12 Can’t Miss Rules of Highly Effective Membership Sites
I don't care what niche your membership site is in, what software is running the membership site or even how big the membership is, you should be following all of these 12 rules of membership sites.
Rule #1: Autoresponder Reminders
Whether your membership site is filled with audio clips, videos, articles, or even PDFs or software, you simply cannot expect your members to always remember to log into your site everyday or every week. Set up some kind of autoresponder reminder system so that if someone has been in your membership site for 7 days, then on the 7th day of your autoresponder, it reminds them and tells them to come back to the membership site.
Rule #2: Drip Content
Don't give everything in your membership site away at once. You should be giving your members something new every week if they are charged on a recurring basis, but even if they are charged one single time, it can't hurt to record a couple of extra bonus videos that are dripped out throughout the refund period.
This will reduce your refunds and complaints and also keep people from cancelling and rejoining your membership site at a later date.
Rule #3: Offer Extended or Bonus Trickle Training
One of the best ways to get your customer to love you is with surprised bonuses. That means if you are offering extra training, either in a recurring or one-time membership site, don't announce every single thing you're offering them. Make at least a couple of the extra items be a pleasant surprise.
Rule #4: Stick to One Niche
I can't tell you how many membership sites I have joined that either ran out of ideas, go off-topic or just don't have anything interesting to say in their membership. Have a clear point to your membership site. Is your membership site about weight loss, real estate, copywriting? Whatever it is, make it totally clear what your members are buying into.
Rule #5: Cut Off Access For Non-Payment
If you joined a gym membership and didn't pay, you would no longer be allowed to access that gym's facilities, right? If you stopped paying your cable bill, you would no longer be able to watch TV. The same is true with your membership site. People are paying for access to your training and your content and if they are no longer paying, they should no longer have access.
Rule #6: Deliver Your Training Step By Step
You really do need to not only keep your training simple but offer a clear outcome. The easiest way to do this while also appearing as the best authority on your subject is to set up your training in a step-by-step fashion.
For example, if you are teaching a course about blogging, the first set of training should be about how to set up that blog and then should gradually go into how to create the content. That way, if someone is already somewhat experienced with blogging, they will get caught up, but the new members will not be left in the cold.
Rule #7: Remove The Word "Or" From Your Training
When your members are learning something new from you, no matter what the subject is, it's tough enough to figure it out just by following your step-by-step progress. Don't make it any more complicated than it has to be by sticking the word "or" in there. If you're teaching blogging, teach WordPress blogging, not WordPress or movable-type or pMachine. Whatever the subject is, remove as many choices as possible and teach people to do things the way you do them.
Rule #8: Create Multiple Levels of Your Membership Site
The great thing about membership site software is that you don't have to have a lot of different memberships set up. If you want to offer multiple products in the same site, you offer different membership levels.
People buy the beginner's blogger WordPress level and then later on, buy the advanced blogger WordPress level and be in the same membership site but get access to a new set of content. If you come out with advanced bloggers version 2.0, you can add those posts in layer and use the same membership site to host it all.
In addition, if you want to run a special promotion or give a certain group of people a bonus that only they can get, all you have to do is make a new membership level. You don't have to make a brand new membership site.
Rule #9: Set It Up Quickly
Way too many people spend 6 months or longer working on their content to try to make their membership the best it can possibly be, but the problem with this is that you are not spending your time on things that might make you money and your membership itself might not even be something people want. You need to set up your membership site as quickly as possible and then course-correct once people join.
That leads me to...
Rule #10: Only Be Ahead Of Your Last Subscriber
Like I said, you might be creating a bunch of content for nothing. It's also more important to have a lot of paying members in your site than to have a lot of content. You might have 6 months of content that nobody wants, but if you have one month of content that a lot of people want, you can justify the extra time you're spending and create more of that same content.
Rule #11: Avoid Lifetime Buyouts
You created your membership site, especially if it's a recurring one to get yourself a lot of easy automatic monthly income, right? Then why would you throw it all away by offering a lifetime buyout option?
This is where members can, instead of paying a monthly fee, pay you one single fee and get the entire membership content at once, even if it's 6 months, a year or longer.
Not only does this kill your monthly income, it trains your subscribers not to pay you on a monthly basis, plus it is going to overwhelm them getting all the information at once.
And the final rule of setting up highly effective membership sites is..
Rule #12: Set An End Date
Unless you have tons of content, you won't necessarily be excited about your membership site in 6 months or a year from now. For that reason, why would you want to keep your membership site going forever and ever? Unless you are 100% sure you are still going to be excited about maintaining this membership site in 1, 2, or even 3 years, set at end-date for your membership sites.
I prefer 6 months (sometimes 8) because that gives me long enough time to say everything I want to say even at the advanced level but it doesn't give me too much to handle.
