Best Niches For Starting A Membership Site

26 replies
Hi,

Was wanting to find out what are the ideal niches in which to start a membership site.

Thanks,

South Bay Bones
#membership #niches #site #starting
  • Profile picture of the author DaveHughes
    There are successful membership sites for everything to video gaming to specific types of pets to knitting.

    The only limiting factors are if it's a group that regularly spends money on their passion, and if you can provide something in a membership site that your target niche would be willing to pay for.

    That means you really have to get inside the minds of your target niche. Aside from that, I wouldn't be surprised if someone could make a go of a membership site devoted to bologna lovers...assuming there's a hungry market for it.

    (Ba-dump-BUMP!)
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  • Profile picture of the author houdini
    I suggest you think about what niche you are interested in first. If you are into that niche chances are many others are into it also. Create a membership site on the niche you love personally.

    This will keep you excited and you will be doing what you love while making money.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jon Tees
    The most successful that I've seen relate to gaming, dating/relationships and assistance with helping others make money online. Many people will happily pay a reasonable monthly fee to learn how to cash in on the internet gold rush.
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  • Profile picture of the author ARVolund
    The search found HERE proves that just about any niche will work for a membership site. Possibly the most boring thing ever and there are thousands of matches.

    Originally Posted by southbaybones View Post

    Hi,

    Was wanting to find out what are the ideal niches in which to start a membership site.

    Thanks,

    South Bay Bones
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    • Magazines.

      Just go check out what magazines are out there. They are basically print versions of membership sites.
      Signature

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  • Profile picture of the author AndrewStark
    George has made a brilliant point, pick your favourite magazine and create a free report on a particular aspect and give that away to build a list.

    Use a script like cutterfly marketing so that all readers of the report can become affiliates, and earn commissions on any One Time Offer you can create relating to the niche.

    The other great thinh about magazines is that you can find details of companies who have advertising dollars, so you could do banner swaps with them - ie ready made JV partners.

    Just remember to be passionate and make your site stand out from the crowd.
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  • haha sorry but fashion socks lol, boy am I glad I've got a few memberships site I will have running soon, seems like the best way to get a huge list of fans and community, that or creating a service or product everyone wants

    Jay.
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  • you guys have tunnel vision O_O

    Your trying to follow the herd, think outside the box:

    here's a few popular ones that comes to mind, with room for competition:

    Bird Watching

    RC Cars

    Adult Movies (Always going to be room for another adult site )

    How about going for more exotic animals?

    I mean look some people are profiting off fashionable socks haha, sorry but that cracks me up each time.

    Buses, that's another odd one that people are in to.

    Think outside the box, we don't nearly have enough people doing membership site to create struggle for creating a profitable membership site, 90% of topics havn't even been tapped yet.

    Jay.
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    • Profile picture of the author deckman
      Originally Posted by Jason Perez O'Connor View Post

      you guys have tunnel vision O_O

      Your trying to follow the herd, think outside the box:

      here's a few popular ones that comes to mind, with room for competition:

      Bird Watching

      RC Cars

      Adult Movies (Always going to be room for another adult site )

      How about going for more exotic animals?

      I mean look some people are profiting off fashionable socks haha, sorry but that cracks me up each time.

      Buses, that's another odd one that people are in to.

      Think outside the box, we don't nearly have enough people doing membership site to create struggle for creating a profitable membership site, 90% of topics havn't even been tapped yet.

      Jay.
      I am with you on this one. I have a offline niche that I am pursuing and the search volume is up with the competition is low. This gives me the opportunity to go in many different directions with this. It took me awhile to come across this one but is worth the wait.
      The IM community has not even started to touch this one.
      This is one of the rewards of thinking outside the box.
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    • Originally Posted by Jason Perez O'Connor View Post

      you guys have tunnel vision O_O

      Your trying to follow the herd, think outside the box:

      here's a few popular ones that comes to mind, with room for competition:

      Bird Watching

      RC Cars

      Adult Movies (Always going to be room for another adult site )

      How about going for more exotic animals?

      I mean look some people are profiting off fashionable socks haha, sorry but that cracks me up each time.

      Buses, that's another odd one that people are in to.

      Think outside the box, we don't nearly have enough people doing membership site to create struggle for creating a profitable membership site, 90% of topics havn't even been tapped yet.

