Marketing your membership site is all about the perceived value of your site. Members will look at your content and your features to determine value. Members are willing to fork over a membership fee if the perceived value if equal to or higher than your fee. Content is critical when determining membership site value.

Decisions you make regarding your content will make or break your success. There are really only two decisions that you need to make regarding your content: What content will you deliver to your site membership and how will you deliver this content? When making these decisions regarding content keep in mind what your capabilities are and what your members will respond favorably to.

What kind of budget do you have to work with? Can you afford expensive multimedia equipment? Expensive equipment is not necessary. You can still produce quality content with amateur audio and video producers. Your content may differ from other membership sites depending on what your topic is and what your members are looking for in content. Some sites offer teleseminars, or e-lessons, phone consultations, or articles and ebooks. How capable do you feel about producing the above kind of content? Look at what you have previously produced to guide you. Can you provide private coaching? If you have a membership forum ask your members what questions they have on the topic of the site and then set up a teleconference where you answer their questions.

A forum is a great way of staying in touch with your membership so that you can understand their need for content. Make sure you have qualified moderators to answer member forum questions.

Use videos to do tutorials. Make the content personable.

You may also consider a physical product to offer your members such as a book, CD or DVD. Watch out for the expenses involved in producing and shipping physical products though. Physical products have a high-perceived value and you may do very well offering them. Not all of your members will learn in the same way so offer a variety of media such as audio, video, text and physical products.

When it comes to content you want to "over deliver" on the value in order to keep your members happy. In order to know if you are successfully over delivering you will need to have a feedback system in place.

Value and Pricing:

There is definitely a relationship between perceived value and the pricing you can command of the members of your membership site.

The fee you will be able to charge will be determined by the perceived value of your membership site. This can't be stressed enough!

When determining value think about your resources, how much work you intend to put into your site, and how much time you have to put into your site.

There is a broad range of membership site fees from the very low (under $10 a month) to the very high such as $50,000 a year!

In order to have a high perceived value you will also need to have a great offer that you market to your prospective members. You will want to spend a lot of time honing your marketing efforts especially your offer. If you are not a good writer, hire someone to craft your offer for you. Your offer is THAT important, do not skimp on creating your offer. The offer should sell the benefits of your membership.

If you have similar memberships out there being offered by others what type of content are they offering? Is your content of superior quality? What are they charging as a membership fee? What works for other similar membership sites? Do your market research and know what is and what isn't working before you launch your site. Do not undervalue your site's content. If you price your site too low others will perceive it as low value. Value is sometimes equated to financial investment. Charging more than you initially think may make your offer seem like a better value to your prospective members.

Know who your target audience is and tailor your offer to them.

When just starting out you may have to have an initial entry-level fee in order to bring people into your sales funnel and then provide a higher level of service at a higher price. You can always adjust the price as you go along. As you tweak your site you will eventually find the right pricing.

First things First

There are many things you should know about when you start a membership site. There are many things you need to consider that has to do with setting up the membership site, with gaining members, providing content and how to keep your site growing. Keep reading in order to find out some of the things that you may need for a successful site that you may not have thought of yet. This information will hopefully help you to be ready for a successful membership site.

When setting up a membership site you need to be able to choose the correct domain name and best hosting package for your membership site.

You need to discover the best fee to charge for your membership. Will you use a one-time fee, recurring monthly or annual fees?

How will you create and manage your private parts of your membership site? How will your protect these areas?

How will you update your site's content? Will it be easy to update content? Will it be easy to make administrative changes?

How can you increase your revenue? How can you maintain your membership loyalty so they won't jump ship and join a competitor's membership site?

How can you know for sure that you understand your membership's needs and that you are offering them valuable content, products and service?

How are you taking care of membership orders such as a shopping cart?

What are your payment services and are they secure?

Some things that you may need to know about before starting your membership site besides the basics of starting and maintaining the site is what features, layouts, fonts, and site colors will attract and keep the interest of your membership?

When choosing your topic how do you know which topics are hot for membership sites and what kind of research can you do to discover this?

What successful membership sites are out there that you can look at and learn from?

Do you have a business plan and a marketing plan to ensure your success?

Do you have a way to solicit feedback from your membership so that you can find out how to improve your membership site?

Do you know anything about marketing and how to promote your membership site?

Answering these questions can help you to get off on the right foot when it comes to being prepared for success.

The more knowledgeable and prepared you are for what can and will happen with your membership site the more capable you will be when it comes to handling what may come up with your site.