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Membership Site Issue

by TheMathDaddy
16 replies
Hello all, I'm working on my first membership website, but I have a major concern. Is there anything out there to help prevent a customer from joining your site for 1 month, downloading all of your content in that first month, then cancelling the membership? That is a scary thought for me!

Has anyone had this problem or have ways to curtail this?

Thanks in advance.
#concern #issue #membership #site
  • Profile picture of the author Kim Standerline
    Hi Mathsdaddy and welcome to the forum

    Your best bet is to use a script where previous months are archived and your members have to pay for them

    www.easymemberpro.com does exactly this. (Please note I no longer own this and this isn't an affiliate link folks)

    Regards
    Kim

    Originally Posted by TheMathDaddy View Post

    Hello all, I'm working on my first membership website, but I have a major concern. Is there anything out there to help prevent a customer from joining your site for 1 month, downloading all of your content in that first month, then cancelling the membership? That is a scary thought for me!

    Has anyone had this problem or have ways to curtail this?

    Thanks in advance.
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  • Profile picture of the author PabloVTB
    Yeah, that is something I have been thinking about also.

    My idea would be to generate (automatically, there should be a script for this, I guess) a private password for each member, each month (or each time some new module/information is released), and they would log in with that password.

    But that could be a little too complicated.
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    • Profile picture of the author Ron Killian
      Originally Posted by PabloVTB View Post

      Yeah, that is something I have been thinking about also.

      My idea would be to generate (automatically, there should be a script for this, I guess) a private password for each member, each month (or each time some new module/information is released), and they would log in with that password.

      But that could be a little too complicated.
      While I think it's a good idea, I wonder if it would end up creating a ton of extra support time. Members not getting their latest password, forgetting it changes each month and wondering why they can't log in, ect, ect. Thought I've seen it done.

      I agree with Kim, limit the content time frame. Or you could do it all my auto responder, so they only get it while they are a member, and if they quit, they have to start from the beginning. Course you need to keep up with who's paid and who's not in your AR. Just a thought.
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  • Profile picture of the author MemberWing
    I developed wordpress plugin (MW Gradual Content plugin) that solves exactly that issue - and it is very simple to use - MW Gradual Content plugin - scheduled content delivery for your membership site | Membership Site Resources and Software : MemberWing
    (It is commercial product though).

    Basically - you specify "maturity" (custom field) for each article in days.
    Say: 'maturity' = 30
    That would mean that member must be a member for at least 30 days to finally see that article.

    You as a membership site owner will load all content, mark 'maturity' for your articles to any number of days you wish and that's it.
    Each member will see content depending on how 'mature' he is: how many days he been a member.
    The plugin also makes impossible for 'older' member to disclose links to 'mature' articles to 'younger' members. Younger will get 404 error if he'll try to see content for which he is not 'mature' enough.
    You can have 365 articles marked with 'maturity' from '1' to '365' to make sure that only "year long" members will see all contents.

    This functionality effectively protects your premium content against leeching/stealing and against chargebacks from your payment processing company.

    It also allows you to essentially put your membership site empire on autopilot and present always "fresh" content to your members automatically.

    MW Gradual Content plugin works with other membership plugins, as well as comes included into premium version my own membership site plugin - MemberWing.

    Regards,

    Gleb
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    • Profile picture of the author PabloVTB
      Originally Posted by MemberWing View Post

      I developed wordpress plugin (MW Gradual Content plugin) that solves exactly that issue - and it is very simple to use - MW Gradual Content plugin - scheduled content delivery for your membership site | Membership Site Resources and Software : MemberWing
      (It is commercial product though).

      Basically - you specify "maturity" (custom field) for each article in days.
      Say: 'maturity' = 30
      That would mean that member must be a member for at least 30 days to finally see that article.

      You as a membership site owner will load all content, mark 'maturity' for your articles to any number of days you wish and that's it.
      Each member will see content depending on how 'mature' he is: how many days he been a member.
      The plugin also makes impossible for 'older' member to disclose links to 'mature' articles to 'younger' members. Younger will get 404 error if he'll try to see content for which he is not 'mature' enough.
      You can have 365 articles marked with 'maturity' from '1' to '365' to make sure that only "year long" members will see all contents.

      This functionality effectively protects your premium content against leeching/stealing and against chargebacks from your payment processing company.

      It also allows you to essentially put your membership site empire on autopilot and present always "fresh" content to your members automatically.

      MW Gradual Content plugin works with other membership plugins, as well as comes included into premium version my own membership site plugin - MemberWing.

      Regards,

      Gleb
      Sounds great.
      My question would be:
      Is there a way to avoid people from doing a simple copy & paste and sharing the info with other people? (Actually, I know that to be possible, there are some web pages that when you right click on an image an error box appears saying you can't copy the image).

