We all go through ups and downs in business and boy have I had my fair share of ups and downs over the past several years! One thing I miss very much in my biz is having recurring income. I’ve run my business with and without it and I can say for certain now that while there are many pros and cons to membership sites I totally vote for having it in my biz.
Recurring income helps stabilize your business in a way selling one off products or services just cannot do. If you want a little more stability in your biz then read on below to brainstorm ways you can make it happen.
2015 will find me creating more recurring income and I’m happy to report that I’ve already started (why wait right?)! I launched Content For Moms this week and also launched the first content club called Fitness For Moms. If you want to create recurring income then here is what I did to get the ball rolling and what you can do to get started:
Step 1: Take a look at what you are doing now and see if there is anything you can do on a monthly basis. In my case, I already provide PLR content at PLRalacarte so it makes sense that I could create content on a monthly basis (plus I’ve done it before and know others that do it successfully as well).
Next, take a look at your market and see what people buy on a regular basis. This can give you a big hint as to what you could create.
Also take a look outside of your market and see what others are doing. Think about how you can differentiate yourself. What you can you do better or differently than others? How can you give your customers more value. In my example, there are other people who have health and fitness related content clubs so one way I differentiated myself is to simply create fitness content geared towards moms.
Check out my post on four different types of membership ideas so you can see what type of membership you can come up with.
Action Step: Decide what type of membership you could provide, who you will target with your membership and how you will differentiate yourself from others.
Step 2: Setting up your membership site. This can be as hard or easy as you make it. For me I was looking for a simple and fast set up. So I chose to use an affiliate platform called JVZoo.com. I have to set up the sales, upsell and download pages and add their button to my pages. I then can have my affiliates sign up and promote my membership for INSTANT commissions. I love this because I don’t have to bother with paying out affiliates each month. Instead at the time of the sale I get paid and so do they.
The only downfall to using JVZoo instead of using a membership plugin is that it is not as secured if you are using the sales funnel option. With membership plugins, members have to log in to access certain pages. I mostly went this route in the beginning because of the affiliate option which you may or may not care about. In the PLR world, affiliates are very important to business success. But if you do not care about having affiliates promote your membership right away then the easiest way to get started is to set up a WordPress site with an membership plugin like WishList or one of my favorites aMember.
Action Step: Set up your sales page, upsell, download, and affiliate pages (amongst all the other important pages).
Step 3: What will your price be? This really depends on a lot of factors. Don’t get stuck here…just pick a price or give 3 different options and go from there. You can always test out different prices.
Action Step: Decide on your pricing and get on with it!
Step 4: Launch it. Let everyone know about it. This is something you have to continue to do so don’t just promote it for a day and then quit.
Action Step: Promote, promote, promote!
Now that I have my first content club all set up and launched I just have to focus on creating content and getting more members – and of course launching my next content club! I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
So let me know..are you going to set up a membership site in 2015? Let me know what questions you have about this topic!