5 Deadly Membership Website Mistakes
What every magazine, newsletter and book publisher needs to know before launching a membership website
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Five deadly membership website mistakes—and how to avoid them
On the surface, it looks like easy money.
Post your premium content on a website, set up password-required access, add a shopping cart, and start processing the credit card payments.
Customers should be lining up to pay for your premium content, right?
And the recurring billing ought to be a virtual cash cow, right?
Put it on automatic pilot, sit back, and rake in the money—that’s the membership website dream.
Unfortunately, it’s only a dream.
Reality check: Building a membership website for a magazine, newsletter or book series requires a great deal of forethought and evaluation.
The membership website business model doesn’t work for every publisher. Success involves much more than just having an archive of past issues and articles.
Five Deadly Membership website Mistakes—What every magazine, newsletter and book publisher needs to know before launching a membership website, based on our 12 years of experience with more than 100 successful membership websites.
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We call them “deadly” mistakes, because any one of them can kill a membership website’s success.
By taking note of these common mistakes, you can determine—before investing valuable time and money—whether a membership website should be part of your online publishing strategy
Membership Website Mistake #1: Misunderstanding membership website information architecture
Misunderstanding the characteristics and attributes of a membership website compared to, say, a subscriber-access-only magazine or newsletter, is common when launching a paid-access-only website.
There are several membership website business models, and each works differently.
Get the facts before you launch, or you could really spin your wheels and get nowhere fast.
Discover why structure and organization are the major factors that determine how online information is offered and sold.
Membership Website Mistake #2: Insufficient content for a valuable user experience
That may initially seem like a simple way to increase revenue, but bringing an information library online can be a very bad decision.
Discover the important secrets that experienced publishers have learned about organizing information and making it searchable by topic.
Claim your FREE copy of Five Deadly Membership Website Mistakes: What every magazine, newsletter and book publisher needs to know before launching a membership website.
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Membership Website Mistake #3: Disregarding the historical print business model
Every story you have ever published in your magazine, newsletter or book series is an asset.
How can you best monetize those assets?
If you operate a user-driven business in the physical world or online, where circulation is the primary source of revenue, then a membership website could be your answer.
However, if you mostly generate revenue through advertising, then the economics likely favor an ad-driven online publishing strategy.
Discover the online business model used by Forbes.com, PCWorld.com, Computerworld, and USA Today (to name a few), and learn if their membership website strategy is right for you.
Membership Website Mistake #4: Omitting the all-important Internet hub
All online publishers need a plan for driving online traffic. It could include beefing up page views to sell sponsorship advertising, or selling branded products.
Internet hubs drive online traffic with free content. Site visitors then register for, say, a free email newsletter, and become part of an email database.
You can use that database to sell products—including access to a membership website. But if you place virtually all of your content behind a firewall, there’s little or no content left to build an Internet hub, and no incentive to visit your site.
That means you must pay for external media to attract users to your membership website—an expensive proposition.
The Motley Fool is a publisher that is doing it right. Discover how you can model the Fools’ success.
Claim your FREE copy of Five Deadly Membership Website Mistakes: What every magazine, newsletter and book publisher needs to know before launching a membership website.
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Membership Website Mistake #5: Pricing access by the pound
Selling access to a membership website is not like selling fish.
The price you charge for access must be based on the price consumers are willing to pay—not on the volume of information you make available.
Discover the best pricing model for your membership website.
What should you consider when starting a membership website?
Membership websites are relatively expensive to build compared to other website models.
Once set up with a good content management system, however, they can be an excellent revenue opportunity for a competent online publisher.
Before you launch, get the facts from the free Mequoda White Paper, Five “Deadly” Membership website Mistakes—What every magazine, newsletter and book publisher needs to know before launching a membership website.
Claim your FREE copy of Five Deadly Membership Website Mistakes: What every magazine, newsletter and book publisher needs to know before launching a membership website.
We hate spam as much as you do. You have our promise not to sell or share your email address, ever! Please read our Privacy Policy.
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