It's a Hot Revenue Model!
Work from home entrepreneurs and big businesses alike are lapping up
this new found revenue source because people
are willing to pay for online content. In fact, the ‘Online
Publishers Association’ revealed that pay-for content is emerging as
a hot revenue model. Business content, personals/match-making, and
entertainment are the hottest niches. But even smaller niches, like
DVD authoring, sports coaching, marketing services, and dieting are
producing profits.
Internet Users Spend £300 Million in 4 Months for Online Content
U.S. consumer spending for online content in the first 4 months of
2002 was £300 million, a growth of 155% over the first quarter of
2001 (and that’s post-September 11th). It’s apparent that online
users will pay for content on their passion or profession.
Subscribers are paying anywhere from £9.95 a month to £19.95 and, in
some cases, up to £200 a month – depending on the nature of the
content. