Membership sites are a great way to diversify income so we’re sharing 3 membership site examples that could work for you.
IE 339: 3 Membership Site Examples Converted from a Course with Melody Johnson
Melody Johnson is the owner and founder of The Course Consultant. She helps to aspire and scaling membership owners grow their recurring revenue with referrals and retention. She is passionate about helping businesses get their time and energy back without hustling for new clients. She takes you through strategically converting a course to a membership.
What is a membership site?
A membership site provides exclusive content, resources, and sometimes coaching material and typically is associated with an ongoing subscription service. People can pay a subscription fee to the business.
The price and format of the membership group benefits will differ depending on your business model.
Sites can be complex for membership owners but they can also be very simple, depending on the business owner and how they structure their membership group.
They create recurring revenue and also people who support your business and community. Members are there for what you can create for them.
How can we create a membership site from a course or course material?
Look at where your potential members are struggling. Product creation is about helping your students solve their problems in a simple way to save time and energy, particularly as they are creating revenue.
A membership that is created from a course can be as simple as adding coaching or office hours.
For example, you could offer a co-working session every month and go through a section or concept of the course and review it. Co-working helps your members go from idea to action.
This will also help you as the owner because people will be implementing your curriculum and you can get great testimonials. Members will have ongoing support and can speak with you about the content.
Another way to convert your course might be office hours through a Voxer group.
Inside Voxer, you can communicate through voice memos and text messages.
It is a low-effort, low-pressure way to add a high value to your course because of your ongoing support as you answer questions or share other related resources.
The third way you can do this is through paid newsletters. This is a lower-effort option that provides consistent revenue without you having to consistently make new content all the time.
This can be a newsletter where you provide new resources, training, or ideas about your niche.
This has the added benefit of being time relevant to new things in the industry that are valuable to your members and helps them not to feel overwhelmed.
What are the benefits of a membership site?
- Some of the benefits of a membership site include consistent, stable, recurring revenue that comes in every month.
- Your members are warm leads. You can create new courses that your members can purchase for additional revenue; for example, the next tier of membership.
If you do not have course material, what other ways can you create a paid membership option?
You can pre-sell membership sites before you even have the content created as long as you have a clear focus.
Membership groups can evolve after you have created them. You will have core concepts but then build on them.
As you get feedback from the members, you can decide the direction your membership group will go.
Membership groups will change and grow based on what will work best for your members.
Can a membership site and a group program coexist?
Absolutely! Membership sites and group programs can co-exist and often they work hand in hand.
Membership sites can be at the beginning of a program as an introductory or mid-tier level while you can also offer memberships at the back-end of a program as well.
Your one-on-one clients may be interested in a group program and that could lead to higher retention rates.
You can change the number of deliverables, emails, newsletters, Voxer options, co-working, etc. to differentiate the two options.
The lower tier can be the introduction to higher levels of interaction with you. Many times, courses will be their first interaction with you and then they will move through your different levels of membership as people continue to develop their business.
What are the biggest mistakes made when creating a membership site?
- Trying to make the program so perfect that you don’t sell it.
- Not listening to what your prospective customers want. Product research is imperative before you create products. Ask customers/clients, students, and others in the industry for feedback and questions.
- Overcommitting your delivery of content, curriculum, or coaching without a clear framework for success or procedure of what you will be talking about.
You want to build a sustainable product for your clients that they value without burnout for yourself.
It is important to make your membership site work for both you and your audience.
What is the Membership Launch Checklist by Melody Johnson?
It is important to get the key concepts of your membership created along with a launch plan; how you will share your membership site with the world by explaining your product.
- What is your product for?
- How will you help?
- How does it solve your student’s problems?
The Membership Launch Checklist will help people craft their core ideas, and create a roadmap for success from launch to building the connections with their members. It has prompts, questions, and tools to help you organize your membership all in one place.
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