Are you thinking of selling memberships on the internet? You can find a better way to
It doesn't require a membership program to have an effective online business. Learn how to generate consistent regular revenue, without membership in just 4 steps.
Most people think that selling memberships online will be the key to unlocking the type of life they desire, and it's sensible. A membership business is a very attractive business model.
There are many who build online communities as another revenue stream. Because it's a recurring revenue after you've sold your membership, it's money in the bank every month, surely?
Wrong!
Selling memberships online is a really hard enterprise to establish and not one of the manuals you discover when searching for on how to create a membership will tell you this.
But with over 150,000 people creating online businesses , we have a wealth of data about what works and what doesn't.
In this post will cover:
The challenges of building a membership program online
What are the other more efficient ways of achieving the outcome that you want
An easy step-by-step method for building a business that gets you money while you sleep (without building the foundation of a membership!)
By the end of this piece, you'll be equipped with all the resources and structures that you require to create a truly great business with all the perks of steady monthly income, but not the hassle of trying to market online memberships.
Are you looking for something attractive? Do you want to know more?
There is no need for an membership service to run an online company that is successful. has tens of thousands of satisfied business owners who built their website leads, lead magnets and online products and marketing via email using 's all-in-one platform for solo creators. Create your own website storefront, email marketing and storefront to begin for no cost.
All that glitters is not gold: the challenges of creating a member-based site
A business that makes money even while you're asleep is a dream for entrepreneurs. And if you can get it, that's true.
When creators and business owners start thinking about how to get it, though they usually think of the possibility of adding a membership-based site to their offering.
This page is for you this means you've experienced the same feeling you've already created content on social media. Your followers seem to appreciate them. Therefore, it's not difficult to get people to pay them every month to receive bonus content, tutorials and access to live events and much more.
Perhaps you've even spoken those words of fate to yourself:
"I've got 10,000 followers on Instagram. If only one percent of them sign up for my membership, I'll be rolling in dough."
However, there are two key challenges that almost every person who attempts to establish an online membership comes across very quickly:
Most people who launch subscriptions notice that their focus changes from what they enjoy - making contents - to trying to figure out why more people aren't purchasing from them.
When everything is going great, you spend so much effort trying to maintain those members who are already there that you're not able to do what got you those members initially. That means fewer new members.
Online selling memberships is very difficult to run a business.
The first hurdle is which is where the majority of people stumble: you have to create an offeringthat's appealing enough for someone who isn't familiar with your content to go from liking your free content to making a payment every month.
If you're like many people, you're probably considering adding these to a membership tier:
Exclusive tutorials and content
The ability to attend webinars with invitation-only access or other occasions
Behind-the-scenes videos from your business
Coaching in a 1:1 format as someone is added to your top class
Podcast for members only
Woof! That sounds exhausting to me.
This leads to the second problem In the event that you get enough people to agree to this so that you're satisfied with the amount of money you earn but now you're required to devote most of your time developing the exclusive content in your paywallso that they can enjoy the value they've promised.
You don't just have to create all that stuff once, but you have to go on month after month without ever stopping to rest.
Ask me what was the last time you enjoyed running on treadmill?
The treadmill exactly is the kind of membership Retention becomes a huge problem to solve. It is essential to constantly improve the value of your membership and if they do not feel they're receiving that value, your members will likely to leave. That means your revenue is dependent on you spending the bulk of your spare time ensuring you don't.
Not to mention what happens when someone's credit card is due to expire and they snoop around on your account (it occurs in a staggering amount). That's totally beyond your control, but this also means that your income decreases without a way to rectify it.
On the off chance that you are able to stay clear of eachof those pitfalls, you'll probably still realize that you no longer need to work on the content that's going to attract new members to your membership service.
It's so easy to spend time creating content and creating value for your members, that there's no chance you have the energy and motivation to be successful on your social media accounts or be featured on events, podcasts or other shows.
Thinking of writing a blog post? No chance!
Are you planning to introduce a brand new product?! It's been maxed out!
OK. So. It's likely that's not what you wanted to hear as you read an article on selling memberships online. We do not want you to be in a state of despair and hopelessness.
In the end, we've watched hundreds of thousands of individuals like you build beautiful businesses which they enjoyto manage. Companies that provide them with their lifestyles they desire as a side-job or, hopefully, their primary job!