And I know that if I have even more to say, I can see how this first six-month membership site works out and then create a second membership site.
And those were the 12 can't miss rules of highly effective membership sites.
Which one did you like the best and how soon are you going to apply it to your existing or current membership site? Leave a comment below explaining yourself.
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If I ever begin a membership site, the one thing I will focus on is rule #5. It would be unfair to paying members if leeches were allowed to get content for free.
It’s just like people who steal your affiliate ID from links. People love getting in touch with products that work, but they won’t even let you get your fair part of the benefit for supplying the product link.
Worst of all, such people still pay a full price, but you are cheated of your commission.
Thanks for yet another good article. 🙂
This is a really great resource, thanks.
Rule #12 is an interesting one. I know that many sites do really well because they have a defined curriculum with an end date. I think that is great for courses.
What we are doing with some of our courses is having a secondary membership level that runs on as long as the member wants to. The benefits are that the member can keep being part of a community and have continued access to all the materials. So after a course is finished, we offer them a lower cost membership subscription. I think that is a great way to keep customers around while not deterring them at the start. They come in for the course and hopefully after a few months, they want to stay around for the support and community.
I agree to all of your rules, and I even practice all of them, but maybe I like rule # 7 the best (remove the word “or”).
This is something I started doing 13 years ago, when I taught Windows. You can always do a function at least in two ways in Windows, and I knew that a lot of students got confused by books that told them all the ways they could e.g. copy and paste.
I showed one way and told my students that there were others, which they could learn later.
And I still work that way, when I write.
These are can’t miss rules.
Rule #12 makes it easy to confront setting up a membership site. It also helps in setting a price.
Very nice redirect from blog commenting post.
I’ve already made some mistakes here… now reconsidering given this post and what I’ve learned on my own.
Excellent post, Robert, as usual.
All great points, and #7 about not offering too many choices is probably my favorite since I need to pay attention and make sure I’m not doing that.
whole-heartedly agree with having an end date. That was one of my biggest fears about starting a membership site – becoming a content creation slave of it. If it is a 6-month membership, it is easier to keep it focused (#4) and I know I can take a break once it’s “done”.
The only question I have for you is with #10 (I agree with it, btw) – have you ever fallen behind in your content creation where your members caught up to you and you delivered your content late? (Maybe that’s how/why you developed your speed content creation method, huh? 😉
What great content here Robert, Thank you! I know you have shared all this at one point or another but I love seeing it as one big list. This is a great checklist to have when creating a membership site.
I think it is most important to help your members to consume the information. Most everyone I know is feeling a bit overwhelmed and suffering from information overload.. so a simple plan to help the members dive in and take action is a great benefit!
Thank you for your ideas Robert, you add a lot of value to everything you touch!!
xox
Helen
Very interesting, I would really like to see a bullet proof wordpress plugin, that is 100 percent, integrated, no short codes, no copy pasting, you set it up and it goes to work,
Now that would be a great product, but so far, I have not found that combination, every single one I have tested out so far, is either encrypted, or you have to manually setup payment and manage the content separately,
It would be really cool to have a plugin, that allows the user to manage content without having to copy and paste short codes,
Thomas,
That was kind of a weird and random outburst about shortcodes 🙂
Hi Robert,
I’m gonna be setting a membership area myself as a “lower level” to my eagerly awaited Google PPC coaching.
Unfortunately I can’t deal with more than 10 clients a month. I’d like to do more, but time doesn’t allow it and it’s currently “personal” coaching.
So I’m gonna be releasing a “membership” type coaching program shortly that will teach exactly what I teach but at a lower barrier to entry and have been looking into what is the best way…
I know exactly how I’m gonna do it and to drip feed content, as well automatically cancel subscriptions (Via Clickbank) and to auto subscribe members. – Using WordPress and a plugin – 🙂 I use it already.
But I’d like to thank you for your great points here – I’m gonna follow them like you’ve said to create possibly a 3 month and a 6 month membership programs.
What do you suggest at the end of the program? Free access to a community forum? (bu that takes maintenance).
What about and extra 2 months of content for free?
I’d like to give them something they can use for free at the end…
Thanks buddy,
Mark Acutt
Hi Robert, yes, it is weird, do you know of any wordpress plugins, that are seamlessly integrated?
I just spend the last 7 days, and I did not find one single plugin, that “just works”
I tried wishlist, I tried, magic members, I tried, wp members, I tried, wp emembers, I tried, all the free ones, and three of the paid ones,
They all require that you copy and paste to integrate with wordpress, it was an observation, that I think could provide a great opportunity to create the perfect wordpress membership plugin,
How cool would that be,
You just setup your membership level and your members pages are already created, all you have to do is add content,
I would pay for that kind of a plugin..
