10 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
10 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

NEED Advice - Building My 1st Membership Site

by orebian
9 replies
Hello,

I'm planning to build my 1st membership site this month. May I know whether "Forum" is a good start for membership?

E.g. We build a forum based around an interesting topic, get users to join for free, engage them in posting at the forum, n monetize it via Ads/Info/Services.

Please leave a reply below and add your 2-cents. :rolleyes:

Thank you.

P.S. I going to use phpBB open source software. Is it advisable?
#1st #advice #building #membership #site
  • Profile picture of the author hassan007
    It totally depends upon choices.... But I think in beginning a forum might overload you... There are great wordpress membership sites around....

    What I found best is Amember Pro for membership sites
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6194749].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author BenFitts
      If you want to setup a membership site around a forum you need to develop the forum and the community FIRST.

      Forums need a lot of members before you can start charging for memberships. You will find most of your forum members don't talk, they lurk. They simply "read" stuff. Maybe 20% will post and maybe 5% will be your real frequent posters. (These numbers are off the top of my head I'd actually have to check to give you specifics.)

      Same thing with ads. No one is going to buy an ad on a forum that doesn't get a lot of posts/traffic/page views. You need to develop an audience before you can sell ads.

      Most people I know develop the audience first. They blog or podcast or make youtube videos or a free ebook or whatever to build the audience. Then they launch the membership site.

      aMember is a good membership software package that integrates with forums like SMF and vBulletin. However both SMF and vBulletin can also do memberships... You don't need aMember. If all you want to do is setup things like some protected forums then you don't need additional software. Your forum software can do that.

      You would want aMember if you wanted a site that did digital downloads of an ebook, protected content on a wordpress blog, and forum integration all with one username/password. That's the perfect kind of thing to use aMember for.
      Signature
      Benjamin Fitts
      877-BEN-FITTS (877-236-3488)
      Send Out Cards from your computer
      BC Marketers, LLC - Membership Site Experts
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6214930].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author DustonMcGroarty
        Originally Posted by BenFitts View Post

        If you want to setup a membership site around a forum you need to develop the forum and the community FIRST.

        Forums need a lot of members before you can start charging for memberships.
        This isn't true... we started our forum-based membership site with ZERO members but told them they would have access to us to answer any questions. They paid $67 a month to join.

        It took us some time to build up the member count and now they do pretty well answering each others questions.

        I also know a few others who have membership based forums and they do pretty well just from the revenue of their memberships.
        Signature
        ==> Free: Affiliate Marketing Case Studies & Tutorials
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6216118].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Vtoy
          Banned
          Originally Posted by DustonMcGroarty View Post

          This isn't true... we started our forum-based membership site with ZERO members but told them they would have access to us to answer any questions. They paid $67 a month to join.

          It took us some time to build up the member count and now they do pretty well answering each others questions.

          I also know a few others who have membership based forums and they do pretty well just from the revenue of their memberships.
          This coming from a guy promoting 3 different types of membership offers in his signature.. Lol.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6291788].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author TryBPO
    I think building an audience first is quite helpful...but not necessarily required. Using a podcast is a great format for that. People feel much more connected to you when they hear your voice on a regular basis and are more likely to join your membership site if they feel like they have a fair amount of trust built up with you.
    Signature
    Website Brokers - We can help you sell businesses making $500 to $50K per month.

    Free Website Valuation - How much is your website really worth? Find out here, free.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6291553].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Srele
    Yes, a forum is a good start.

    PhpBB is good, but get a good hosting server.

    It's good advertising for a start. When you find out how many visitors you have per month you could put your forum on buysellads.com and sell monthly banner and other ad spaces on your forum.

    Hope this helped.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6293479].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author sarah23
    when you guys say membership site, does it mean site like dating site or what? please can someone explain, I am new here.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6293709].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Shaun Tango
    I agree with BenFitts, you can't just go into building a forum with no experience or weight in the community already.

    Membership sites are a great way to make money (And retain traffic), but what you're talking about is effectively a forum.

    How was you planning to drive traffic to the forum and get people active on it?

    If you have an existing community that is loyal to you, maybe you could charge them a monthly fee to gain access to your private forums (Forums that only paying members have access to). That, or create an information product and charge for weekly lessons in your niche. Deliver these lessons behind a closed membership site.


    Good luck.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6294082].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Justin Says
    It's all about who you market to and what you're marketing.

    You can get thousands of people to join a forum, but if you don't know what to market to them, you aren't going to make money.

    Take Warrior Forum for example. They have thousands of members and are continuing to get bigger and bigger each day because they provide a medium for marketers to interact with one another and share their services/products. Then they market to those marketers by having them pay to market their services/products

    Simple.

    Genius.

    WINNING.
    Signature

    My name is Justin Lewis. My digital marketing company has been in business for over 10 years with multiple six-figure years. We do provide a premium web design service.

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[6294095].message }}

Trending Topics