In this chapter, we’re going to look at how you can choose a profitable membership topic for your site to focus on.
By far, the key to the success of any membership site is the content which you offer. Benefits and features count for naught if your topic and content isn’t marketable or in demand.
To make sure your membership doesn’t fall short in this regard, it’s important to conduct thorough research. Knowing your niche and target market can help you create a membership site which sells itself!
Market Research
As a general rule of thumb, the online marketing arena is primarily dominated by these three umbrella niches – wealth, health and relationships
Having a focused topic which fits in any of these niches is a good way to start your membership site, especially if you are creating one for the first time.You want to make sure that your membership site isn’t a mixed bag of too many things.
When you have decided on a specific topic, let’s say Affiliate Marketing for example, you also need to check that your topic has an active following.
You can ascertain how active a niche is by monitoring their online activity. You want to see how many people are talking about the niche and you also want to find out if they are also active buyers and subscribers. This is especially important, because you don’t want to go into a niche that has a huge following but won’t pay for products or information.
And all this research can be done with a simple Facebook search.For example, you can try typing keywords which are related to your chosen niche or topic. In this case, you could try searching ‘affiliates’ or ‘affiliate networks’. If there are a lot of groups which have hundreds or even thousands of members, then it’s a good sign.
Look in on an open group to see how active it’s members are. When was the last post? How many new posts does the group get on average? Are people talking about the latest products and items that cater to the niche? Do they talk about improving their craft?
If the answer is ‘yes’ to all of this then congratulations – you’ve found yourself a niche market that is definitely worth looking into.
Narrowing down topics
Once you’ve nailed down your niche (which you now know for a fact has a big, active following), it’s time for you to look into how you can effectively sell to that market.
Read up on the common questions, dilemmas and problems that your target markets talk about. The best membership sites are the ones which offer solutions to common problems.
You can look up the latest hot topics on online marketplaces as well. This will give you an idea of what sells and what doesn’t. Marketplaces like ClickBank and JVZoo are heavily saturated and cover a wide array of niches.
You want to focus on the products which are top sellers. You can usually find them in the main pages of all the marketplaces. Look for items that are of a high rank, especially if they’ve been voted as Pick of The Day or similar.
Look through the topics and you will be able to discern a pattern – some titles sell and some don’t. If you already have an idea of what topic your membership will cover, just double check that similar topics are doing well in these marketplaces.
Types of content
Now that you have a clearer idea about the topic you membership site is based on, you should consider the type of content which you want to offer them. Of course, you should try to keep things diversified – offer them a mix of different formats and mediums to keep things fresh.
PDF Newsletters and Reports are very good offerings for you online membership site. All you really need to create this type of content is Microsoft Word or any word processing program. They don’t necessarily take too much time to finish if you’re familiar with the topic you’re covering.
You can also consider offering MP4 Video Tutorials. They’re a great way to increase the perceived value of your membership site. Nowadays with screencast and screen capturing software, making your own videos is super cost effective and can be done within minutes.
PowerPoint or Keynote slides are also great for making information easy to digest. You could even turn your slides into a video presentation. Just create your slides, write your transcript and get a voice over artist to record your transcript for each slide. You can then market your product as a bundle.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, SaaS or Software as a Service is also a great idea for a membership site. It strays away from content based sites and can be very profitable. Software might not be as easy to produce as newsletters and videos, but there’s a huge amount of cash to be made through well-made software. If you have an idea for software but don’t have the technical know-how to create it, you can always outsource the job to a developer as well. It might take longer to create and launch a SaaS membership but it’s definitely worth it, if you have a great idea for it already.
Of course, there are other types of digital products which you can choose to create – sets of graphics, photo collections, audiobooks, MP3 files and more. The sky’s the limit.
But before you get started, do ask yourself which of these types of digital products would appeal more to your prospects. While you might be thinking of creating an e-book, maybe your target market would benefit more from a step-by-step video tutorial
Soughtafter content
There are some categories of content which have proven to be highly profitable but it really depends on who you are targeting.
“How To” guides and beginner’s guides have proven to be a hot sell, regardless of niche or industry. Content that highlights the dos and don’ts of a niche are popular for beginners and intermediates as well.
Another type of content which if heavily sought after is private coaching and advice. One on one or private coaching sessions are a high in demand because it offers exclusive training.
