Advice for Creating a Video Based Membership Site

One of the toughest things about online business is maintaining a steady income month-to-month. We can have bursts of traffic that translate into new customers one month, but the next – things slow down to a crawl. It kind of sucks, doesn’t it? The good news is there ARE ways to sustain your monthly income…without having to break your back trying to find new customers over and over again. One way to do this is by setting up a membership site or some type of continuity program.

Lon and I  have had our Screencast Video Coaching membership  here at LearnCamtasia.com for quite a few years now and have had hundreds of members sit in on our weekly coaching webinars. We record our weekly sessions with Camtasia and now have an archive of over 95 hours of video available to our members. So you could say we know a little about how to create a successful membership site and keep our members happy.

The membership site model has been extremely popular for quite a while and I do think it’s a great model to run a business on  but before you jump in and start your own video membership site I’d like to share some advice with you to be certain you get off to a great start.

1. Will your Niche be Profitable?

Make sure that there is an audience that needs AND is willing to pay for your information. You can determine this by understanding your audiences buying habits, seeing if there are other similar sites out there that offer similar content. If there are similar membership sites out there that have been offered for some time, you can see there is demand. If you’re charting new territory and offering something truly unique, be sure to do more intensive research.

2. Keep your Focus on a Particular and Well-Defined Target Market.

Just like with all successful online marketing ventures, keep the target of your subscription site well-defined. For example, if you have a weight loss membership site and you target anyone who wants to lose weight, you’re going to have a tough time getting people really excited about your membership and staying on for a long period. After all, excess weight comes from a number of different reasons and solutions will vary from person to person (or certain types of people). For example, although there are many membership sites on video Lon and I have narrowed our target specifically to screencast video and then even more narrow by focusing on one particular tool- Camtasia Studio.

3. Find Your Membership Site’s USP (unique selling position).

You can position your uniqueness on the quality of your expertise, your guarantees, additional services you offer, etc. Dig deep on this one, see what others are doing and make your site better. Clearly illustrate the benefits of the continuity program. Yes, the features of your membership, service are important…but when asking them to sign up for ongoing payments, you really need to let them know the benefits.

4. Give Free or Low-Cost Trials to Get More People to Try Your Site

Even if your subscription offer can be cancelled at anytime, people are often weary of getting hooked into a subscription of something they’re unsure of. You can offer a free or a very low-cost trial to try it out.

5. Allow Cancellation at Any Time

In addition to giving them a guarantee, make sure they know they can cancel anytime. If you feel your offer requires a time commitment (ex. 6 mo. contract), it’s up to you, but in most cases there is no reason to make people feel tied to a subscription. They will more likely give it a try if they know they can get out easily.

6. Remember to Repurpose

It’s pretty easy to cut small pieces out of your videos and repurpose them as free content on your blog or on the video sharing sites. We often take 1-3 minute chunks of our coaching sessions, add an intro and outro then put them up on our Learn Camtasia Studio YouTube channel.  It is great for getting additional traffic to our site.

7. Consider your Video Storage

It takes up a lot of room to store almost 100 hours of videos (we have much more stored in older archives).  You need to consider where these videos will be hosted.  Here we use Amazon S3 to store all our videos as the price is just pennies compared to hosting them on our regular web servers.

Best System for Digital Membership Site Management

It’s the question everyone wants to answered – what system should they use to manage their membership site? It really depends on your budget, preferences and other factors, but here at LearnCamtasia we use Digital Access Pass. A one-time payment for this WordPress Plugin gives you integration with PayPal, a number merchant accounts and many other 3rd party payment processors. It also manages unique usernames/passwords for all members and expires memberships when dues cease to be paid. It comes complete with an affiliate program and mailing list capabilities.

Are you thinking about creating your own membership site? Will it be mostly video based?