A Look at the Membership Site Business

Posted at June 30, 2009

Running a membership site has exploded in popularity as an Internet business model. Online business owners are finally recognizing what the “early adopters” discovered years ago: membership sites can be extremely profitable, have a low start-up cost, and can actually be fun to run.

The concept is easy enough. You have some information, knowledge, or passion about a topic that others are interested in, as well. You set up an exclusive community and charge whatever fee you want to allow entry. Your members benefit from having access to, not only very specific information on the topic but also, a community of others who share their interest in that topic.

As an example, RestaurantOwner.com was started by Jim Laube. Jim had 20+ years in the restaurant industry and frankly was burnt out from the long hours.

He charges $99 to join and then under $20 a month to stay on as a member. Jim’s site has thousands of members.

With a normal business, regardless of how good last month was, on the first day of the new month you are basically starting from scratch with revenue. With a membership site, you know that if last month you pulled in say $15,000 for the month that this month is going to be very close to that number. Perhaps even more with a bit of marketing.

Some of the topics of the sites we have may come as a surprise you, including craft sites (embroidery, cross stitching), health, fitness, education, sports, dog enthusiasts, and how to get a cruise ship job.

One of the most consistently successful is the _____owner.com type sites. That is, choose a niche business and provide the tools for people in that industry. The previously mentioned restaurantowner.com is one example but that can be applied for almost any industry: hair salons, gas stations, CPA’s, handy man business, affiliate managers etc.

Everyone has knowledge or interests. Why not consider leveraging it in a very profitable way?

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