How A Membership Site Could Transform Your Business

A membership site is where customers pay a scheduled subscription fee in exchange for continued supply of a service or product. This usually takes (but not limited to) form in educational resources, current and up to date information, creative assets or mentorship.

Benefits of Membership Sites

The benefits of membership sites can bring new customers, repeat business and a more reliable income. The subscription model has been around for a long time, but a modern approach using an e-commerce platform is reasonably new, and easily obtainable.

If you have a service or a product which can be offered to the masses, then considering a membership site might be a good direction. Here are our reasons why membership sites are a good ideas;

They help your customers
Membership sites are all about relationships and giving value to the members that join meaning you give them something back for their subscription. This usually takes form in education, information, resources, assets or mentorship.

You get more reliable income
You are able to generate recurring revenue, allowing you to predict income and allocate it properly into product development or improved services.Your cashflow will become healthier and easy to manage.

You build relations, communities and customer loyalty
You’re essentially creating a community. Your signups are committing themselves to you and your business whether it be for entertainment or educational purposes – They’re interested in what you’re offering enough to exchange money for it.

You are building an audience for up-selling
Now you have a paying-audience, you have a direct route to the audience to up-sell them relevant and relatable products. And as they are already paying for your service, you know they will have an interest in what you are offering. In addition you have an audience to survey when researching new ideas and products.

Growth can be exponential & your value constantly increases.
A previously mentioned, with the recurring income you can have better control of your cash flow, meaning that you can make quicker and better decisions on the growth of your business. Likewise, if your audience is finding good value of your service or products, they’ll shout about it to their friends and family and will give you more customers.

Member demands keep you active and responsible
As you have active members all the time, you have a responsibility to ensure what they are receiving is of a standard that they signed up for. Keeping you on your toes and ensuring you deliver.

Examples of Membership Sites

There are many examples of these sites – Some big, some niche, here are our favourites – They also offer very different products and services to each other, further showing that this type of website isn’t only for specific industries;

Lynda.com – Educational
This is a well known membership site that offers a huge library of online courses for people to learn new skills. Ranging from Website Design to Photography, Marketing to Self Improvements courses. It offers a monthly subscription fee in the return for access to these courses and allows their customers to grow and better themselves. Lynda.com has been going for over 20 years now and offers tailored experiences to  higher education institutions, government bodies and businesses of all sizes.

www.lynda.com

Dollar Shave Club – Male Grooming
A more niche business – Offering shaving items to be delivered on your door step whenever the customer wishes. Gone are the days that you forget to buy new blades for your razor, or run out of shaving foam – Being a member of this club means that you get to set up how often you want these products delivered and if you wish to have special products included on certain deliveries.

www.uk.dollarshaveclub.com

Hello Fresh – Food Delivery
A food delivery service to fit into busy everyday life. The customer signs up for a number of boxes that contain the correct amount of ingredients and a recipe to make a delicious meal for as many people as they asked for. The brilliance of this is that all of this gets delivered to your door when you want it. HelloFresh offer a discount if more than 1 box is ordered at once and up to a huge 35% off if 4 or more boxes are ordered at the same time.

www.hellofresh.co.uk