Selling a Membership vs. Selling a course

Most use a membership site even for one-time fee / fixed length course.

IMHO - A membership is an ideal way to deliver almost any digital content...

1. A membership gives you an extra level of product protection by hiding the course behind a login
2. Giving buyers life-time access to your course allows them to
   • progress through the lessons at their own pace, and
   • refer back to individual lessons whenever a "refresher" is needed.
3. Because you automatically have return traffic to the members' area... you can periodically give them extra "freebies" from inside the members area, and you have another platform for selling.
   • You can offer special discounts on related products just for members, or
   • treat them like any other "buyers" list, by offering new products to existing members before making them available to the general public (at list price).

In short, using a membership for product delivery gives you a wide range of options for customer retention and future sales.

I've had two customers somewhat recently in your space that opted NOT to do membershp sites but sell their digital product and services. They did pretty well - one in the worship music ministry.

It really goes back to the kind of product. Some content works pretty good with month to month drip feeds and others the nature of the content is one time because the consumer wants to get it all at once.

My SEO course a few yearsago was strickly one time. Buyers didn't want to have to wait because it was something that needed to be all together to properly implement. Sold betwen $189 and $250 one time. Now developing programming training for the average person but there its a longer journey so those are going toward membership monthly - just to give you a sense of the difference in strategy relating to the business model.

I think you should reconsider Udemy NOT to sell the course itself but I know of more than one person using udemy to build a large audience and finding ways to funnel their customers there to their own sites. Udemy used like that can be a gold mine.

I often debated this as well... pro's and cons for both.. love to see what others say

Ron,

In today's online business world, the line drawn between membership sites and product sites is not so clear as it used to be. Any content can be put inside a membership site including one-time-payment products. Likewise, most any drip-fed multi-session course can be sold from a non-membership type platform. Plug-ins, scripts, and various software can be implemented effectively to do just about whatever you want regarding the way your content is distributed to (and paid for) by the purchaser. Each type of plug-in or platform has its strengths and advantages.

So, how do you make the choice? I like to look at the "reasons why" it makes sense to use a membership platform. If those reasons are compelling enough, then focus on finding the platform that does everything you need it to do. On the other hand, if a "regular" site (HTML, WordPress, or a hosted solution, etc) is all you really need ... then go with that and don't complicate the choice unduly.

You've already said that your course is a fixed length with a one-time fee. To me, that suggests you probably don't need a membership platform. There are secure ways to protect your content and still stay in touch with your purchasers with a regular web site and there are many, many site themes made specifically for course content.

Here is just one example of what I am using in a similar way:

Academy Pro theme from StudioPress. It's built on the familiar WordPress platform and the theme is designed for online courses. It's just one example of a site that is not really a membership platform ... but it can handle the job nicely. WordPress has a gazillion plugins that can be added if there is something you need to incorporate outside this theme.

The very best to you,

Steve

You can do the best of both worlds and offer a cheap product with a more expensive continuity program.

We have done this in several businesses and while you do need to be careful about letting them know it is a continuity program and reminding them they are going to be charged 3 days before it can be the best solution to this problem.

It depends on what the site will include:

For Membership Sites:

Publish frequent brand-new content.
Membership remains indefinitely.
The Admission is linked to payment, such as a monthly fee.
Access to an constant community.

For Online Courses:

Defined content course or A-Z steps.
One time charge or payments allowing permanent time access to content.
Improvement tracking, quizzes and tasks.
Component and lessons content structure.
Content drip fed or obtainable everything immediately.

Build your tribe. Membership sites usually get better retention from your buyers.

Like the other replies above states, the benefits are endless with a membership site. It will also keep you creating more content to lead your tribe to success in your niche.

Monthly paying members would be more active and prone to buy more in the member's user areas, where you can market to them. They already know, like and trust you. It would definitely beat and unopened email blasted to your email list.

I recommend selling it as a book in the beginning. You could always expand upon the content of your course and create a membership site later.

Everyone has to final point to membership, which is what give you a lifeblood of good income streaming in a long way.

BUT you have constantly take care of it and optimize platform, give great updated content and insights...

Just use a good platform, like amember etc, and clickbank or jvzoo for billing.

Platform suggestions was my next question Connann. Thanks for all the responses so far guys.

Just a bit more background on where I am and why I'm looking. In addition to the fixed length course (a vocal training program, 18 lessons on video) I also have another digital product, which is a single lesson on video-about 40 minutes. Finally, I have an e-book.

I've been using a membership plugin for several years to serve all of those products. I'm moving away from the plugin because I've had delivery issues for years that could never be fixed, and unfortunately the owner simply stopped responding after a while.

But I've always had an issue with how many steps it takes for a customer to finally access the product he purchased; especially the e-book, or the one-off video.

First the buy it, then they have to go find the e-mail to get their log-in information, then go back to the site and log in, then FINALLY they have access to their product. Maybe for the continuity course that's ok, but it's just always seemed like too much to do to gain access to an e-book or a single video.

Then I started having problems with people not getting the welcome e-mail with their log-in details, or the plugin not automatically creating the membership like it should.

So that's why I'm looking for a new home for my products, and that's also why I'm second-guessing whether or not I really need a membership platform. I do want to be able to serve all of them from one platform, so in that regard it does seem like a membership platform would work best. But I wish the purchase process was a little smoother-and it may be on other platforms.

The one I'm using is the only one I've ever used. But the experience has kinda soured me a bit on using membership plugins, so if a membership site is the way to go I may end up using a 3rd party-hosted platform.

I think you are right to question - I use both fixed download/access sites as well as membership sites and do recognize that solid membership platforms are a challenge (and always have been). I've run plugins, membership modules off of blog themes, as well as hosted membership sites and they all have their learning curves, challenges and more than a few have poor support. I still run membership sites on Membergate - seems like one of the more solid ones but has its quirks.

I do use the full recurring billing, membership site forum, and various CRM pieces so it works for me, but if you don't need that then I would certainly go simple - sell via shopping cart like Ejunkie, Clickbank, etc... and then simply make your course content available behind a secure login which can be done with everything from basic htaccess/cpanel directory protection through WP scripts for secure download

Finally - you can use platforms like Simple Goods, Gumroad, Sellfy, etc... where you can start with free accounts and ramp to $10-$20/mo plans as your business grows

Is there not a way to host them on your own website? You could easily hire a programmer or web developer to create a simple platform that would suit your needs. And it doesn't have to be pretty and glamorous. Most people in your niche only want the information - and new and newer information since they want to delve deeper into their faith.

Have you looked at Optimize Press? You can use your own auto responder, set up a sales page, download page, etc.

Easy Digital Downloads is an option for self hosted Wordpress sites. Works with several payment processors.

It's a good plugin, I currently use it with Paypal.

Working on a new download site and want to test Stripe as the payment processor because their popup checkout is simple/clean and awesome, traffic doesn't leave the site/sales page and integrates with Easy Digital Downloads/Stripe.

Stripe is also pay as you go (2.9% + $0.30 per card charge) so there's no monthly fees. That transaction fee is pretty low, it matches Paypal only the real advantage is traffic never leaves the money site to make a payment. Way more professional user experience.

That's my plan and this site will have approx. 3,000 downloads (eventually).

Always better selling a membership. These days advertising costs can be high so it's better to do the hard work once and keep earning recurring fees from members