In the next part In the next part, we'll discuss a structure to build a company which gives you all the benefits you desire without the hassle that comes in running an online member program.
Flywheel for business online: this no-hacks system makes millions of dollars each month
If building a membership business sounds exhausting to you then you're not the only one. platforms like Patreon or ConvertKit that specialize in members' services are sure to be rewarded to share the bright aspect of selling memberships: everything goes perfectly and everyone's making a living doing what they love.
Even if you do not adhere to the logic behind our argument above take a look at the lead of nearly 150,000 who have built businesses the basis of membership programs, but without establishing a program.
In this part this section, we'll show you the easiest method to building an online business that actually makes money when you're asleep andlets you have the time to do the things you loved when first starting your own business, which is being an expert in the field you do, and sharing your know-how with others.
The framework used is the exact framework that the most successful solo entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs are using in their own businesses. While it looks different to everyone else, the basic parts are generally identical. They include:
Begin with a basic lead magnet that you could make use of to gather emails.
Add an email newsletter for your subscribers to build trust with them
Launch a paid product in order to convince them to purchase from you
Add blog content to your website, which will help people discover you organically
Restart the process to increase your income
Let's work through this method step by step. You can get your account for free and start building today - you only upgrade once you're done.
Step 1 - Start with a simple lead magnet
A lead magnet is a simple tool that you can offer your customers for free in exchange for email addresses.
Almost every successful business online begins with a lead magnet.
Practically speaking, a lead magnet could be as simple or as complex as you wish it to be. However, we recommend making it easy. Lead magnets that work well will help people do something to helps solve a problem, or even make something in a small amount of time (say about 20 mins)
Here's some quick ideas of lead magnets that you can make easily:
A checklist of steps to be followed when doing an exact procedure
A cheat sheet
An example of a template which you and your viewers could utilize frequently
An idea generator
An assortment of quotations about an issue (this is among our lead magnets with the highest performance!)
Essentially, you are able to make your lead magnet in Google Docs, Sheets or Canva and save it as a PDF.
After you've completed that process after that, you'll require someplace to mail people that they can sign up for it.
How to set up your lead magnet
It's a good thing that you have the ability to set up your lead magnet. You can create a web page to send those who sign up as well as send it every time you sign up. It's great news that you can complete all of this at no cost.
Go ahead and register for a free account here .
Once you've done that, click on Products on the navigation bar of your account and choose the option 'New Product':
A popup will appear. Here you can choose a title as your lead magnet (you are able to change it later.)
Make sure you select 'Digital Download' when you are selecting the product type as this has the option of 'Free Email Delivery' choice later (bear our cries!)
Within the editor for digital downloads You can upload documents to your digital download product. You are able to add as many files you'd like. If you upload several files, these will be automatically zipped through the system after they've been downloaded by your customers.
Once your files are uploaded You must select pricing and choose "Free Delivery of Email"
It will allow customers to enter their emails to sign up for your lead magnet and not have to register an account.
When you're ready, hit publish on your product.
Designing your lead magnet landing page
Now that you've got a lead magnet and the means to distribute it (we'll complete the task for you! ), you're going to need somewhere to direct people to the place they can input the email address they want to use.
MORE GOOD NEWS!
With your free account on this site, you can get a totally free site and an easy place to edit it and design it just the way you like it without having to collaborate with a designer or developer.
For a quick access to your page for lead magnets and begin designing, simply click the [...] button and select 'Edit Sales Page'
Editing your landing page on your own is easy. This page took me just two minutes to build:
In the case above, I've added a few numbers that will help you find your way around:
On the content tab of every section, you have the option to modify the text, include the pictures, and in general set what you'd like your viewers to be able to view.
On the design tab, you have the option of choosing from a number of different options including a series of preset layouts, spacings images, and styles. You can also choose an appropriate color palette (or create one that's unique to this particular page)
If you don't love the default options for design (although they already look superior to other web-based builder software) it is possible to click on the tab for design, which is marked with three on the above image. This will allow you to create fonts, colors as well as other options for your company's brand.
