Membership site or free blog?

12 replies
Do you think it's better to build a membership site and add valuable content to it to attract and keep members....or build a blog, add articles, and sell your own products and affiliate products?

Basically build a site with monthly recurring income vs. Build a site for affiliate and product sales.

Which is more attractive to you?

Mike
#blog #free #membership #site
  • Recurring sales are always very attractive.
    Who doesn't want passive income?


    However, I have found it getting lower conversion rates then one-off purchases
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  • Profile picture of the author gjabiz
    YOU have lots of choices and the better question to ask is what is more attractive to your self?

    Recurring income and sales of products do not have to be exclusive, they can support each other. Here are some ideas to consider...

    A fixed term membership site where content is dripped over a short period of time.

    This could lend itself to a higher priced stand alone product.

    Example: A 4 week membership site which teaches product creation, at the end of the term, an offer for a more expensive product, such as coaching or co-development.

    Blogs take time and attention, forums can be built by the users, so it may be more time effective to have a forum.

    A low cost per month forum could give you decades of recurring income and allow you sell products too, google Bill Myers for an example of a membership site with low monthly fees, which has been around for over a decade.

    I've had both and if doing it today, I would NOT blog, but use social media, especially facebook and twitter, although they eat up a lot of time too.

    Pencil out what you want the END RESULT to be and that might help you choose how you want to spend your time.

    No right or wrong and you'll get a lot of different opinions because of how you presented the question.

    gjabiz


    Originally Posted by 512 Designs View Post

    Do you think it's better to build a membership site and add valuable content to it to attract and keep members....or build a blog, add articles, and sell your own products and affiliate products?

    Basically build a site with monthly recurring income vs. Build a site for affiliate and product sales.

    Which is more attractive to you?

    Mike
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    • Profile picture of the author Highway55
      Originally Posted by gjabiz View Post

      YOU have lots of choices and the better question to ask is what is more attractive to your self?
      I agree with that.

      I think the ultimate question is "What can you stick to doing over the long haul? What can you dedicate yourself to?"

      Great ideas are nothing without continuous "progressive" action.
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    • Profile picture of the author jasodaly
      Originally Posted by gjabiz View Post

      YOU have lots of choices and the better question to ask is what is more attractive to your self?

      Recurring income and sales of products do not have to be exclusive, they can support each other. Here are some ideas to consider...

      A fixed term membership site where content is dripped over a short period of time.

      This could lend itself to a higher priced stand alone product.

      Example: A 4 week membership site which teaches product creation, at the end of the term, an offer for a more expensive product, such as coaching or co-development.

      Blogs take time and attention, forums can be built by the users, so it may be more time effective to have a forum.

      A low cost per month forum could give you decades of recurring income and allow you sell products too, google Bill Myers for an example of a membership site with low monthly fees, which has been around for over a decade.

      I've had both and if doing it today, I would NOT blog, but use social media, especially facebook and twitter, although they eat up a lot of time too.

      Pencil out what you want the END RESULT to be and that might help you choose how you want to spend your time.

      No right or wrong and you'll get a lot of different opinions because of how you presented the question.

      gjabiz
      Basically this!!!

      Continuity is always a great way to go for a long term sustainable income but the 2 certainly aren't mutually exclusive.

      I started off building a blog many moons ago because I liked to write but it is VERY labour intensive. However it is still a good idea to have a blog for personal branding; make sure you have a great "About me" page.

      But I must admit that most of my efforts at present have moved to social media, specifically Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as it is just easier to connect with my prospective audience.
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  • Profile picture of the author stevereel
    They are both viable, but it depends on you, your products, and your market.
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  • Profile picture of the author jbsmith
    We operate businesses in 3 niche markets where we have a very comfortable mix of free content (blogs, Youtube videos, articles, etc..) with our own info products and a membership site. This works extremely well.

    You pull people in with your content, you guide them to your products and have your membership site as an upsell in your sales funnel for those that want both a manual/ebook/video course AND the benefit of membership site where the content is updated weekly, there is a community and we tend to bundle some direct access with ours through both email support and bi-weekly inner circle calls.

    Jeff
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  • Profile picture of the author icoachu
    You have a bit of a chicken and egg problem...

    People won't pay to join a membership site unless they TRUST you have the content they need.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    Originally Posted by 512 Designs View Post

    Do you think it's better to build a membership site and add valuable content to it to attract and keep members....or build a blog, add articles, and sell your own products and affiliate products?

    Basically build a site with monthly recurring income vs. Build a site for affiliate and product sales.
    Why can't you build a site for affiliate and product sales, and still have monthly recurring income coming in? There are all kinds of continuity programs that you can create in a "product-by-product" system that you're talking about.
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    • Profile picture of the author 512 Designs
      Thanks for your replies everyone.


      I may eventually create both a blog for affiliates and a membership site, but I want to take things one step at a time and complete the best option first, let it grow, and then maybe move onto the other option.


      I believe I'm going to start by building a list while as I'm creating a membership site in the background. This way when I'm ready to launch the membership site, I'll hopefully have a list of people to market it to.


      This is certainly not a new or monumental idea, but it's at least a simple plan to get me going.
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  • Profile picture of the author ericruv
    I've seen some bloggers attract enough traffic to their sites by giving away valuable information for FREE and then create a dependency of the timeliness of that information just to switch to paying websites, or making a premium section available only for paying members, like this very WarriorForum, you entice people with free content and create an irresistible asset reachable only through special memberships.
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  • Profile picture of the author rosario1990
    Not a bad idea creating a new blog and add content onto it for selling products.
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  • Profile picture of the author Faradayy
    I think you need to build a good reputation first, and then when the time is right you can add a membership area with a subscription type plan. Otherwise it would be hard to gain any traction in the beginning.
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