      But, maybe I'm asking too much anyway, there is no way 100% to prevent members to share your info with other people. Or is there?
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  • Profile picture of the author MemberWing
    It is possible to make it harder.
    Like preventing easy copy/pasting of text, disabling right clicking images.

    But user will still be able to do browser screen shapshots - so it's not 100% proof.

    Gleb
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    • Profile picture of the author TheMathDaddy
      Thanks for the welcome and advice everyone. (Actually, I'm still trying to understand some of your solutions.) Are you suggesting that a customer wouldn't have full access to all of the content the day he/she joins?

      What I'm working on are video tutorials. I wanted customers to have access to the different tutorials as they need. But my fear is say I have 20 of them available, and they download all 20 of them, quit the membership. Wait a couple of months later. Say I have 15 more by then. They download the rest of the 15, then quit again.

      Now what else could be tricky is say I have a one month money back guarantee trial. Then, they'd be able to get all of it for free. I'm new to this and I'm certain there have been ways around this. I suppose the plan is to crank out new content every other day or so until it's all done. When done, there should be over 200 videos.

      Or maybe there's another approach like charging for each set of videos?
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      • Profile picture of the author kengary
        Originally Posted by TheMathDaddy View Post

        What I'm working on are video tutorials. I wanted customers to have access to the different tutorials as they need. But my fear is say I have 20 of them available, and they download all 20 of them, quit the membership. Wait a couple of months later. Say I have 15 more by then. They download the rest of the 15, then quit again.
        With aMember it is possible to set it up so that a member cannot buy the same membership twice. You can also set up a membership that can only be purchased if they have purchased a different membership. So to discourage this behavior you could set up a second membership that had a large "setup" fee uploaded in the trial period and it would be more expensive to quit and rejoin than to stay on. It could be tricky to communicate properly but it could work.
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  • Profile picture of the author mywebwork
    I think your best approach (and one that Gleb's plugin may facilitate) is to structure your site similar to the Wealthy Affiliate site. They have an 8-week IM course that is dished out at one lesson per week. New members only see the first lesson and have to wait a week for the second one. This ensures that a member will stay enrolled for at least 8 weeks, which is a 2 or 3 month membership at minimum.

    Spread your video distribution out so that they only get a small amount at a time, make them want to stay enrolled so they can see the rest.

    I would also avoid the 1-month trial, perhaps a 7-day trial that automatically converts to a monthly subscription. If you roll out new videos once a week your trial members would only see the first set. You could specifically make these videos "incomplete" so that there is incentive to join and get the follow-up videos.

    Good luck with your site

    Bill
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  • Profile picture of the author Johnny Slater
    There are many ways to handle this. Easy Member Pro, MemberWing, Simple Member Pro, Launch Formula Marketing and several others have options built in to deliver content in one of several timed released options.

    Best advice is to research the different membership scripts available and find the one that best suits your personal needs.
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  • Profile picture of the author DJ-Sound
    Incremental content is the only way. Easiest is to just program your autoresponder that is built into amember or just use aweber.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheMathDaddy
      I'm still trying to understand this. Okay, if I go with time releasing content, is that based on each individual membership?

      Say a person joins next year, will they have access to all of the previously released (a year's worth of) content? A year's worth of content for a one month fee (after downloading everything)?

      Anyone else here have a website with several video tutorials? How are you doing it: membership, per video?
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  • Profile picture of the author koolwarrior
    Banned
    slap your membership and timely content into an autoresponder. then he'll only get what he pays for.

    when they stop paying, remove them from the list. it's that simple
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  • Profile picture of the author warriorkevin
    One common method is to use an initial payment that is higher than the normal monthly rate. $69 to join and $9 a month. If you have content that is continually growing, then the motivation is to stay subscribed and not risk having to pay the higher initial charge again.

    Depending on what you want to do there are systems out there designed for membership including block password sharing. Membergate.com is a bit pricey but pretty inclusive of all options - articles, forums, galleries, blogs, classifieds, store, audio, video, you name it. I have used it before but I am not affiliated with it.
    It does have a bit of a learning curve, though, but it handles membership like it should.

    just an idea.

    K-
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    • Profile picture of the author TheMathDaddy
      Originally Posted by warriorkevin View Post

      One common method is to use an initial payment that is higher than the normal monthly rate. $69 to join and $9 a month. If you have content that is continually growing, then the motivation is to stay subscribed and not risk having to pay the higher initial charge again.
      ..

      ...just an idea.

      K-
      Hey, that's a great idea! Now this is what I'm talking about! That seems so obvious but I missed it.

      This suggestion would solve most of the problems. Because I did want members to have access to all the content there. It may not stop someone from one from downloading everything, but, it's not as encouraged.

      Thanks to everyone that answered. It was very much appreciated.
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      • Profile picture of the author Scott Woodside
        Just purchase wp-wishlist.com and all of your problems will be over. No I am not an affiliate but good lord, the script is freaking perfect! I'm developing a site with my partner and its great to work with.
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