Besides all that, here’s a list of some of the most sought after topics nowadays:
- Blogging
- Internet Marketing
- Dating & Relationships
- Personal Development & Self Improvement
- Consulting
- Real Estate
- Public Speaking
- Weight Loss
- Health and Wellness
- Writing
Firstly, you could try creating a membership site which focuses on blogging. Mostly, people who are interested in content about blogging want to know how to make side income off their blog and how to reach more audiences. So that is one topic which you can consider.
Next, you can look at catering to the Internet Marketing niche. Topics like Affiliate marketing, starting your own business and how to make money online are always in demand. There’s a lot of content on this already, but because the game is always changing, there’s always room for more content.
If that’s not your cup of tea, you can also consider creating a membership site which caters to topics regarding Dating and Relationships. Whether it’s a lonely hearts forum or a matchmaking service, you’ll be surprised how much people will pay for content in this niche.
Another sort of sought after content is content which deals with Personal Development and Self Improvement. People are always looking to better themselves. There’s a huge community of personal development gurus online who make lots of money by helping others improve themselves, so why not you?
A confidant is never unwanted. You could have a membership site which focuses on consulting. Now I know this is really vague, consulting who on what exactly? Honestly, this is so vast that to list out the possibilities would be crazy talk. As an idea, you can look into creating a forum of sorts which offers consultation on whichever topic you are an expert on.
You can also consider having your membership site focus on real estate matters. Let it be a membership site which offers advice to new house owners, interested investors. A lot of people know that buying and investing in property is long, arduous process so they are more than willing to pay for information which can help their investment go smoothly.
Next up on the list of sought after online content is public speaking. Nowadays, this skill is more important than ever. Being able to speak confidently is especially important for businessmen, so a lot of people are interested in learning how to overcome their stage fright and speak without stuttering.
Another hot topic is weight loss. This is a topic that has been so prominent on social media, especially so in the past decade. You can consider creating a membership site which offers monthly diet plans or even supplements.
On a related note, health and wellness is a topic which is very sought after online and across a lot of age groups, too. From workout plans to health articles and instructional yoga videos, there is a lot of content which can be created under this topic.
Last but certainly not least, we have writing. Might be surprising, but a lot of people are realizing how important good writing skills are. People in the IM niche for example would pay good money to learn how to write engagingcopy for their sales letters.
What I’ve given you is a list of 10 topics which are constantly in demand. Of course, you do need to choose a topic which you are at least interested in, or else working on your monthly membership site will feel like a huge chore. But if you ever want to create a membership site which gets a lot of sign ups, you can always refer to this list for ideas.
Decide your publishing schedule |weekly, bi-weekly, monthly.
When you are planning your membership site and its content, you need to also decide on how often you will be publishing new content.
You should create a fixed schedule, which will be in sync with your autoresponder, so that your members always receive e-mails and updates when your membership site has fresh content and exclusive bonus content.
How often should one publish content is one of the hardest questions to answer.In general, most monthly membership sites publish content on either a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis.Let’s break it down.
If you were to publish content weekly, thatwould amount to 52 newsletters or videos a year.That would mean publishing about 4 times a month.
While this does offer your members a lot of content, it might be a bit too much work to be worth it. Also, there is the risk that your members might become irate with hearing from you so often. This of course really depends on the tone and style of your content.
Now, if you were to publish content on a bi-weekly basis, that would come up to only 26 items of content a year. This would mean that you publish new content twice every month.
This is a fairly moderate publishing schedule – publishing something every two weeks is a decent amount. It also gives enough space to your members so they don’t feel like they are being hounded. However, some of your members might feel like it isn’t enough.
If you were to publish content on a monthly basis, for a monthly membership site that is barely enough to sate your audience. While your monthly newsletter or digital product might be of high quality, your members will read it as them only getting ONE benefit per month out of their membership.
So if you’re choosing to publish once a month, then just make sure that the content you are publishing over delivers, in the interest of keeping you members satisfied.
While quality should triumph over quantity, it isn’t always the case when it comes to memberships. In the end, however often you choose to set your publishing schedule, the customer satisfaction will depend on the type of content you are offering them and the value that it has to them and their business.So, do remember to think very carefully when planning your content and publishing schedule.