It is also possible to add more sections by hovering over the designer's image and then clicking the plus icon that appears:
Before you finish designing your website, it is important to set your page address. All sites come with the option of a subdomain for free that can access your website (e.g. [yoursite]..com) however, if you wish to have your own domain name, you can upgrade to the Starter plan for $4/month (which is great value!)
For grabbing the URL to your current landing page, you can click on the following links:
Click the menu in the upper left corner of your web builder
Choose the web page you're working on Click the cog icon right next to it (indicated by the two-digit number in the above image)
It will then reveal the settings on the current page. You may copy the URL and start sending your audience to the page to sign-up or you can edit the URL if you want to use a different title for it (this is known as a URL slug, I know it's gross)
TIP: Some users prefer to cover up the headers on landing pages for their lead magnets. If you're one of them it's possible to turn the header on and off there too.
What can you do using this URL?
How do you get people to download your lead magnet?
By doing this, any person who checks out your profile receives an offer for an excellent resource from your. It's easy to see signups increasing.
The other place you can use your lead magnet in the form of a call-to-action when you do participate on a podcast, or at an occasion. When the host asks 'Where do people locate you and how can they find you?', simply tell them to go download your resource for free and it's much better than just saying "Follow me on Instagram'
Step 2: Add an email newsletter for your customers
The goal of setting up a lead magnet is to provide enough value to make it free for them to give you their email addresses.
By 2024, having an email address will be the most important thing that the audience can offer to you (besides the obvious money, but we'll talk about that in a bit). If you've got the email addresses, you can make use of email marketing to own the relationships with your customers in order to avoid the chance of being snubbed whenever a social platform alters its algorithm.
How do you keep on top of your members? An email newsletter!
The great thing about an email newsletter is it's kind similar to a membership, except it can be used as a tool to sell more expensive items that a membership does - and you can make it available to anyone, meaning it's not necessary to focus on creating for a tiny segment of your audience.
With your free account, you'll be able to subscribe 100 people for no cost which will allow you to earn some cash when you take the next step.
Each person that downloads the lead magnet is added to your account, and you are able to send them email marketing.
There are two types of email you can send by email :
Broadcasts - a single-off email that are used for things such as regular newsletter updates, or offers with a time limit
Campaigns - automated sequences of emails that can be sent whenever a subscriber completes certain actions, like purchasing a product or getting added to your mailing list for the first time.
If you're following along with this, we'd recommend you begin by attempting to create regular newsletters where you share some of your knowledge.
It's extremely easy to build a beautiful looking email on and works exactly like the builder for websites.
Here's a sample I made earlier:
Tip: If you're not feeling like designing yourself, pick one of the already-designed templates that are available on your account. You can then modify it according to your preferences (or send it at is)
Here are some email subjects that you can try:
5 ways to learn more about [your topic]
An account of how I achieved the result your customers would like to seeI achieved the result your subscribers want
Quick guide to [specific task your subscriber needs to do]
Do not overthink the matter in this moment. It's important to keep in touch with your customers so that at a later date (pretty in the near future, probably) you are able to tell them about the paid service you've just launched, which is where you start making money.
Make a plan and then forget it: Use the new subscriber program to instantly engage your target audience
An invitation to new subscribers - i.e., those who downloaded your lead magnet - is a great method to get them involved as well as give them a glimpse of what's coming.
To create a campaign, hover over 'Email' in the navigation bar the left side and choose "Campaigns". Then create a new campaign, and set the entrance condition to 'Signs up for Product' and select the name of the Lead Magnet you made.
Then you can create a set of messages that will send out over time to welcome your new subscribers. This is the Lead magnet welcome sequence that I've created to help me with my own side-projects:
Day 1 I welcome them to my newsletter and tell them about my story. Day 2 is when I dive a lot more deeply into the subject I talk about. Day 6 is the day I give them my worldview of mine, which they might find surprising. Day 8 is the day I provide them with an item to start earning profits.
On that note, let's move on to the main component of this entire framework The process of making money!
Step 3 - Start a paid service
As of now, we've developed an lead magnet that helps people convert visitors to subscribers and an email newsletter that helps to build trust. Now we need a way to turn this into sufficient income that you do not want to create a membership which is going take all of your energy and time from you.
How do we do that?
The product we launch is directly related to the issue that was which is solved by the lead magnet!
