Why Create a Membership Website: Free or Paid Content?

Why Create a Membership Website?

This article and my associated articles will provide all the information you need to setup a paid content subscription website or paid membership website, from scratch. I will explain everything you need from why create a membership website to planning, creating, launching, marketing and monitoring such membership sites using WordPress as a base.

Global Marketing

The Internet is a medium which can provide you with global reach. It can be used to promote, communicate and interact with people anywhere in the world irrespective of language, creed or colour. Just what you need if you are offering information or content online through a paid subscription or paid membership website.

• If you already have a website then you’re ready to implement a membership website. You can find more information on membership software in my article, Top Membership Management Software.

 

Free or Fee-based

To be a successful business you must provide quality and value to your customers. Having an internet presence and attracting visitors is not enough, value has to be delivered.

The aim of every free page on your website should be to convert visitors into subscribers or members. They should be so impressed with the quality of your free information that they want to pay for your subscription or members only offerings.

Freebies is Not a Sustainable Marketing Policy

Smart entrepreneurs realize that knowledge has value and are moving their content, which used to be available for free, onto subscription and paid membership websites.

Businesses, both large and small, are coming to the realization that running a business by giving away free products is simply not workable in the long term. Freebies don’t pay the overheads and other expenses, i.e. salaries, marketing costs, hosting fees, etc. Supplying freebies is not a sustainable marketing policy.

With the success of The Wall Street Journal in creating a subscription based model, both large and small publishers are considering charging a monthly or annual subscription fee. For this model to succeed, a subscription based membership website must supply information which is unavailable elsewhere. The content available to subscribers and members must be unique in some way.

The Buyer

The discerning buyer, who values not only their time but the quality of information and service they receive is willing to pay. In fact, with the plethora of inaccurate information on the Internet, resistance to paying for quality services is gradually melting away.

To entice visitors into becoming paying customers your site needs to be dynamic and comprehensive. The information needs to be accurate and unique.

To increase the perceived value of your subscription or paid membership website, the site itself must provide users with a sense of belonging to something special.

Online Paid Content Business Model (Membership Websites) Growing

• Subscription and paid membership websites, both online and offline, are billion dollar businesses.

The Online Publishers Association’s online paid content US market spending report conducted in partnership with comScore for financial year 2003 (the latest I could find) found that consumer spending for online content in the U.S. grew to nearly $1.6 billion in 2003, an increase of 18.8 percent over 2002.

• In the report, paid online content spending showed clear seasonal trends with no clear indication that the growth of paid content spending is coming to an end.

The top three paid content categories, Personals/Dating, Business/Investment and Entertainment/Lifestyles, accounted for 64 percent of total online content spending in 2003, up slightly from 63 percent in 2002.

• Online Personals/Dating remained the leading paid content category in 2003, accounting for 29 percent of all paid content spending.

U.S. consumers spent $449.5 million on Personals/Dating content in 2003, up a robust 49 percent from 2002. However, this percentage increase was eclipsed by the Personal Growth category, which grew by 105 percent from $44 million in 2002 to $91 million in 2003.

• “Paid content revenue growth continues to be driven by the acquisition of new customers to the category,” said Michael Zimbalist, president of the Online Publishers Association. “The number of Internet users who participate in eCommerce continues to be significantly larger than those who pay for content online. As a result, we believe there is still significant growth potential for this market.”

According to the Online Publishers Association (OPA), despite the wide availability of free content sources online, a strong market exists for paid subscription based content. A wide range of digital content companies effectively leverage paid models as part of their overall revenue strategy. Among the newspaper and magazine members of the OPA, 95 percent have a paid subscription strategy.

• “Subscription revenue makes the foundation of the business much more solid. It gives you real confidence in investing: we can be bolder about investing in all sides of the business – subscription, advertising, editorial.” – Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com
• “Our user is defined not by demographics, but by a profile – it is someone who needs to know all of the news and information that the WSJ offers.” – Michael Rolnick, Head of Digital / Chief Digital Officer, The Wall Street Journal

In the educational sector, due to the rapidly evolving digital landscape and ever-changing student behaviour, educators are constantly adapting their marketing and communication strategies to optimize the way they educate and engage with students worldwide. This is an increasing market for online subscription and paid membership websites.

Implementing a Subscription or Paid Membership Website

Before you do anything with regards implementing a subscription or paid membership website, you need to give some serious thought as to why you are creating such a membership website.

Let’s look at some of the benefits of this content distribution model so you can get an idea of whether or not this is right for you:

• Membership websites are the ideal way to create user interaction.
• Membership websites are easy to update. With a membership website, adding or editing content is no more difficult than creating a blog post.
• Variety is the spice of life. With a membership website it’s easy to combine written content, audio and video into one product so increasing the appeal to a wider demographic.
• If your subscription or paid membership website is based on a CMS such as WordPress you can concentrate on content rather then site design by using a ready made theme from one of my recommended theme design companies.
• Membership websites generate recurring income.

Why Create a Membership Website Conclusion

This is an increasing market for online subscription and paid membership websites especially for those in the educational sector.

Through the use of a membership website you can invest in both your members and your business, whilst also seeing new subscribers and increase revenue month after month.

If you want to create a steady recurring income from your hobby, specialised knowledge, or profession, learn how to create a membership website and implement it as soon as possible.

• Allocate some time and resources to building your own subscription based website and you will see your income grow.

Well that’s all for Why Create a Membership Website today. You can find more information on membership software in my article, Top Membership Management Software.

Don’t forget to let me have your thoughts in the comment box below. Thanks for dropping by.