      Jay.
      I believe there are magazines for all of these niches. Just go to your local bookstore and look through the magazine rack. You will get mainstream and out of the box ideas.
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  • Indeed it is

    Membership sites have a long life ahead of them

    infact, with over 500,000 words in the english language, everything has a long lasting life ahead of it, we havn't touched on a quarter of keyword combinations.

    Jay.
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  • Profile picture of the author Melani
    Trains! Do you know how many train nuts are out there? And there's two groups within the main one too:
    - Those into the model trains and everything that goes along with it
    - Those that like the real trains

    Trains are good - I know two train nuts (one in each group) without even thinking hard lol
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  • Hey Melani I see your a gamer turned IM'er

    Me too, though I dabbled in both casual gaming (fps, mmorpg, strategy) and played at PRO level being sponsored by teams to play tournaments internationally.

    Cool to see!

    Jay.
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    • Profile picture of the author Melani
      Originally Posted by Jason Perez O'Connor View Post

      Hey Melani I see your a gamer turned IM'er

      Me too, though I dabbled in both casual gaming (fps, mmorpg, strategy) and played at PRO level being sponsored by teams to play tournaments internationally.

      Cool to see!

      Jay.
      I'm still a gamer Was on WoW just last night. You're twitter icon takes me to a 'not found' page, but feel free to chat to me anytime via mine. Always happy to talk gaming.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    I have to laugh about the sock of the month club...I'm a knitter and did you know that knitters pay STOOPID amounts of money for yarn made of everything from real silver filament to corn.

    It's NOTHING for a knitter to pay $15 for a ball of yarn for socks...and then they have to knit them themselves! (Actually, $15 is getting off cheap.)

    How many people do you know who would pay $15 for a pair of socks? LOL

    Yup, passion comes in many different packages!
    Signature
    Sign up to be notified when Success on Demand goes live, and receive a FREE mindmap that you can follow to create and launch your OWN IM PRODUCTS!
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  • Profile picture of the author JoeOFarrel
    remember that the first reason people go to membership sites is to interact - it takes some time for a community site to take off and to become profitable.

    The way i see it, the biggest social sites of today are all very public, where a lot of people don't have possibility to interact about the things they don't wish to share with everyone.

    Examples: medical conditions, strange passions, things they are ashamed of, etc.

    A great way to pick up ideas is to go to 43things.com and see what currently has the most followers.
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    • ah, I changed my twitter name, though it is in no way linked to my gaming.

      I've since quit due to a child coming and getting involed with IM, I play Quake live now and again but that's it.

      My last tourny was in belgium where we won claiming the best team in the world in Call Of Duty 4:



      I'm the one sipping on a bottle, and my brother is giving my team mate a hug for winning (bunch of gays), but hey we'd just won thousands each. Our main sponsor was Intel and the logo on the front was our team. Our second best sponsor was Dell, razer etc.

      One more:



      My brother and me in the background


      And that was a tournament in netherlands, was a tence round where we needed to win or we were going home, this is a groupstage game.

      My manager behind us is holding his head in nerves lol.

      And a little frag highlight of some of our matches, the first bit with the m4 gun is video of me playing an important round 1on4, won 4 k from that tournament.


      Jay, soz for the post, I just love gaming in general, its provided me with both fun, money and the option to travel for free!

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      • Profile picture of the author Mohammad Afaq
        Originally Posted by Jason Perez O'Connor View Post

        ah, I changed my twitter name, though it is in no way linked to my gaming.

        I've since quit due to a child coming and getting involed with IM, I play Quake live now and again but that's it.

        My last tourny was in belgium where we won claiming the best team in the world in Call Of Duty 4:



        I'm the one sipping on a bottle, and my brother is giving my team mate a hug for winning (bunch of gays), but hey we'd just won thousands each. Our main sponsor was Intel and the logo on the front was our team. Our second best sponsor was Dell, razer etc.

        One more:



        My brother and me in the background

        YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.

        And that was a tournament in netherlands, was a tence round where we needed to win or we were going home, this is a groupstage game.

        My manager behind us is holding his head in nerves lol.

        And a little frag highlight of some of our matches, the first bit with the m4 gun is video of me playing an important round 1on4, won 4 k from that tournament.

        YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.

        Jay, soz for the post, I just love gaming in general, its provided me with both fun, money and the option to travel for free!

        Dude amazing. I love FPS games and I play good too but not on this level

        You are just amazing. Wish I had a chance like you.