With your free account, you can launch 1 product (that's was covered by the lead magnet you created) thus you've got two choices:
You can either launch a coaching session - our free plan allows you to launch 1 of these too.
Or you can create another item and then upgrade to our Mover or Shaker plans when you're ready to launch (both plans offer unlimited training, downloads, and coaching sessions)
This article will walk you through the two options here to help you make the choice for yourself:
Start a coaching session
Once you have built confidence with your readers, offering a coaching session is a great method of turning the time and effort that you've put into the content into revenue.
In the example above in the case of the lead magnet that I set in the past, you'll seen that it was for my fictional business DeskBloom that specializes in helping office managers create green environments in their offices.
My lead magnet was a downloadable of 'Plant Care Labels' to will help the plant know when they need to water, what kind of conditions they prefer and also remember the names of each plant.
Then, my email sequence was geared towards simple plant care tips that they could use to improve their offices.
For my coaching session, I'll schedule a straightforward training session for my customers. They are able to pay for a 15-minute call where they use their camera phones to demonstrate the plants they have and offer my advice.
Let's dive in.
It's my first step to create a new product in the same way I did before, but this time, I'll select 'Coaching Session"
The setup of a coaching course differs slightly from other products because you actually copy and paste links to Calendly, SavvyCal, Acuity, or YouCanBookMe to include the booking calendar into your customers' product page.
Here's how it looks with my link to my calendar:
I'm able to set the pricing and then make it available for publication. It's the time I can design the website's landing page, but since previously mentioned, we've done this before and this is the exact method, I'm going to skip it now.
After your customers have purchased your product, they'll be taken to the area for customers only that will show your calendar widget embedded. Here's my colleague Rodrigo's page for an example of this:
A tip Aside from the fact that selling your own coaching program a wonderful opportunity to earn money by giving value to your customers, it's an excellent way to earn trust, which could turn into your customers recommending them to their friends. You can also get insights from speaking to your customers and use them to create more content as part of your flywheel.
Create a second downloadable course
If 1:1 facetime doesn't appeal to you or you just don't want to conduct coaching sessions you can find a myriad of other types of services you can make your first offer.
Most successful individuals usually start off by releasing a download that expands upon the things that the lead magnet was able to help users complete.
There are many good examples of downloads:
Template packs
Planner documents
Plan of work
Technical documents
Short ebooks
All of them could be effective your way and you're certainly not restricted to any of them.
Making a course available is an alternative, however remember it takes time to set up and a lot of learners get stuck on creating the perfect course.
Making a course is simple creating a course is easy . It's as easy as selecting 'Online Course' from the menu of new products similar to the way that we've described above.
You can then create your courses by including sections (like modules) and lessons that could include text, embedded content and quizzes as well as coaching sessions or even the like.
The ability publish your course, or product after you've picked a Mover plan or Shaker plan but you'll be able to get it ready before you upgrade.
Tips: You can add upsells to other products when you checkout. This is an excellent option to grow your profits without any effort.
Step 4: Add blog posts to your site
The ball is really rolling. As of now, you've:
Lead magnets - A means to get your audience to provide you with their email address
A newsletter for email and an automated welcome campaign - to increase trust among your customers
A paid product - that you can use to turn the trust into cash
However, what's lacking? An opportunity to bring ever-growing numbers of people to discover you without you needing to create content allthe time.
The most basic of methods of marketing is to produce several pieces of content which aid those searching for answers to particular challenges that you might solve for them with the things in steps 1,2 and 3 of this process.
With your free site, you also get an SEO-optimized, free blog that is stunning right out of the box and can be managed without the hassle of integrating plugins or themes.
In order to begin setting up your blog, just click on 'Blog' within the navigation of your account. Then, select "New Post' from the drop-down menu
The New Post page looks when it is loaded. It is possible to write your post in the big box on the left hand side.
To add an image, file, embed, button or line, or to control the formatting options for text You can simply enter '/' in the line, and you'll be presented with a list of options:
If you already have information created in a written document, or anywhere on the internet, you can copy and paste it into the space. It will be formatted to match the text and load images in the best way possible, however you could require some modifications depending on the information you're copying pasting.
TIP: You can also use our built-in tool for import of blogs for blogs that are hosted elsewhere, and want to upload your content in one go.
