Being a freelancer is a great flexible career, but sooner or later you will reach your full capacity, and end up looking for more opportunities to grow your business.
You can choose to set up your own company and employ people, or carry on running your business from home, and set up a membership site.
Instantly add to your residual income, and earn more without having to put more hours into your business. Below you will find a few tips on how to set one up.
Focus On Your Skills and Experience
Setting up a membership site is not for the faint hearted. There is a lot of competition out there, and you will need to find a way to stand out.
No matter if you are a language teacher, would like to offer skills training on your site, or simply sell other people’s software solutions, you need to first establish yourself as an expert.
Take into consideration what you are good at and what you can do better than 90 percent of people out there, so you can offer value to your future members.
Research Your Niche
Once you have decided what to teach or offer on your membership site, it might be a good idea to do your market research.
The key to launching a successful membership site is finding one problem your target market is facing and one that they are desperate enough to solve to pay money to somebody.
It can be anything; from losing weight to achieving the ideal work-life balance, or raising teenagers.
Create an Infrastructure for Your Site
Once you have an idea for your new venture, it is time to choose which website infrastructure and software you will use.
In case you are just a beginner at building sites, and have limited knowledge, it might be a good idea to talk to a professional web designer who has experience building membership sites.
After all, you don’t want to spend time on things that take you much longer than they would for professionals.
Take Care of the Security
When it comes to user management and privacy, you will need to ensure that your website is as secure as possible.
Get advanced server and website software security, add two-stage verification, and captcha to every page, so you can prevent bots from registering and hacking your site.
Protect your own assets as well as the privacy of your members.
Create Content
The key to building a successful membership site is creating content that is valuable to your users. You might plan a video training or a few audio files your members can listen to on the go, even in the car while waiting in traffic.
You will need to create the right environment for the recordings and the most suitable software for the video production. It might be time to upgrade your office environment and decor, and add more light and insulation to make it more suitable for creating content.
Offer a Launch Discount
If you are starting something from scratch, you will need to rely on early adopters and reward them. The challenge is finding and motivating them.
Create an initial discount or special offer, maybe a reward for founders, such as VIP membership cards sent out in the post, if they are among the first few people registering or sharing your content.
A launch discount and promotion will help you create a buzz around your product or service and get you free word-of-mouth advertising, too.
Automate Your Marketing and Sales
When launching your site, you will have limited time to promote your membership offers online, and you simply don’t want to be spending all your time on social media.
Thankfully, you can find a full service sales funnel agency for small businesses that will take care of your campaign management and conversion optimisation, so you can focus on what really matters in your business.
After all, you don’t want to spend all your time on social media, trying to figure out what your audience reacts to. You can automate social media campaigns, paid ads, and your email marketing, too.
If you would like to raise your profile as an expert and educator, you might be thinking about launching a membership site that will allow you to sell your training and services on an autopilot, without investing more hours in work every day or employing others.
