Thursday, January 24, 2008

Membership sites made easy

According to the leading marketing gurus on the Web, it can be quite profitable to create a Website with paid membership. Unlike selling regular products, which generates cash only at the time of sale, paid membership sites can generate continuous revenue.

On the surface, that seems like a great idea. Unfortunately, there are some problems:

1. Such sites are difficult to set up and often require expensive and complicated software.
2. The setup and maintenance can be time consuming.
3. It can be difficult creating enough unique content to keep paying customers subscribed.

All of these things are true, if you use the traditional model for a paid membership site.

Fortunately, there may be a better solution - the "Fixed-Term Membership" or FTM site. It seems to have originated with Jimmy D. Brown, the recognized mailing list expert. This new system has no software requirements, requires no technical expertise, and can be set up in 48 hours or less.

Oh, and setting it up is practically free. What could be better than that?

Jimmy is calling the product Membernaire, and it pretty much blew me away. He's strictly limiting it to 1000 copies, though, so you might want to have a look.

You can check out Membernaire here.