It's not the intention to have a constant source for content to be created - and that's what we're trying to get away from by avoiding the creation of an online membership website.
Instead, we want to keep our content focused to ensure that it does the most work for us.
How do we do it? Through writing blog posts on the most frequent problems that your ideal customers have which you could solve using your posts (and ideally your paid products!)
Here are some thought starters that we have found particularly useful:
How to subject - how to guides are a time tested classic that can help others find them and resolve their issues. Be helpful (like this article hopefully!) and people will realize you have products to help them solve their problems (BTW I hope you've used this post as an opportunity to sign up to get a FREE login . Meta. We are aware.)
Expert guides - this kind of content works really well when a person doesn't need a specific issue to address, but are considering a procedure. As an example, I can create an "expert guide to designing office plant installations'
Five top suggestions for "subject" that mix what-to content as well as experts' guide material. Giving actionable and well-earned tips makes you appear as a person who can assist your customers with their issues.
There are many guides that tell you that you should make large-sized posts. And, look, this one's currently about 4K words long however it's never necessary. It's been seen that people write great with articles on how-to which are less than 500 words. Our own content sometimes get a lot of subscribers when we get in depth and lengthy on a subject.
Once you've finished writing your article and you've had your posts published, you can design your blog page in the website builder.
There are two things that design should consider:
The archive page for your blog will see all of your blog posts in a list. Below is what mine appears after 2 minutes of adjusting elements like design and size of the image:
Also, the blog's individual post page template which is the template used by every one ofyour blog posts. The template includes some examples of your blog post's contents of one of your blog posts, to provide you with an idea of how all the posts you publish will appear when you publish:
For the best use of this system it is recommended to add an email signup form for your newsletter. It is as easy as clicking on the + button anywhere in the preview of your page and selecting 'Slim Email Form"' or "Email Form' for the section you want to create:
This form adds anyone who signs up by finding your blog's address to your Email newsletter.
It is possible to think of creating an entirely new campaign that welcomes the readers of your blog with tags to them automatically using the form's settings:
This would give you an opportunity to start the automated campaign directly through your account since 'Tag added' is one of the entrance conditions within Email:
Step 5: Restart your process over again in order to build the playing field and increase your income
That's the whole framework. And while it might feel like a lot of work to set it up, we assure you thatit's a better long-term win than having to create videos on a treadmill to improve retention and stop the subscribers of your program from resigning.
The best part about this program is that it gets better and better every the time you use it.
Let's suppose you've completed one flywheel, and made an impressive amount of cash from the subscribers.
If you include an additional free resource that triggers a nurture campaign as well as the CTA for a purchase of a priced product, you may earn additional revenue from the same individuals.
A lot of people price memberships at an affordable price that is $9/month, but If you were to sell a cheap product like a $100 download to your subscribers once every 6 months, you'd get $92 more a year.
This is before you consider that many people are adding more and more premium offers to this kind of business. Since you don't have to concentrate on creating exclusive content for your subscribers, you'll be able to concentrate on getting new customers to sign up for your no-cost offer... this will mean... more people to sign up for your premium offering!
Incremental revenue!
Do not create an online membership -- build a business flywheel instead
The dream sold by the online tools for membership is attractive: you do what you enjoy and earn money in the midst of your sleep.
The reality is quite different situation for the vast majority of people because it's difficult to convince subscribers to give you their credit card details. Then you have to keep delivering on your value proposition by providing valuable member-only content.
Even if you manage to do an excellent job at that it will be difficult to attract new subscribers, so all this passive income is really just a pipe dream.
But there's an easier way.
In the process of creating a flywheel for your business that acquires new subscribers, offers benefits to them automatically before monetizing them with one-time products and services and products, you could actually be the money you deserve for your knowledge andstill be able to expand your company.
There's no need to think about making sure your clients don't get a churn, or chase up credit cards.
With our no-cost plan you have the ability to:
Build a beautiful website complete with a blog
Make a lead magnet available that gets delivered automatically
Set up email marketing with up to 100 users to help you increase sales
Set up additional paid digital items and then upgrade them when you're ready for selling the products.
Although it won't be an easy task, it is simple and you can do it all on starting for free. Create your free account now.