Membership Sites – 3 Types You Can Run

Membership sites are a great way to earn recurring income that keeps coming in month after month. Many internet marketers expect to need membership plugins and various other pieces of technology to put it all together. Those types of sites work great, but they’re not the only option. In this article, we’re going to look at three types of membership sites you can set up without a huge amount of effort, and with a minimum investment.

Fixed-Term Memberships

Fixed-term memberships, or FTMs, are one of the easiest to start and maintain. These memberships run for a fixed amount of time, say 3, 6 or 12 months, and when the members reach the end, their commitment is over.

The big advantage for you is that you don’t have to come with new content indefinitely – your commitment ends as well. In fact, you can determine up front how much content you can develop, and then set your FTM to run for that long.

All you really need to run an FTM is a simple website and an auto-responder – there’s no tricky technical stuff to get set up. Your buyers land on a page where they can opt-in for the members’ email list, and then all the content is sent by auto-responder.

PLR Memberships

In this type of membership you provide PLR (private label rights) products to your members. You can either buy these products from places like the Warrior Forum, or other PLR marketplaces – or even have them created exclusively for your members.

You can use part of the revenue you generate from your paying members to buy the products, and keep the difference as your profit. As long as you have enough revenue coming in to cover the costs it won’t actually “cost” you anything. And your members get far more than their money’s worth, comparing the membership fee to what buying all the product individually would cost.

This can be managed through an auto-responder as well, or you can set up a secure members’ area on your website.

Service Memberships

If you offer services such as graphic design or script installation, you could offer a membership where your members get a certain amount of work every month, at a flat rate.

You need to careful, of course, to be sure you can keep up with all the work you’re offering, but this can be a good way to “lock in” your customers so you get paid every month.