Developing a Membership Site (Part 4 of 5)

This is the fourth in a five-part series for resume writers on how to develop a career membership site.

When you first thought about starting a membership site, you probably spent at least a little time crunching the numbers.

You did calculations like this: If you have 100 members each paying you $10 a month, that’s $1,000 per month. Or if you open multiple membership sites, charge $27, and get 200 members, that’s $5,400 per month. Or maybe your goal was 500 members across one or more sites, each paying $19 per month, which puts $9,500 in your pocket.

Think those numbers are unrealistic? Most resume writers work on three resumes a week; that's 150 prospective customers for your new membership site. And the great thing about membership sites is that they're not just for your existing customers! They can be purchased by any job seeker -- so you might have another 150 people who visited your website but didn't purchase resume services, but who enroll in your "30 Days To Your New Job" fixed-term membership program!

Chances are, however, you stopped your financial calculations when you figured out that front-end figure. But here’s the thing: That “final” figure only tells half the story. If you’re only taking into consideration your front-end profits, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

You see, some of the easiest money you’ll ever make is by selling more products (even more expensive products!) to your existing customers on the back-end.

Consider this: If you put up a good sales letter for your membership site, you may convert anywhere from 2% to 5% of your visitors. So if 100 people walk through your virtual door, two to five of them will become members.

Now let’s say you have 100 members paying you $10 per month (that’s $1000 per month). These 100 members are going to be open to your other offers, meaning you’ll likely convert in the double digits. So perhaps you offer these 100 members a $27 ebook – you may find 20% (20 members) taking advantage of the offer, which puts an extra $540 in your pocket.

With just one offer you boosted your income by 50%, simply by selling a product to your existing customers! Now imagine if you did this with 500 customers… 1000 customers… or more. You can see the possibilities!

Now, in order to tap into these back-end profits, you need to offer something that complements -- but does not compete with -- your membership site. One of the best ways to do this is to recommend related products from within each lesson. That is, you tell your members where to get more information on a topic that you’re not covering in depth.

Examples:

• Let’s suppose your membership site teaches people how to secure more job interviews. And let's suppose you get to the topic of researching the interviewer ahead of time. You may go into depth on the topic of conducting online research of the company and the interviewer, but you could also refer your members to a special report on "Getting Started Using LinkedIn In Your Job Search." (If you're a bronze member of the BeAResumeWriter.com membership site, you already have this report written! It's November's your Pass-Along Materials content.)
• If your membership site ("30 Days To Your New Job") mentions working with recruiters, you could also refer your subscribers to your ebook on "Working With Recruiters in a Job Search.
• You might suggest your "CFO Success Strategy" members also enroll in your "30 Days to Your New Job" membership site for daily motivation in reaching their career goals.

Another way to make money on the back-end is by recommending that your members buy a specific tool in order to complete a task. These can be affiliate links (be sure to disclose this!).

Examples:

• During the lesson on planning your job search, you may recommend that your readers purchase a subscription to JibberJobber.
• You’re teaching people how to secure a job interview. You recommend they purchase an interview-preparation product ("Job Interview Answers") to ensure they're ready for the interview.
• Your membership site targets those looking for pharmaceutical sales jobs. You might mention a rental mailing list targeting pharmaceutical sales executives to help target unadvertised opportunities.

There’s a fortune that lays hidden in the back-end of your membership site.

You can tap into this fortune by regularly making related, complementary offers to your existing members!

In tomorrow's blog post (#5 of 5!), we'll ask the question, "What else do your customers want" and use that information to create additional membership sites.