I know I’ve said it before, but I love membership sites because of the ongoing income. Sell it once, get paid each month for as long as they remain members.
But one of the objections I often hear is, “But it’s going to take me months to build up the membership!”
Not necessarily.
In July Lucy set up a membership site on MemberVault. If you want a free place to host your products, she recommends SendOwl.
She gave her membership a cute, memorable name which is important. If no one can remember your site’s name because it sounds just like all the others, then they’re more likely to forget about you.
She creates and sells PLR templates that can then be resold to customers with a commercial license.
To begin, she created a months’ worth of templates as well as some launch bonuses, added them to the membership site and then launched a month after she started.
Now here’s the key: In the past she purchased a lot of products in the same niche she’s in. She went back to all of these product sellers and asked if they would like to promote her membership for 45% commission.
And most of them said yes.
Because of her relationship with these vendors as a customer, they were willing to not only read her email but also consider her offer.
No matter what you’re launching, if you first purchase products in the same niche, you can then approach those vendors and ask them if they might be interested in promoting your product.
She created her affiliate program through ThriveCart and uses ConvertKit for her email.
She set up both Paypal and Stripe accounts to receive payments, giving her customers a choice.
And anything technical she had to do along the way, she simply outsourced to someone she found online. If you don’t want to hire someone for technical stuff you don’t know how to do, then simply use the tutorials provided on the platforms or use YouTube to find someone to walk you through the processes.
Your membership could be about anything that interests you and that people are willing to pay for. Purchase products in your niche to begin building relationships with your future affiliates. Create a month’s worth of content, get your affiliate program up and running, and then get busy promoting your membership site.
One last thing… encourage your members to become affiliates as well. Most of them won’t, but a few of them will, and sometimes your customers will surprise you with the sheer number of sales they can bring – maybe even more than the product owners you approach.
No one can sell a product like a satisfied customer, which gives them an edge in sincerity that’s impossible to fake.