Questions re membership sites

[Carrielee]

[Onwiz]

Hi,

We have developed and consult on a textile portal offering premium content for PAID members.

The model we follow is to offer some of the information for FREE to everyone and some is reserved for paid members only. Free content usually includes general news stories, some not-so-important reports, statistics or photo coverage of events.

The paid content will however offer indepth news reports or provide detailed statistics about various countries or textile sectors. Ours is primarily a B2B site so we can charge higher rates than normal, but in case your niche is begging for an outlet, then you too might be able to charge a handsome amount.

To make our paid content more compelling for reluctant users, we offer a free preview of our content, for example: The coverage of has designs by over 50 designers, but three designs of EVERY designer are available for general viewing, the fourth and following designs are reserved for paid members only! In effect around 150 of over 2300 photographs are FREE and the rest are PAID.

This allows our potential prospects to evaluate the content and decide whether he/she is willing to pay for it.

Ultimately, it is your content that will decide if you will get members or no. Offer content that is not available elsewhere or difficult to find and you will have no problems finding subscribers willing to pay.

Hope this helps...

Oh, I don't recommend bothering with Free trial periods, they are much abused and you'll soon find your content on other sites.

-- Ashish Pawaskar

[Lynn Terry]

[Phil Tanny]

[Monna Ellithorpe]

[Lynn Terry]

[StephenR.]

[Hock Ng]

Carrie,

I am a member of a number of membership sites. What I look for is whether there is content which is interesting to me. Price is the secondary factor. That's because if I don't find the membership satisfactory, I can always cancel after one month.

The more targeted your niche, the easier it will be to recruit members. That's because you can specifically offer what your customers need. If you cover a broad spectrum, there is a higher probability that you'll get more disatisfied members.

For example, I'm a member of . The target audience is people who want niche content to repackage or resell. That's a very specific niche.

What I've seen offered at various membership sites are:

1. Articles - advice, tips, strategies, methods
2. Reports - similar to above
3. Members forum
4. Resale rights
5. Software tools
6. Consulting
7. Design
8. How to videos

Hope this helps.

Hock