Membership Sites and Profits

Business, any business, is about making money, right?your business model today.
You're in business to make money - it's a great thing.What business are you in?
There is absolutely no reason to have a businessThe truth is that you don't have to have a business up
unless you're in business to make money. You need itand running to start a profitable membership site - but
to live on, to make the world a better place and yes, toyou do need a market. In fact, you need a highly
have fun. Even if you're a non-profit organization - yourtargeted market that wants the information that your
goal is to make money and then spend it on yourmembership site will provide. It's a very unprofitable
organization's mission. Adding a membership site toidea to start a membership site without any initial target
your current business is a great way to increase thatmarket or demand research.
bottom line and make more money.Here are a few tips to find a niche if you're just getting
So how do membership sites make money?started:
First and foremost your members will be a captiveFirst, consider what you like to do, what you're
audience. Better than a lead list, your members haveinterested in, and what you're good at. This can be
proven they're interested, they've practically committedANYTHING! If you're passionate about organic
themselves to being loyal customers. That meansgardening then begin researching that niche. If you love
each and every new product or service you offer istropical aquariums then research that niche. If you have
going to have a stronger conversion rate with youryears of experience as a weight loss counselor then
members. In addition to being able to sell your productyou have a niche, if you have years of experience
and services to a focused group of people, yourhelping people organize their lives, fix their cars, train
members, you're now able to profit off of thetheir birds, or choose software for their businesses,
subscription income.then you have a niche. Research it!
While many membership sites are free, some makeConsider a sub-niche:
millions of dollars annually just off of subscriptions.With so many markets over saturated and being so
Subscriptions can also come in different levels. Youhighly competitive, it makes sense to carve of a
can structure your membership site to offer freesub-niche within a niche and to try to dominate that
memberships and allow access to a portion of yoursub-niche.
site, silver level memberships and access to a little bitHere is a quick example of a sub niche:
more of the site, gold memberships, and platinumChildren's Health: This is a fairly general term. A few
memberships that allow access to your entire site. Thissub-niches of this term might be nutrition, diabetes,
way you're appealing to all income levels and all levelsweight loss for children, meal planning for busy children,
of commitment.nutrition for children with special needs like allergies -
Plus, when you offer different levels of membership,those are sub-niches of Children's health which are
you can market to each segment differently. You canmore targeted. I'm sure you can come up with even
create high end products geared specifically for thebetter, more targeted ones.
customers that you know can afford it and appreciateSub-niches are important not only for getting to the top
it. And you can offer incentives to upgrade!of the search engine results but also for effectively
Whether you charge for membership like or if youcommunicating with your target market. Think about it
offer membership for free like YouTube, thefor a minute; if you're targeting a huge group of people
opportunity to profit is huge.who want to feed their kids better, how do you relate
Multiple Streams of Incometo all of them at once? Do you talk to them as parents
Once you have a membership site up and running youof overweight children, parents of children with illness,
will have the opportunity to generate multiple streamsor busy single parents?
of income. You can sell affiliate products, make moneyYou can't do it. You can't effectively communicate
from AdSense and advertising sales, and you canwith a group of people who are all very different and
profit by selling information. Information in the form ofhave very different needs. By zeroing in on your niche
books, reports, audio recordings, video recordings,market you can speak directly to your target market
tutorials, workshops, seminars...the sky is the limit. Youand solve the needs of that group. You can
can sell private label rights information.communicate effectively with them, know what offers
A Billion Dollar Exit Plan.to make to them, and ultimately make more sales.
Did you know that you can sell your membership siteIn the next section, we'll talk about researching your
for a profit? YouTube did it for 1.65 billion dollars. Yepmarket. For many research is the drudgery of being an
-billion. Do you need an extra billion?online marketer but if you look at it like a challenge, a
The opportunity to make money with yourchallenge to see just how much money you can
membership site is limitless. There are so manymake, then market research becomes exhilarating.
amazing opportunities there's no reason not to add it to