One great way to retain regular customers is to build your membership site. By doing so, you can easily engage with people who are already members of your website, saving you time, money, and effort, especially on administrative tasks.
Building an organization allows you collaboration and sharing of best practices, insights, and experiences. Of course, your business can benefit from building a membership site because you earn money with membership fees, and you can easily implement email marketing strategies to encourage your members to participate in events and marketing activities.
In this post, you’ll learn how to build your own membership site, so you can make the best decision when considering it.
Create a Great Membership Model
Don’t commit the same mistake. Unclear membership models will just lead to a waste of time, money, and effort. Make sure that you have a clear objective of why you’re setting up a membership website. In this way, online visitors will also have a clear idea of why your website exists and why they should join your site.
Here are some tips and tricks when creating a well-thought-of membership model:
- Highlight the Value of Your Site Membership: Online visitors don’t just sign up without a good reason. That’s why you have to make sure you have an appealing offer. People join organizations because of the returns they can get, such as access to online courses, research articles, statistical data, monthly newsletters, networking events, industry reports, discounts, freebies, and other knowledge-based products and web content. When it comes to content management, using special software can help you. Check Kajabi pricing tiers to find out how you can create your membership site.
- Offer Flexible Membership Levels: Once you have to think of a great offer, you need to provide flexible membership options, like a free trial, basic membership, or premium membership. Of course, your membership structure highly depends on your target audience. Consider the value of your offers and the capability of your target audience to engage and pay for membership.
Manage Your Contact Database
It’s important to clear your current contact database to save time and effort in doing this when your membership site is already up and running. Because your membership site will process registrations, automate payments, and distribute your messages via email automation, you have to ensure that you have accurate data. Indeed, creating your own membership site is a great way to market your business selling knowledge products.
Here are some tips when cleaning up your contact database:
- Create Appealing Membership Levels: Make sure to set different membership options that clearly distinguish one level from the other. For instance, you can recommend the basic level for new members as the most affordable option for those who have a tight budget. Then you can suggest the elite or premium membership to those who want to get full access to your site features, such as exclusive courses and huge discounts on your products.
- Eliminate Duplicate Entries: You can help speed up your site by removing duplicate contacts in your database.
- Standardize User Data: Instead of using varying names like, “NY” or “Big Apple” for New York, follow a standardized name for cities and States, like “New York” for all contacts residing in New York. This principle also applies to dates, such as renewal dates or join dates. In short, follow the same format for all your entries in the database. Doing so will help the organization’s processes and prevent system confusion.
Use a Reliable Membership Website Software
While you can hire a professional to help you build your membership site, it may not be a feasible solution for startup businesses because of a tight budget. One easy way to build a membership site with a professional touch is by using a reliable membership website software. Even if you don’t have the technical knowledge, using software can make things a lot easier.
Here are the facts you should know about membership management software:
- It’s a type of software that helps you create your membership organization in just a few minutes.
- It allows you to create a membership website using drag-and-drop tools, so members can easily join your site, directories, and other ‘member-only’ pages.
- Membership management software saves costs on hiring people to handle administrative work. It’s because everything is automated, from registrations, payments, sending reminder emails, accounting, and content management.
Conclusion
Building your own membership site is not as difficult as it may seem. First, you have to create a clear concept of why you’re building an organization. Moreover, establish the value you can bring to your online visitors to encourage them to join your site.
For an efficient and smooth process, you have to properly manage your contact database to maximize the benefits of your membership site, eliminating inactive and obsolete contacts. You can build one using a membership site software to help automate data processing.
