The best product to sell is the one which costs the least to produce. Computers have ushered an era where it is possible to create products which cost absolutely nothing to make copies of. These products are information, as well as social networking.
The most profitable way to run a business is to create repeat custom, and a very effective way to do this is to charge a repeating monthly subscription. You get a guaranteed income which increases every month. You will be amazed how many people will allow a subscription to run for a long length of time, even if they're barely using the service!
This technique combines both the above ideas.
Step 1 - Decide what it is your members receive
It could be regularly updated information on a topic of interest, regularly updated pictures or videos, or a service which can be used regularly. Dating services and other matching services (such as au-pair matching, matching tennents with landlords and similar) are also lucrative. You can also offer other services on a repeating schedule - such as Website Hosting, repeated marketing campaigns and so on but the additional details to cover these won't be included in this article. Anywhere you see a membership in the real world can me converted to an automated one on the internet. Check local papers for ideas.
The area you specialize in should be thought about carefully. If you're supplying the content it should be something you enjoy doing. The success and repeat income will depend on the enthusiasm you put into the venture.
If you're going with information supplied by users, such as a dating site, you'll need more elaborate software but once it is set up your role in the site can be reduced to just answering the odd technical email. You can even farm that job out once you start making enough money.
Step 2 - Purchase a website and domain name
You're going to have to pay for your hosting - a free service like Blogger won't allow you the technical freedom to set up a private members area. Shop around and see what you can find. If you explain to your website designer that you're going to be setting up a membership based site they will help explain the technicalities you need.
As a brief overview you'll need the following features in your hosting package:
- PHP
- MySQL
- CGI
Don't feel intimidated by the acronyms, they're just technologies which help you automate the site. A quality website with all the features listed can cost just a few pounds/dollars a year.
Step 3 - Build the site
If the strength of membership sites are their ability to create quality recurring incomes, then their weakness is the time it takes to set them up.
The most reasonable and helpful designer we've found is:
Swift Visions Webdesigns - Very helpful and experienced in creating database driven membership sites and helping you automate them.
For those of you with technical skills, or who are prepared to learn them, look at a content management system. The best two are:
Look and ask around on the forums of each to find answers to many of your questions. Each also comes with templates which can help you set up a professional looking site, and they're totally free.
Step 4 - Marketing
Check the marketing section for more information. The best marketing technique for a site like this depends very much on the type of site that it is:
- A site featuring general information which appeals to a lot of people will do well through click exchange networks like Traffic Swarm. Supplement it by placing your add wherever you can - on old blogs, link exchange websites and as many search engines as you can.
- A site selling information with a narrow focus will do better finely targeting it's advertising. Directly email owners of sites with similar interests and ask to exchange links, placing their link on your site in exchange for your link on their site. This helps your rankings on search engines like Google
- For both above types, offering free information is a good idea. Offer simplified versions of your information on your website to convince customers of your legitimacy. Then send those articles to article directories with a link back to your website. If you write a particularly good article it can find its way onto hundreds of similarly themed sites, and get you a lot of incoming traffic.
- You can also set up smaller satellite sites selling your watered down information, with a link to your main site.
- If your site is locality based, then adverts in local papers and shop windows will help.
- If your site is based on user input, like a dating site, then you're in a Catch-22 situation. You won't get visitors until you have visitors. The most effective way is to market as above, depending on whether it is general or specifically targeted, but allow your first 50-100 visitors 6 months access for free. Once you've built up a good client base you'll find it expands very rapidly.
A site like this will usually take plenty of your spare time to maintain, but it can be very rewarding and provide significant income. The fact that the income is continually recurring is a very nice bonus on this type of business - you can be fairly sure of the income you are going to get every month. Membership sites are considered the hottest growing area of the internet today.
