Are Membership Sites A Dying Breed...

14 years ago

Where were you reading that? There must be something else to it.

I don't see PPC earning more than memberships unless there's a huge # of pageviews. And that would take away from your bottom line with server costs anyway.

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Denise Ashurst 14 years ago

Server costs of Ad clickers? What is that about? Am considering Adsense for my site and tought I could also combine with membership... That is possible right?
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John Hixson

14 years ago

Originally Posted by theteach

I've been reading quite a bit lately about the number of websites that have converted their format from a membership to an adsense model.

My site is starting to pick up now. I couldn't see why people would give their product away for free in order to promote other sites.

Are people making more money with adsense? I considered this at one time in the past but I'm sure I'm making more money with a membership format.

Has anyone made this kind of transition?

Not sure where you have heard this? Didn't I just read the New York Times Online is going to be paid subscriptions soon?

Suggests to me even the big players are thinking that membership sites might well be the best financial move for their traffic.

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Jonathan Ferraro

14 years ago

I guess it really depends on what kind of membership site you have. If you are running a big forum where there are a lot of free members posting tons of content than a day, than the website could make more from advertising, than it would if they suddenly decided to charge people to become members.

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TheRichJerksNet

14 years ago

Membership sites are alive and kicking ... Anyone that changed their site, it is due to the lack of marketing ability and the lack of focus.

They could not make a go of it by doing partial marketing so they give up and try adsense.

Personally myself I would take a recurring income based model over adsense any day of the week ..

James

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Dennis Gaskill

14 years ago

My membership site has grown by 52 members so far this month...with 10 days left in the month and most likely more new members that will join in that time, I'd say membership sites are very much alive and well. If sites are switching away from the membership model, it's because those sites weren't convincing their visitors of the value of becoming a member, not because the model is dying.

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Intrepreneur 14 years ago

There are secrets to success with them. One I regularly notice is the $1 trial which leads onto the monthly subscription. I'm guessing that's a marketing tactic too because I see even the big name marketers at it.
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AwesomePossum

14 years ago

I think you may have run into a situation where someone developed a better and more updated products or service so they simply made a new membership site so they just decided to use the other(s) as funneling. Running one membership site is much easier than maintaining 3 others

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joeykissimmee

14 years ago

If you run a solid membership site, you have nothing to worry about.

You just have to baby it.

I have 4 membership sites now and each are growing.

If maintenance is the issue then consider using the dripfeed model.
It has done wonders for me ever since I started to apply that model...

Hope this helps

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WD Mino

14 years ago

A dying breed???

Not likely with the crack down on the forced continuity sites it is a whole new market
Membersites will not die they are the most lucrative business model on the net
-WD

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jazbo

14 years ago

The membership model will always be around. If you have content and interaction people are willing to subscribe to see, then its one of the best ways to earn online.

Adsense, sh-mad-sense.

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Jeremy Morgan 14 years ago

I disagree with this completely, the membership model is alive and strong. There are tons of ways this model beats adsense.

For instance if it's a niche that relatively few people are interested in, you could gather them and make a membership site. Due to the scarcity of interest, there probably aren't many sites out there devoted to it so word of mouth is very effective. Turn that same site into an adsense site and you'll be trying to squeeze pennies from a few hundred hits a day, with the same amount of people.

The adsense model is a great cost offset at best, unless you're dealing with a lot of traffic. Most smaller sites will make very little off of it, and it isn't worth the tackiness it brings most of the time. If you have a huge site or build those arbitrage farms you can make some good money at it.

If you can build a site with good enough content that people will pay for it, you'd be better off putting your eggs in that basket, IMO.
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Arun Pal Singh

14 years ago

I doubt anything dies. People manipulate words to twist the meaning.

I think depending upon your business model and audience both Adsense or Memberships make money.

MOreover, if your site is picking up as you said, why to worry?

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Slin

14 years ago

I'm still a member of a site, I hope it doesn't die.

Membership sites are great, you are always going to get good content, otherwise the subscribers leave.

