Cindy King's International Business Blog » plugin

Different Membership Models For Your Business Needs

Cindy King — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:00:59 +0000

The first WishList Member Training & Certification sessions took place earlier this week and it really sank in how you can use this membership plugin in many different ways.

If you have followed me for the last couple of weeks, you’ll know just how jazzed I am about the WishList Membership Plugin. I’m always on the look out for ways to use content marketing and thus web marketing to reach international audiences.

This new membership site software does provide some very interesting options for international marketers. Of course international marketing is complex and takes a fair amount of skill and effort. But I’m up to the task and just can’t wait to set up a few membership sites to start playing around with the free membership options for some international market research activities.

Different Memberships Models

But after listening to the first Wishlist training calls I came away with a very clear vision of how I wanted to set up all of my websites and the sales funnel I want to make in 2010.

By using a variety of different membership sites and by repurposing content I already have I can create a strong product series that makes sense for my business. All of my niche sites will soon be on WishList.

Here are the different membership site options I’m looking very closely at for my business:

A “Modular Membership Site” where you pay everything up front (maybe with payment options) and where content is delivered over a few months. This means once you create the content and set it up, you leave it.
A “Combo Membership Site” with “Private Access” + “Micro Continuity Membership” + “Protected Forum Membership“. Sounds familar? Well, I’m dropping my Ning group project and setting it up on WishList.
A “Coaching Site” with both common access areas and specific membership levels for each individual clients. Using a membership site plateform makes it easy to work with international clients.
A “Project Management Site” for launch management. This is similar to the Coaching Site except the content delivery will be set up differently. And again, it will be a big help in international launch management.
A “Protected Download Site” for some niche specific marketing activities. My ideas are still bubbling on this one, but this will be for targeted marketing tactics.
And I’m also extremely interested in the “Free Membership” options for international marketing research tactics. This should play a huge role in my international market research, or should I say international community research.

Choose The Right Membership Model For Your Content Creation Commitment

Now you may not have noticed that I am not yet including the more popular membership site models just yet.

The traditional “Publisher Membership” site and sister “Monthly Content” model. These require a long term commitment to creating content every month over a long term.
The “Micro Continuity Membership” programs. These are short fixed-term membership programs with a monthly payment and they are getting a lot of buzz right now.

The reason for this is because I already have lots of content I want to use for at least one Modular Membership Site. All of the membership options I’m looking at do not require heavy content creation.

After blogging for two years and on two different blogs, I have enough material to put a few different packages. Of course, I do need to edit and repurpose existing content and I will have to create some new content. And this will take some time. The launches of these membership websites will be staggered out throughout 2010. And right now I am busy drafting:

Editorial Calendars
Communication Schedules
Promotion Plans

Once these membership sites are up and running I’ll go back and look at the membership site models that require a bigger commitment to content creation.

Fun With Membership Site Marketing

But quite frankly, I’m expecting to spend time tweaking my membership site marketing. I don’t anticipate launching any of the bigger content heavy models next year.

You see, technically these membership site options exist because you can control many different things on the different levels of your membership site. You can drip feed content, change sidebars & dashboards for different membership levels.

There are New Marketing Opportunities With Membership Sites and these are worth spending the time exploring. Besides once the developers have access to the Wishlist API, there will be more fun plugins to play around with. Next year there will be more creative options to beyond the traditional membership sites models to check out.

What about you?

What other membership site models do you want to try out?
How do you think a membership site can help you research your online community more?
What would you like to get out of a membership site and what model would be best for you?

New Marketing Opportunities With Membership Sites

Cindy King — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:00:10 +0000

Membership Sites

Last week I wrote about the WishList Membership Site WordPress Plugin. Many people are excited about this new tool. So am I. Every new membership site I come across seems to run on the WishList Membership Plugin. And hearing of friends setting up 3 membership sites in one day is not uncommon.

WishList makes membership sites accessible to virtually everyone. All you need is a WordPress blog. The WishList plugin itself is just as quick and easy to install as any other WordPress plugin. You get a series of short easy to follow videos when you buy the plugin. This makes it easy for you to set up the different levels of your membership site at the same time as you go through these videos. You can easily set up a membership site in under an hour without any specific training.

Content Marketing

Sounds simple right? And it is, but just like any other WordPress blog, you’re going to want to spend some time on design and other plugins. This time you can use other plugins specifically to create a stronger experience for all of your members as they use your membership site. You can tailor your membership sites to different audiences.

And this is where as a marketer I’m very excited.

Not Just A Membership Site

My biggest AHA moment came when listening to some audios from a WishList Live Training Event. This is when I fully realized the power of creating a membership site in a WordPress environment. What does this mean? Well, you can:

Choose a theme appropriate to the type of membership site you want to create
Easily combine your WishList membership plugin with other WordPress plugins to do all sorts of things

When you choose a good theme and play around with the different combination of plugins and the different membership levels you can actually “manipulate” the experience you provide your members in many different ways. You can create very different membership environments by focusing on how you set up:

Page navigation
Featured content navigation
Category navigation
Sidebar navigation
Footer navigation

And what can you do when you get a marketer to play around with all of this?

Provide A 3 Dimensional Community Experience

Your website is no a longer flat experience. You can really control the experience your visitor receives his end.

This reminds me of the IKEA experience, where all IKEA stores guide you through a complete tour of their store. They control your experience as you visit their store. And it works.

Now imagine different floors and hidden passageways in the IKEA store. Add some incentives, games, challenges and clues to find those hidden passageways. Make it fun and interactive so people want to come back often. This is what you can do with WishList when you combine it well with different combination of WordPress plugins. You can create an almost 3 dimensional community experience for the members of your membership site.

Tailor Visitor Experiences To What Your Market Needs

With a little thought a marketer can create different dimensions for different membership levels. You do need both a marketing mindset and the technical skills to make this work. But the results can make a huge difference for your membership site.

For example, most membership sites experience higher membership drop offs at a certain point. This can be around the 3-5 month period. When you notice this, what do you do? In the offline world when people are about to leave your store, you would find a way to market to them just before they leave your store, for example with candy bars in front of the cash registers.

Well why not do something similar with your membership site? Before your members get to that drop off point, engage with them and offer them an incentive. With WishList it’s easy to do this. Technically you can add in different levels, and deliver specific content at specific times. You can set it up so it is easy to control who gets what.

Membership Outside Of The Box

You see if you continue to think of the membership site software as only providing traditional membership site products, you’ll miss out on the opportunities. Membership sites are being transformed.

So, instead imagine ways to control how you deliver content to the audience you want to reach. Go wild. Then go have a look at what WishList does without being blocked into traditional membership sites. And also go look at what you can do on a WordPress blog with the wide variety of plugins out there.

Still don’t see a solution to your online content marketing dreams?

WishList will be making their API available to developers. Just give everyone the chance to play around with this and come back next year and have a look.

In the meantime, if you are ready to take the plunge and need someone to set up a membership site for you using the WishList Membership Plugin drop me an email. I’m taking on a few clients right now.