How to Run a Membership Site Questions

[djleon1]

I am working on developing a membership site and have some questions with regards to the logistics of running one.

The site will be wordpress based using a one of the membership plugins and use aweber.

Lets assume I have the site with content and membership plugin what else is necessary for developing a membership site (not a forum)?

My guess is I am overthinking the site and making it to be too complex.
Any ideas or questions that other people have regards to these types of sites would be good to hear.

[Audi0]

Well that all depends on what you are going to offer...what are you planning on charging memberships for?

[digitalstar]

Recently i had seen a better solution for wordpress membership site solution ... i.e "wishlist member" . Hope that can help you

[djleon1]

I cant disclose what the site is about yet and charge is tbd. Are there different logistics for membership sites based on price and topic?

[TrafficMystic]

I also use 'wishlist member' and it's very good. It also integrates with paypal so when a member stop a subscription it will inform the site and the user and pass is disabled.

You can also drip feed content base on days / weeks / months.. So a member cannot simply join on say week 1 and grab all the content then cancel the paypal payment.

[James Schramko]

You may also want to consider nanacast.

It has a wordpress member lockdown and it takes care of payments, upsells, downsells, affiliates and reporting.

(It works with aweber).

[WD Mino]

Hi,
Ok So you have the platform and decided on a plugin ok. great. that is a huge step.

now.
who does it target. how will you get the content will you make your own will you get it from other places will you have a place such as a forum or chat room for the members remember people are social creatures.

How will you deliver the content monthly? yearly? one time?

How will you manage customer support will you. have a help desk. use a forum? use direct email? how will you deal with charge backs?
How will you market the site will you use local methods such as classified ads bulletin boards flyers etc.. or will you write articles pertaining to the niche of your choice specifically to your site. will you network with other sites if so can you drive enough traffic to their site to make it worthwhile for them as well as your own.
Also when doing your site you must ask yourself how do I take care of the members aside from the content. am I willing to spend time with them and help them. a happy member is a loyal member
-WD

[djleon1]

Another question with regards to storage for content downloads - do I need a separate service to handle that (or is this part of shopping cart like e-junkie) or do I use Amazon S3 and integrate that into shopping cart?

I am writing out my business plan and trying to factor in the services and costs on my end.

[youngmillionaire]

you need payment processor integrated with your membership site, you also need software to deliver your product or you can upload the all the product you want your member to have access to.

[brettmwindmann]

If you are serious I would DEF check out Nanacast and I have heard good things about Amember. Both are affordable and have great feedback, atleast what I have read.

[Goran Zinic]

I'm using aMember. It has support for many CC processors, build in affiliate program and best of all... the best autoresponder support.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by djleon1

I cant disclose what the site is about yet and charge is tbd. Are there different logistics for membership sites based on price and topic?

There are definitely different logistics depending on market and deliverables. I'm at a similar point in a continuity project, so I've been doing some planning as well.

One thing you will find is that markets/topics that are meant to make the members money - from PLR collections to stock trading newsletters - can command higher prices as long as you can deliver the goods.

Another common thing is that the higher you go on the experience/sophistication scale, the more you can charge.

Logistics will change depending on the content you intend to deliver. A printed and mailed newsletter has different things to consider than a content dump (I don't mean that as a knock). While the actual specifics will change, the basics are billing and payment, access control, content delivery and customer support.

Once you have a handle on what you mean to provide, then you can go looking for solutions.

[WD Mino]

Originally Posted by djleon1

Another question with regards to storage for content downloads - do I need a separate service to handle that (or is this part of shopping cart like e-junkie) or do I use Amazon S3 and integrate that into shopping cart?

I am writing out my business plan and trying to factor in the services and costs on my end.

If you use memberwing Which is my preference nothing against any other ones you can actually "hide" the files so you upload the files to the sever and then make only x amount available for x status of member i.e. free. gold. platinum. if you want to do a drip feed you can use wishmember but I have not used that one so I know not what to say about it.

You have done well thus far way to go on taking action.
cheers
-WD