        You are lucky
        Signature

        “The first draft of anything is shit.” ~Ernest Hemingway

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        • Profile picture of the author DaveHughes
          Okay, did anyone learn anything here? It's well-known to some that gaming is a profitable niche to market to, but notice the social aspect going on right in this thread.

          Two people found out that they both enjoy the same past time, and immediately start sharing with each other about it.

          There's a lesson here: it doesn't matter if it's gaming, trains or socks...at their most basic level, ALL membership sites are social in nature. Without that element, you don't have a membership site...you have a content delivery system.

          Having said all that, I did my time as a high-level endgame raider in WoW as the warlock class lead for our 300-person guild; been there, done that. I still dabble from time to time, but I don't seem to have the time or inclination to devote that much attention to it again.

          However, always be thinking about opportunities; "membership" sites can take a lot of different forms. When I first got hooked on MMORPGs, it was with City of Heroes. As a professional broadcaster, I joined up with a small fan-based internet-only radio station, became one of the partners, and a year later we were the first net-only station to ever be allowed to broadcast live from the floor of E3 in Los Angeles, sponsored by NCSoft.

          The reason we took it to such heights? Because of, and I quote, "our connection to the in-game community". We had thousands of people that joined our forums, thousands that logged into our stream to listen during peak hours, etc, etc. We sold advertising on our audio stream, just like a terrestrial radio station.

          Guess what? We were a "membership" site, with the membership being free. Then, we upsold the companies that most wanted to attach themselves to the relationship we had built with their customers.

          Don't get too caught up in the idea that a membership site is a batch of reports and articles every month; there are a lot of ways to skin this particular cat.
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  • Profile picture of the author kaos
    Membership sites are todays print magazines.
    Go into a bookstore or into the magazine section of a store and everything there has membership site potential.
    Also the library carries this book on publishers:
    SRDS Media Solutions ®
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  • Profile picture of the author Big Al
    Magazines sounds good ... with that said I'd be inclined to go for a niche that already has membership sites in existance and prove the model is financially viable for you.

    A bit like you'd be concerned about going into a niche without an affiliate product or Google Ads.

    Al
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    • Profile picture of the author innocent07
      Banned
      How about the 'membership' niche.

      that is obvious but has potential.
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  • Ah good point!

    Most people would think that being good a games wouldn't have any fans or take you anywhere, but I had people pay me to give tips, pay to play with my team, and if any of you have heard about the program 'xfire' , they themselves pay us to play on public with rookies and then pay us more to play in a tournament with all the best teams.

    Then a session where they get to talk to me, and I go through the ideas and plans behind an excellent push, a strategic play, greatly placed grenades and how to use weapons.

    Everyone at the top level adapts a number of fans, and all these fans watch all your demos and follow your matches on stream.

    I had the pleasure of playing on live TV in a few countries. Unfortunately I had my worst tournament in Denmark and on LIVE TV made myself very unsportsman like. Basically told the guy from czech republic that if he even touched my hand I would sock him one, I regret that now

    But I loved the competition, and when you become the best, you hate to be knocked of your position.

    I got free mouse, xbox games, LG monitors, hotels, flights, and money for food.

    So I could say the services I provided for the fans were like subscriptions, because I got payed for it. Part of being a pro gamer isn't just being good, but being a good role model and doing best by your Organization. In this case for me it was Team Dignitas ? Professional eSport team , I was to keep a respectable attitude and do PR for the organization when needed, since I was under contract.

    All-in-All it was fun, and I regret that I have no time for it now.

    Here's is the match of the above screenshots for anyone who wants to watch:

    Video On Demand


    Jay.
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    • Profile picture of the author DaveHughes
      PLEASE tell me you have an FPS Tips membership site?

      You've pretty much got your sales copy in this thread. Do it as a free membership site with general information, product reviews (mice, headsets, etc) and upsell them ebooks of strategies and tips from a former top pro gamer.

      Heck, you could probably sell one-on-one coaching sessions if you marketed it the right way. I'm not sure, but you might be the first "FPS Consultant".
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  • The organization Dignitas was looking into sessions where you taught rookies.

    But the idea had already been adopted by a team called complexity.

    compLexity Gaming - Counter-Strike | World of Warcraft | FIFA | Quake Live | Madden

    I think it was around 25-50 dollars every 30 mins or so? For counter strike 1.6

    I would do it but I know I would get hooked, plus I have a few good things going, I will keep it in mind though, because it's something I've always enjoyed and I have first hand experience of the lifestyle it provides.

    Jay.
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