I have started a few membership sites over the past few years, and I plan on continuing to do so. I think we all know that they can be a great source of automatic monthly income, with only a little work on your part each month (depending of course as to what you are providing).

But the one real struggle that most membership site owners have is keeping their membership full, or at least at a good constant level. You can get a big launch going and get a ton of members at once… but what happens three months down the line? The membership count will fall if you do not put in the effort to keep it.

So how can you increase the membership count of your membership site? Here are a few ideas for you;

- If you have a free membership level, plus a paid level… have random specials for the free members to want to upgrade. Offer them a discount to upgrade to the paid level. But make sure to end this special pricing if you say you will, don’t keep it forever if you told them it will end. This may not increase the total membership count… but it should increase the paid membership count.

- Offer different pricing structures. It is best if you test to see which price for a paid level is best for you. But also try different pricing structures like, 1 free month, $1 for 14 days, 1 year paid at once, lifetime membership, and so on.

- Set up special joint ventures with other people in the same market. Let them offer a special discount for your membership, exclusive to their customers.

- You can even try selling bulk membership spots for reselling. You charge a certain amount for a limited (or unlimited) number of memberships to your site. The purchaser of these membership spots can then resell them, helping to build your membership count.

- Create a viral report. Write up a report on the same topic as your membership with free rights to pass it along, then tell others about it. If you placed links back to your membership in it, then some readers of the report will visit and hopefully join your site.

Those are some ways that can help you increase your member count. You just have to become a little creative

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.