3 Marketing Tips That Will Make Your Membership Website More Successful

Posted on 18. Jul, 2010 by Steve in Tips & Tricks

It doesn’t matter how good your membership website is if no one known about it. There are a variety of different techniques that can be used to increase the visibility of your membership site, however some are more effective than others. By taking advantage of some fundamental marketing tips, you membership website will be able to consistently increase its base of members.

1. Don’t Go For the Sale Right Away

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make when marketing your membership website is to try and go for the hard sell right away. Instead of pushing for sales immediately, it is much more profitable to focus on lead generation, by gathering email addresses. Unlike many products sold online, a membership site is not a one-time sale, rather it is a recurring sale. The best way to ensure that your members will continue paying for access to your membership site, is to start building the customers trust immediately. Utilizing email marketing from the very beginning is a great way to establish trust with your prospective members. This trust will go along way towards building a profitable long term relationship with your members.

2. Offer Discount Trial Memberships

Free trials have always been a common marketing ploy both online and offline. However, when it comes to membership websites, it is a better idea to have a paid trial membership rather than a free one. There are several reasons for this. The first is that a paid trial will eliminate freebie seekers. Not only will this ensure that your trial members are serious about joining, but also decrease the amount of the refunds that you will owe. A lot of freebie seekers will not get around to cancel their subscription for a day or two after the trial period is over and then they ask for a refund once they are charged. If you offer paid trial memberships, everyone who signs up already expect to be paying for access to your membership.

Another advantage is that by offering a discounted trial period, your membership inherently has a higher perceived value than membership websites offering a free trial. Additionally, it is a great way to gain additional income as well.

3. Keep Testing

One of the worst mistakes that you can make when marketing your membership website is to not test your marketing efforts. Only testing can help you maximize your conversions. Once your ad is fairly refined, you should still be tweaking small aspects of your ads in order to maximize their efficiency. If you believe that there is no more testing to be done, it might be time to create a whole new ad campaign and start the process all over again. Keep in mind that while general ads are a great basis, creating ad campaigns towards specific types of people is important as well.

There are a lot of ways that you can market your membership website, however keeping these 3 tips in mind can make all of your marketing efforts more effective. Remember not to push the hard sale right away, offer discount trial memberships instead of free ones, and always keep testing and tweaking your ads.