anybody can do about it. If you send bulk marketing emails without the express consent of the recipients, you are subject to very heavy fines and the very real possibility of having your Internet business closed down altogether.

So... why limit your mailing list to just a paid membership site? Why not build a free membership site and gain an unlimited number of names and email addresses to which you have the legal right to send marketing emails? There simply is not a good reason for NOT having a free membership site...at least not one that I can see.

Free membership sites are easy to set up and easy to operate. Of course, there must be fresh and timely content but that’s a lot easier (not to mention cheaper) than constantly having to run PPC campaigns or paying for advertising in related E-zines to attract members to your opt-in list and thus gain their permission to market products and services to them. You also have the benefit of offering the option to upgrade their free membership to a paid membership. Their free account has given them a window into what you have to offer and could be the incentive some need before opting for a paid membership.

We all know that visibility on the Internet is one of the basic keys to successful marketing. Getting visibility is one of the hardest tasks that most Internet marketers face from the inception of a marketing idea. All Internet marketers well understand the value of writing and marketing articles and E-Books, posting to blogs and forums that belong to others and doing PPC campaigns, as well as, exchanging links and paying for advertising in E-zines and newsletters.

With a free membership website, you can almost guarantee yourself, not only a long list of customers and potential customers but that others will be willing to pay YOU for advertisements on your free membership sites and advertisements in the newsletters that you send to your very impressively long list.

The shoe will be on the other foot, so to speak. Other marketers will be interested in having you post articles and E-Books which they have written, trying to gain that coveted Internet visibility.

With a free membership site, you must be aware this cannot and will not be the best group of customers. After all, they are taking advantage of the free membership and may not be willing to hand over any cash to you for products or services. So – do the research in your niche to determine if a free membership site will produce the results you anticipate.