Thanks for pulling these all together into a “Cheat Sheet”.
Number 7 struck home with me. I catch myself putting everything I know into content. This slows me down and confuses the buyer.
You made me think about this and come up with a new mantra:
Enough to satisfy, not enough to confuse.
Valuable post robert, good job 🙂
@ Thomas Bodetti
Hey dude, OK – all I use is Wishlist member, it works great!
I don’t over-complicate things. Wishlist member integrates with Clickbank, Paypal, Aweber, GetResponse and most of the other big players out there.
So from the checkout, your user gets a dynamic like to sign up. When they sign up they automatically get added to the AR (auto responder) and granted access to the membership level you set up in Wishlist.
Then… your AR your emails will give then “intro” content and a link so that customer will click on to access the “full content”.
They will have to log in to access the full content as the WordPress page will be protected.
This is a way of drip-feeding content whilst being secure.
The AR does the work.
What’s great about this method is if they cancel/refund (I generally use Clikbank) their access is canceled. You can choose if Wishlist denies them access to everything or only to new posts.
The “secret” is – don’t automatically unsubscribe them from the AR (Wishlist can do this too). They keep getting your “tid-bit” emails but need to log in to read the rest…
They can’t as they’ve canceled, but they can always re-subscribe/re-purchase again.
This can be done for any product or membership site.
Best,
Mark Acutt
Wow, I needed this information. I’m starting membership site right now, but I’m not sure with monthly payments.
It seems to me too much paperwork for my accountant.
I’d like to do yearly subscriptions. Is it alright?
Jan
Jan,
Here’s my only problem with yearly subscriptions…
1. As a buyer, I usually forget what I bought a year ago.
2. It’s hard to keep people engaged in a site because it doesn’t “hurt” often enough to participate in the membership — no monthly rebills.
3. PayPal automatically cancels all rebills if a credit card expires naturally… I’ve lost most of my yearly subscriptions that way.
4. As a seller, I’m not even sure what I’ll be doing (membership site wise) in a year. What I’m doing this year is drastically different from last year.
Roberts, I just discovered that you did create the drip plugin – I emailed you about that after you commented on it on Stu’s WishList classes last year. You said you would get back to me, and never did. Just last friday I found out about the cube membership- contains the drip plugin and analytics, and it is closed!! You even taught it live! What!! Can’t I buy these plugins separately?
As I never heard back from you, I assumed you did not go ahead with these … bummer I have wasted all this time, and now I found out about it, I can’t even buy it!
Geez!!
Robert,
On this one I feel that it would be easier to say which one did you not like. Well to answer that question, it would be NONE.
12 Winners here, now I need to put them to work.
Thanks for the content x 12.
My favorite is the autoresponder reminder, because I join sites all the time and forget to go back. There is just to much to remember.
OTOH, the idea of an end date seems controversial. It makes sense for courses, but not for *all* sites.
My all-time favorite membership site that I belong to saves me so much money and is so much fun that if I ever have to quit for awhile, I will rejoin the minute I can. I look forward to going there and would miss it terribly.
Luckily for me, that site archives everything, so you can catch up. There is simply so much on the site that most members probably do not try to download everything, knowing that we can always do a search on a topic and get all we need at any time.
Of course, it has taken a few years to get so big. The idea of starting a site that big is overwhelming. I would not try to compete. I’m just saying that the fact that all is archived, and you can quickly search for everything on a given topic is part of what makes me keep paying every month.
I know how you do your membership sites, and they work. I just think that there are other ways that work, too. My problem is that I am overwhelmed with choices and need to just do *something* to get started.
Thanks, as always, for the great info!
I like all of these ideas, Robert, but #4, #7, #11, and #12 really jumped off the page at me.
Very timely write-up for me, as well. I’m about to create a membership site as a joint venture so your checklist is a welcomed blessing!
Thanks,
Melanie
#blog30
#5 is the biggie for me.
I don’t have a membership site just yet, but I’ve always been baffled at how to tie a PayPal payment to a membership site.
Certainly to automatically connect the newly-paying user to the create-a-new-account feature is the most important. However, not keeping early-cancelers locked out sounds like an even tougher feat.
Looking forward to learning more about those bits of interweb magic!
Robert,
I have been debating back and forth with my business partner about whether or not to cut off access when people stop paying at our Camtasia Training membership site. I say “cut em off” He says they should get to keep what they have paid for thus far but not get any new content. Do you have people getting PO’ed at you when you cut them off completely?
@ Michelle
If it’s a membership site, and they’ve paid for what they can access and haven’t refunded – only canceled their subscription, then it’s only fair you allow them access to what they’ve paid for.
