How to Build a $25,000 Month Membership Site Business

Membership sites are a wonderfully rewarding way to make new friends, create opportunities, and pay the bills. They also give you the freedom to work from anywhere.

I currently run three membership sites. Having looked at all the options and tried most of them, I decided on Mighty Networks as my membership software. While it has its limitations, it’s easy to use, cheap and powerful. Best of all, it demands almost no technical skill.

The first site is?www.lifewelllived.expert?it is my personal one which anyone can join for free by invitation. (Ask to join now) I offer several high content courses for free and will eventually offer a few paid ones. My goal with this site is to replace most of my social media with a site I own and to promote some of the?46 books?I have written.

Then I have?www.GolfOperatorMagazine.com?is also free but includes a number of paid courses. It is a B2B network for people in the golf industry. I started this as a paid site and got up $1500 a month, but having been in this business for twenty-two years, it was no longer a hungry market. I decided I’d be better served in using it to create opportunities for my golf marketing company.

www.HappyHorseHappyLife.com?is a paid membership site for people interested in having a better relationship with their horse. This was launched in September 2019 and reached 1,000 paid members in just 90 days. It makes over $25,000 a month in residual income, and we have also added online courses and a line of sportswear.

I am not for a minute suggesting this type of success is easy but I will share with you how we did it in the hope that it will help you.

1.?Target a niche audience

Basic advice for any business.?People don’t want general information they want specific information that relates to them, their problems, and their situation.?

If you already have emails or social groups that reach this niche audience so much the better. Look for the starving crowd.

2.?Partner with someone who can bring a crowd with them

My partner at Happy Horse, Linda Parelli is a famous horse trainer, where she goes people go with her. Partnering with someone notable is not as hard as you may think. They may have the specific information but not the know-how to market it through a membership site. Look for someone with a following who does not have a membership component to their business. It could be a soccer coach, dog trainer, stamp collecting guru anyone with a following.

3. Run the content like a magazine with different departments

I decided to run the content like a magazine with different departments. At HHHL we post twice a day; this is far more than Mighty Network recommends but it works for us. The content is split between short 5-minute videos, how-to articles, interviews, and mini-courses.

4.?Have great content

It should go without saying, but I have seen a lot of junk. The content should be high-quality content they can’t get easily anywhere else. Our content is totally custom and offers real benefits to our members.

5.?Refresh

Every so often refresh your lineup and offer something different. Just like a magazine would. Look at your stats and see what content is really resonating with your members.

6.?Post on a set schedule

We post on a set day, and time so people can expect the content.?We directly alert members once a day to new content to get them back on the site. People do not go back to membership sites as they do on Facebook unless you remind them.

7. Have a great landing page

Your landing page is critical to the success of your site. Have an old-style, long copy sales page that spells out all your membership benefits in detail.

8. Promote 3 times a day on your social networks

We post teaser content three times a day on our social media, but to get the full story they have to join the site.

9. Join Every Group You can

Join other Facebook and LinkedIn groups that reach your target markets golfers, skiers, dog owners, whatever it is. Post-high-quality content to drive traffic back to your site, but do so in a very limited way. No more than 5% of your content should be FREE.

10. Have unique member benefits

• Make sure members always hear about new things first?
• Make sure members get the best discounts?
• Make sure members feel special
• Use the ambassador feature to encourage them to refer members?
• Reward them for doing so

11.?Email your prospect list twice a week

We have built a huge email list of horse owners using Facebook ads and various contests. We email this list twice a week with a newsletter. It features one full article or video and several teasers that take the reader back to the join page.

12.?Be Accessible to your members

We do two zoom calls a month so members can interact with Linda and other guest instructors. Members love the ability to ask questions directly to her and we also try to help members with their horse challenges daily through the chat function. Respond to any requests quickly.

13.?Tolerate no spam or negativity

You can get all you need of that on Facebook.

14.?Encourage member interaction

Nothing makes a membership site work better than the members posting content themselves. Encourage them to do so.

15. The Real Reward

The most rewarding part of all is the new relationships and friendships you develop through your site. The money is just a bonus :)

None of this is accomplished without a great team, but you can easily start on your own and scale. It’s the closest thing I know to the perfect business. The overhead is low, the hours flexible, the location fluid and the rewards are great!