Why You Need a Members-Only Page to Boost Revenue

As a business owner, you have a level of expertise and knowledge that others would pay good money for. So why not let them? Creating a members-only page will allow you to share the knowledge you’ve gained through the years while earning more money.

Benefits of Adding Membership to Your Business

Adding a membership to your business can do more than just impact your bottom line (Though the revenue is a great benefit!). Here are some ways a membership could help your business:

• Increases revenue. Monthly subscription fees or yearly membership dues can bring in a lot of extra income. 

For example, let’s say you’re a business coach that delivers one-on-one training for $300 an hour. If you have 10 coaching customers that you meet with twice a month, you’re making $6,000 on in-person coaching.

You only need 30 people to buy your $200 business training course per month to replace or supplement that exact income—and there is little to no work once you get the course set up.

• Builds credibility. The online content you create for your business will show your expertise, and you’ll also have a community of people willing to pay for that expertise.

• Creates an exclusive community. Creating a community is like building an inner circle. Those people become evangelists for the company and diehard fans of what you do. Having them in one place can create a demand for your membership and work.

• Highlights expertise. Anyone can share content online, but only experts share content people are willing to pay for.

• Increases loyalty. People appreciate information and insights, and that’s exactly what they’ll get in your membership. Plus, they’ll like that they’re getting the information all in one place.

• Engages customers. Social media doesn’t always reach customers, and even newsletters go unread. But with a membership, you can engage your customers in the group or encourage them to engage with one another.

• More content control. You can drip content to the different tiers of your membership who need it. You also can have multiple access tiers, where your highest paying members get the most exclusive content, while lower-paying members or free members receive a fraction of your expertise.

• Increased financial security. A membership gives you a more reliable, predictable income, making your business more financially secure. 

Instead of serving a handful of clients at a higher monthly rate, you can serve a broad range of customers at a lower tier. You’re lowering the impact on your bottom line when one client may need to cancel their contract with you. 

• Keeps you on your toes. You’ll need to stay up-to-date on the news and information relevant to your industry to serve your members. Creating new content for your membership will continue to help you grow as well.

How to Create a Members-Only Page

When you’ve decided a members-only page is right for your business, it’s time to build it. Here’s the process to do just that.

Determine Your Membership Model

Before setting up your sales page, you need to consider your membership pricing model. What membership pricing tiers will you have, and will you also offer a free tier? Think about each tier’s benefits and how you’ll deliver those benefits to your members. Will you allow for bundle memberships for organizations or members in the same household or group? 

You have many options for the type of content you can create for each tier. Digital downloads, educational materials and ecourses, blog posts, podcasts, videos, an online community, a membership directory, or even special online events are all possible. 

Once you’ve determined all the finer details, it’s time to decide the cost of each membership tier or your overall pricing model. Make sure you’re charging for the content the members receive and the work you put into it. 

How much time, energy, and money will it take to create the content and advertise these resources to get new members? Make sure you’re generating a profit and not just covering costs.

Select and Install a Membership Plugin

You’ll need a membership plugin to host a membership on your own WordPress site. But not just any old plugin–you’ll need a plugin that gives you all the capabilities you need. 

Look at the content you’ve chosen to give your members. That will give you an idea of the type of plugin you’ll need.

Paid Memberships Pro has tons of features that make it easy for you to run a membership. Whether you need to restrict content to specific tiers or offer multiple payment options, Paid Memberships Pro has you covered. 

Plus, the PMPro plugin allows your membership to grow and flourish in ways many plugins or membership platforms won’t. You can add as many members as you want without paying fees as you scale. And the analytics and built-in reporting will help you know what’s working to grow your membership.

Add Content

Now it’s time for the really labor-intensive part of building your members-only page. All that content you were going to offer for your different tiers? It’s time to make it. 

PMPro can protect more than 28 popular types of content in a WordPress site, including posts, podcasts, videos, and chats.

When creating your content marketing strategy, don’t be afraid to reuse content you already created for your business. You can repurpose old blog posts and newsletters into an e-book, or take the transcript from a video and use it for blog posts. 

While you need to give your members some exclusive content, don’t reinvent the wheel where you don’t need to.

Create a Sign-up Page

Creating a sign-up page will allow your future members to actually join. You can set this up in a number of ways. 

If you’d like members to apply to join, you can use the Approval Process Membership Add On. 

Or, if you’re ready to welcome everyone in, you can put a “Join Now” button on the page and allow them to pay to join right there.

You may also consider creating a waitlist. If you know it will take some time to get your membership set up, you can create the sign-up page first, and allow potential members to join a waitlist. That way, you can put them on a specific email list, like with ConvertKit or Mailchimp, and notify them once the membership is open.

Market to Current and Potential Customers

Now it’s time to let everyone know that you have a membership. Tell your whole email list as well as all past customers and clients. And share it on your social media. This sharing will alert customers who aren’t on your mailing list, and people who haven’t yet purchased from you.

Make sure you share about your membership regularly. People may need to hear about it more than once before they take the plunge. 

If you have some early adopters, encourage them to write a testimonial. You can put testimonials on the sign-up page and share them on social media as social proof that your membership is a good buy.

Set a Maintenance Schedule

Even though the setup stage is labor intensive, you’ll still need to maintain the membership site. The best way to do that is to create a schedule. 

Make sure you know when you’ll update content, when you’ll create new social media content to advertise the membership, and when you’ll check in with your members to see what they need. Also, don’t forget that you’ll need to keep your WordPress site and plugins up-to-date to keep your site up and running quickly and securely.

Sending out regular surveys is a great way to see what your members need and how you can better serve them.

You can also use this schedule to help you create a routine when you’ll set content to drip out to the various tier levels. The Paid Memberships Pro Plus plan makes it easy to schedule content.

Scheduling content frees up time to engage with the community you’ve built and run your business.

Strategies to Boost Revenue with a Members-Only Page

You’ll put a lot of work into creating membership content and promoting your members-only subscriptions. You want to get back at least what you put into it, but ideally much more. 

Earn more from your membership by:

• Providing valuable, exclusive content. Give your members information or an experience they can’t get anywhere else. Even if they can get most of the information elsewhere on your site, compile it in a way that makes it easier and worthwhile for them to subscribe.

• Offering sitewide sales. Use the Sitewide Sales plugin to create special offers for non-members only, engaging them and encouraging them to join. 

• Providing multiple membership levels. Offer different membership levels that are complementary or distinct, not tiered access, with PMPro’s built-in Multiple Memberships Per User features. This feature also allows you to give specific members discounts in your WooCommerce store or a discount on a certain membership level.

• Create a referral program. Reward current members for inviting their friends and colleagues to join your membership with the Invite-Only Add On.

• Utilize sponsors or advertisements. Partner with a business or organization that can provide value to your members. Allow them to sponsor content like live streams for your membership. It creates a win/win for both organizations and value to your members.

• Offer an ad-free experience for a fee. If you usually use ads on your content, allow members to pay an extra fee to get the content without the ads.

Are You Ready to Build a Members-Only Page?

Now you understand the benefits of building a members-only page and the various tools you can use to make it happen. If you’re ready to see how a members-only page can boost revenue for your business and better serve your audience, sign up with Paid Memberships Pro. We have pricing plans to fit your budget and all the features you need to run a membership.