If they want a “full” refund for everything, then cut them off completely.
That’s my 2c 🙂
Best,
Mark
12 Can’t Miss Rules? Exactly!
You’ve always been able to make a point quickly, and here you make 12 for the “price” of one!
Rock on!
Heck yeah Mr. Disney!
When are you going to create proper sales letters for your totally rad wordpress plugins?
If I can say – this is only place I have found nuggets (during the last two years of loitering with intent) re:
information on membership sites.
At 56 my wife & I are learning “how to teach English to young Learners”. We have been successful with the stage one. Going on with stage two.
Initially, our trainer said “go to Google”. Not much help for both of us. Then she said – “go to sparknotes.com”. Not much help either.
Just two days ago we were told, Google, sparknotes.com, Author’s OR Book name & then Literature.
Aha! we saw the light!
I quipped “google is like the ideas in our mind – not organised to furnish info when we are not organised to searcg for same”.
Both of us saw a subtle & silent ‘acknowledgment’.
I hope you get me – Robert.
This post was – value delivery.
Really appreciate it.
I was reading last week about de DPA plugin and would like to know if anybody here has any experience wiht it or if anybody recomended. It looks pretty good but kind of expensive.
btw Great tips Robert
Jesus,
$297 is not that expensive as long as you plan on making more than $297 over the course of the next year, from one of your membership sites. Even though DAP is new, Wishlist is way better, has been around longer, and has a bigger (and faster) support staff.
@Michelle,
I agree with Mark, that if you are dripping out content and people have paid for that content, they should retain the level of access they had when they cancelled and not receive new content.
It looks like rule #5 (shut them out for non payment) has struck a chord with some of you guys.
Good thing too… I hid it in the middle just to see if you were paying atttention.
Here’s the arguments FOR keeping them in after they cancel…
1. It “seems like” the right thing to do.
2. They’ve already paid for that content. (David Burch)
3. You can tease them with the content they missed and hopefully get them back in. (Mark Acutt)
And here are the AGAINST reasons… in other words, kick people out entirely if they cancel…
1. The industry standard is to shut them out, plus they’ve had a chance to consume the content. (Michelle Shoen)
2. It can be a pain to figure out what they “still” should and should not have access to, not including the autoresponder. (Adam Porter)
4. It’s only fair to affiliates to motivate people to stay until the end. (Henrik Blunck)
Hey Robert,
Great tips. I have an affiliate marketing membership site, but your rule #7 and #12 really brand new for me.
Robert what you think about free /$1 type trial? is not rule #13 ?
anyway thanks
Sam,
If you only want a 2% retention rate, then a $1 trial is perfect for you.
On the other hand, if you want 50% or higher… then sell the membership site as it is… no trial.
Think about it, if you “discount” to $1 for the half of the first month, and it’s $100/month afterwards… then you have to convince people that the membership is now 50 times worth the price. It’s hard enough keeping people in a membership month after month even WITHOUT a trial. Don’t add to your problems.
Hi Robert,
Nice to see you’re hanging in there with quality daily posts….. impressive!
Rules #3, #7, #11 & #12 are my favorites and I also like your idea of not putting six grueling months into creating a site when you don’t know if it’ll ‘fly’ or not.
Always enjoy reading your posts…
Donna
Donna,
I actually put my best stuff near the end of the month… which is a shame since it seems a lot of the commenters who started at the beginning of the month are getting tired.
Which might be good news since it leaves room for new commenters…
When are you going to post 30 posts in 30 days? You’re a writer, you could do it.
As an former membership site owner who now works for a membership plugin developer (NewMedias.co.uk, developers of Your Members), I have to say that is a excellent article Robert, truly useful content (rather than a thinly veiled affiliate marketing page, which so many similar articles are).
Too many people charge ahead and get their membership plugin first without thinking through exactly HOW they are going to deliver and monetize their content. They often end up with a product that lacks something the require bet it drip feeding, auto responding, handling cancellations, protecting content or lacking the right payment gateways. Following your rules first would have saved so many people setting up poor or unprofitable sites.
Me … I like #12 the best and thing because it makes sense and it’s ethical. People who sell a ‘never ending membership site’ will of course run out of information (or motivation) in the end – there are exceptions of course.
Plus they’re never ending because they don’t expect anyone to finish and give you no real “This is what you can expect to learn”
And I got stung on a rule #10 by a big big named ‘ethical marketer’ who took this to the extreme. My $97 membership was 9 weeks behind in information. I cancelled and with hindsight should’ve kicked up a real stink. I guess that tells you something about refunds and people (most are too polite to ask for them).
Hi Robert,
Shouldn’t number 10 be “Just stay ahead of your first subscriber” ? Assuming you are dripping out content, your first subscriber would run into empty space first.