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VideoCreator

14 years ago

Not that it really needs to be said any more, but no, membership sites are not dead or dying.

In fact, it's a great way to sell ANYTHING. For example, instead of selling an ebook or video course and sending them to a download page, setup a membership site to deliver the content.

Then, on your sales letter, you are selling access to this membership site for LIFE. Great selling point, adds lots of value.

I prefer recurring income though, so most of my membership sites are residual monthly.

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mikemac1

14 years ago

Well, I'm someone else who runs a membership site and memberships are way up this month and continuing to grow month to month...as someone stated above more and more media companies will be moving to membership type models in the future and there is even talk about Apple moving towards a membership type model for iTunes....so where are membership type sites dying?

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Kay King

14 years ago

IM is a niche of fads. Over two years ago I joked in a thread that "membership sites are the next fad" - within a year every other thread here seemed to be about membership sites.

Several years ago everyone was "adsense" - then it became unpopular but a couple good products and all of a sudden it's the latest thing....again. For a while it offline gold and cash cows - and we've had CPA and more CPA.

Good membership sites that change and grow do well. They can be a lot of work to run but can be rewarding and fun, too, because you are interacting with people you can get to know a bit.

Adsense can be profitable but it takes a lot of work to get to good profit and stay there. Trends come and go and are often populated for a time by those looking for easy money. IMers who find methods that work for them just ignore the fads and stick to what they do best.

kay

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Dennis Gaskill

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Kay King

IM is a niche of fads. Over two years ago I joked in a thread that "membership sites are the next fad" - within a year every other thread here seemed to be about membership sites.

When Kay talks, everyone listens.

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JohnMcCabe

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Intrepreneur

There are secrets to success with them. One I regularly notice is the $1 trial which leads onto the monthly subscription. I'm guessing that's a marketing tactic too because I see even the big name marketers at it.

This model has been around a lot longer than the Internet...

Columbia Record Club: Get 7 albums (vinyl) for a penny, buy just three more per year.

Time/Life Book Club: Get Volume 1 for a penny, then each month another volume comes in the mail.

(Can't remember the company name): Sent a bucket of fish fillets free w/shipping, then another bucket every month at full price.

These have been running since at least the 1960's, probably longer.

Robert Collier wrote about a "Great Books" membership that put leather-bound books on an eight-foot shelf that looked great in a living room or den - one book per month. This one ran in the 1910's if I recall correctly.

A little research would probably turn up examples a lot older than these.

The actual content and mechanics may change (Record club --> Netflix), but marketing via memberships is still going strong.

Certain types of membership sites within the smallish IM niche might be a dying breed, as people find out that they require work and attention to thrive. With a few notable exceptions, the PLR monthly pack sites might be a candidate. After a few rounds of "clever shortcuts", you can join one site and know that within a few months you'll have everything from the other sites anyway. (Before you get cranked up to blast me on how your PLR site is different, remember, I did say there were exceptions...)

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Gary King

14 years ago

The challenge is delivering quality stuff to the members each month.

As people get the recurring bill on their credit card and realize they haven't been to the site in months, the desire to cancel their membership climbs rapidly.

Over-delivering and keeping in touch with members is key.

Even if the stuff is good, if the members don't use it, it won't matter - the best steak house in the world won't survive if the whole town is full of vegans.

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Sylvia Meier

14 years ago

I don't think they are going anywhere anytime soon. Like Kay said fads come and go, but there will still always be people doing them. Vince and I just launched our own sort of membership site, and it's going strong, so I wouldn't say they are dying or dead.

John,
Impressive facts. Never realized they had been around sooo long.

Sylvia

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Lance K

14 years ago

Originally Posted by theteach

I've been reading quite a bit lately about the number of websites that have converted their format from a membership to an adsense model.

You need better reading material.

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shermancox

14 years ago

I also would like to know what you are reading. In my niche, at least, getting ten cents a click can't compete with a 27 dollar a month fixed term membership site or even sellign a few ebooks for that matter.

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