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A new membership site

by anc_uk
10 replies
Hi,

My friend has an interesting take on the stock market whereby he claims he can predict buy/sell cycles. He is thinking of selling his advice via a membership site - which is where I come in.

I have not set one of these up before - but am very technical, so have no problems with this side of things.


My questions are around the following:

- What sort of administrative burden do these sites have (I work a job - and only have an hour or so a day to spend)

- Membership site software & payment processors?

- Can you guage whether people will actually buy in advance - ie. how do we market test the idea?

- Does anyone have any thoughts on how the business could be setup for when my friend goes on holiday? Unfortunately it relies on him to make the recommendations and cannot be outsourced. He mentioned letting members know in advance and refunding, but I am not convinced...


Your thoughts would be welcomed.

Thanks,
Alex
#membership #site
  • Profile picture of the author peraterence
    Hi,
    Memberwing is a good plugin and fully automated paid version.
    Terence Pera
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  • Profile picture of the author Underground SEO
    well paypal has quite a good recurring payment processing system. However, with regards to the whole going on holiday refunding people thing, like you I'm not sure how that would work as a) people will probably get annoyed and b) it could mess up your subscription if doing it with paypal as you would have to cancel subscriptions to re-start them.
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  • Profile picture of the author peraterence
    Hi,
    E Member is another plugin and cheaper than Memberwing and do awhole lot more than Paypal.
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    • Profile picture of the author David-JP
      You need to be more specific as to what you need the system to do?
      Integrate with wordpress? Distribute incremental content?
      Protect videos? Have an affiliate system?

      The tech part can be set up in a few hours to a day, the marketing of the site is where the time is spent and money made.

      David
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  • Profile picture of the author prettyboy
    Amember.com is a great membership tool. It makes the admin part easy to manage and has a lot of plugins that you can use. Though it may cost a little more, it's well worth it because once it's done, there's not a lot of hassle...at least I haven't experienced any.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeHumphreys
      Originally Posted by prettyboy View Post

      Amember.com is a great membership tool. It makes the admin part easy to manage and has a lot of plugins that you can use. Though it may cost a little more, it's well worth it because once it's done, there's not a lot of hassle...at least I haven't experienced any.
      I agree 110%. I used another membership site script for a recent project that has been one headache after another. The latest thing is the script won't let your members download any file larger than 30 MB which is pretty common for video and audio files these days.

      I've been waiting for an answer from the product owner (who is a Warrior) for almost 2 weeks now on how soon an update or patch will be available. In the meantime, I'm forced to look at replacing their script on my site with a more reliable one like Launch Formula Marketing or Amember. If it comes to that, I will do an email blast to all of my lists sharing my experience with their sub-par product.

      I'd tried about 6 scripts to date and the only other membership site script I'd recommend besides Amember is Launch Formula Marketing. The script works great and the tech support has always answered my questions within 24 hours.

      Neither script is cheap but both of them are extremely reliable, offer a lot of flexibility, and answer their tech support tickets in a timely manner. LFM is a one-time purchase for unlimited site license, so that makes it a stronger long-term investment IMHO.

      Hope that helps,

      Mike
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  • Profile picture of the author 7dollargiveaway
    You can use membereasy and ite free...
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    • Profile picture of the author mrcouchpotato
      One of my sites uses Extreme Member. It's based on Wordpress and is hosted on their servers. They take care of any upgrades, issues, and improvements. Support is very good.
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  • Profile picture of the author TimKerber
    Alex,

    A good starting point is looking for other models of success and see what they are using. Perhaps join a site or two to experience it from the end users perspective etc.

    MemberGate has over a dozen stock analysis type sites so you can check out some of those. There are some listed on the active sites list here:
    A Sample of MemberGates Nearly 1,100 Clients

    Thinking ahead of when he needs time off is smart. That could definitely be an issue but typically only IF that isn't explained up front. Something along the lines of "Joe takes 4 weeks holiday per year. They will not typically be all at once and we will give ample notice of at least 3 weeks in advance." (or wording to suit your needs).

    Basically position it that it is a GOOD thing for him to go off and refresh his batteries. The members are free to still use the resources on the site (including the forum) and have some forum moderators keeping an eye on things in his absence.

    Forum moderators can be found from within the forum itself. Much like the Warrior forum. The "stars" in the forum can be approached and given consideration for helping to keep an eye on things.

    If you are interested in trying out MemberGate, there is a limited time Warrior offer in my sig.

    Best wishes,

    Tim Kerber
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  • Profile picture of the author anc_uk
    Dear all,

    Thanks for your comments - some good stuff to be going on with.

    It has made me realise that the next stage is some decent market research.

    Many regards,
    Alex
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