Membership Sites and Residual Income
One of the things you need to understand in building your Internet busines is that it takes just as much work to get a one-time sale as it is takes to get a sale that will pay you every single month.
You still have to write a sales letter in order to get a person to purchase your product whether they’re paying you one time or monthly for that product. You still have to put the same amount of work into that sales letter.
I personally believe that membership sites are going to be one of the biggest ways for people to make money on the Internet. It actually started at the end of 2005, carried on into 2006 and has just become more prevalent and more popular since then.
The problem with most membership sites is that people don’t take a lot of time to manage them. Quite honestly, most of the sites out there really don’t give you a lot for your money.
The Success of your Membership Site
The success of your membership site is all relative to how much work you’re willing to put into it, how much your market is willing to pay and how lazy the marketplace has become over the years on the Internet, and that’s good for you.
The reason it’s good for you is because no one else is going to compete at the level that you’re going to compete at. The way the Internet has developed itself over the years is that people have gotten used to making money very quickly and easily. Therefore, they’re not working as hard as they should in order to bring as much value to the end customer.
When it comes to a membership site where a person who is paying you every single month, you have to be willing to give some inherent value to the members for their money. You have to decide what the offer is going to be. Are you going to offer a series of products, a study course, a series of coaching calls or interviews with other experts?
Giving Value to your Members
Whatever you decide to offer has to have value and be able to be delivered easily. The other thing you have to remember about a membership site is, whether you have products or information that can be updated monthly, you never want you clients to get bored or run out of a need for your services.
You have to ask yourself if it is a good deal for you. You also have to ask if it is a good deal for them. If it seems like it is going to be too much work for you to keep or not enough value to keep your clients happy, you should rethink the whole thing.
You never want to get into a situation where you have people paying you for something that they will not be happy with or something that you can’t fulfill because that will be how they remember you. It will leave a sour taste in their mouth for your other products and other future offerings you may have.
My Membership Site AM2.0
When I revamped AM2 to AM2.0 in 2006, my goal was to be the most dynamic Internet inner circle on the net where we kept the excitement that someone has when they join ongoing.
We’ve developed mastermind groups that meet weekly for accountability in growing member’s businesses and have special training calls, software downloads, articles, a forum along with a free ticket to my high ticket item, Big Seminar with priority seating. I also meet for a full day exclusively with my AM2.0 members twice a year the day after Big Seminar ends. We look at is as our job to add value to that membership site every month.
The Payoff is Residual Income
A membership site not only requires monthly posting of new material and interaction with your members, but it’s also about being able to deal with customer service issues quickly and efficiently. It is important for members to know that you are responsive to their needs and concerns.
More and more Internet users are willing to pay for quality information on the web, especially information that helps them either make more money, helps them use an existing product better or helps them receive more training. As of a recent study, less than 9% of online users currently pay for online content. This means the market is wide open for the savvy entrepreneur, so the timing is right.
Do not ignore this residual income opportunity.





March 29th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
You’re right on the money there! Owning a membership site is a wonderful way to generate residual revenue.
Another good way is to promote the companies which have membership sites (or web hosting or autoresponders) and pay residual commissions. You do the promotion once and get paid over and over again.
The beautiful part of promoting someone else’s residual revenue operation is that THEY do all the work of maintaining it.
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March 30th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
[...] Take a look at Armand’s tips for Membership Sites here: Monthly Residual Income [...]
April 10th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Thanks Armand great stuff. I’ve been kicking the tires of several membership scripts. The promise of residual money making membership sites are to strong to ignore.
One of the best advantages seems to be the ability of your site to create your own community. They’re great for branding and once you’ve grown the site to a certain degree it becomes viral.
Even in 2007 there are still tons of untapped niche membership opportunities…exciting thought!
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July 26th, 2007 at 4:54 am
Good article Armand, as always!
I start to think more and more about building my own membership site. I think this is where the profits will explode in the next few months.
Niche membership sites will rule the new era on the Internet. Combine them with the use of CMS, and you’ll have a dynamite cocktail.
Valeriu
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August 29th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Right on the money, Armand…literally! Yes, residual income is always better than having to get new sales all the time. Although I’ve been doing ecommerce full time for a few years, I’m just beginning my journey as a future FT affiliate marketer…I will have to make it my top priority to put my efforts into promoting membership programs with residual income rather than one-shot ebooks that may or may not give the affiliates credit for repeat sales!
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April 28th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
I’ve signed up for a couple of membership sites myself and see the residual income potential in them. Definitely the way to go!
http://www.outsourcingdelegation.com
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September 30th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I found you post to be full of quality information, I have used many of the tactics myself explain in your post and I have to say the work very well. I believe with out using membership concepts in your projects you are losing out on profit.
Great post Armand
Thanks
Zach
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