The idea of membership sites is simple: people pay you monthly for the content you provide.

It sounds simple.

But do they make money?

That question is a bit like asking how long is a piece of string but I’ll do my best to answer it:

Let’s start with the different types of membership sites.

Free membership sites

You need to log in with your user name and email address but after that the main service is free.

You’re probably a member of one or more free membership sites but haven’t quite realised that’s what they are. If you’re on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or even Skype, they all operate on the free membership site model.

Even a forum is another form of membership site.

The only thing is they don’t call it a membership site. But that’s certainly what it is.

They make money from advertising once they’re up to enough visitors.

But you could equally monetise them with offers where you make an affiliate commission when someone buys.

You don’t even need a website if you don’t want to go down that route although that’s probably the best way to do this kind of site.

Just use a WordPress plugin to control access – a simple one like Global Post Password or something more complicated like S2 Member – both those plugins are free.

Email membership site

This one is as close to set it and forget it as you’re likely to get.

Set up the content in your autoresponder and once people sign up to your membership site, that sends out messages with fresh content at regular intervals.

The emails can deliver the content in the email itself or point to a web page or video or deliver a PDF.

It’s really up to you.

I’ve joined several of these over the years – most recently, one where I got a short PDF once a month. So you don’t need to think that just because it’s email it has to be daily or even weekly.

Fixed term membership sites

These have a fixed lifespan.

Maybe 3 months or 6 months.

The content is then drip fed weekly or monthly – you could do that with an autoresponder, some fairly unguessable page names and WordPress plugins like Exclude Pages from Navigation and Search Exclude to stop the pages being found earlier than intended.

The major plus point of fixed term membership sites is that once people stay for the first month they’re less likely to drop out. They know in advance how long they’re committed for so providing they like what you’re delivering they’ll probably stay for the duration.

Of course, it’s still worth putting a teaser about the following issue so that at least part of their mind is anticipating the next episode.

Much like 24 does at the end of each show and Saturday morning cinema cliffhangers used to do.

Because that works – it seems to be hard wired into our minds.

Ongoing membership sites

These probably aren’t the place to start.

The open ended committment from both yourself and your members can be daunting at first.

But they can be very worthwhile once you get some experience.

I’m doing one with my internet marketing tutor group.

And there are plenty of other ones around.

Quite often there’s a deal for annual or lifetime membership offered a few months into membership.

That’s not something I’m currently doing but it is likely to happen at some stage in the future once I know how long the average person stays a member.

Annual or lifetime memberships bring the cash flow forward.

And if they’re pitched at a price that’s a significant saving but is higher than you’d get if you just let people drop out with natural wastage they can increase your membership site income.

So if you found that on average people dropped out after 3 months and you offered an annual package with a 50% saving, you’d actually make double the money.

Just a thought.

Which niche?

Membership sites work in near enough any niche.

In the physical world, Weight Watchers do it in the diet/weight loss niche.

There are coffee clubs, sites where you can get new socks monthly, all sorts of things.

So you’re not limited to working online and there’s almost certainly something you can offer.

Daily or weekly recipes would work, especially if they were seasonal so you weren’t sending out heavy winter meals in the height of summer. So that might need a bit of planning on your autoresponder sequence.

A friend of mine, Paul Nicholls, has created a complete instruction set for setting up membership sites. It’s not actually sold as a membership – it’s a one off purchase – and you can check it out here.

It’s simple to follow, down to earth advice from someone who runs profitable membership sites themself which means you’re getting good information that you can put into practice and start earning money from.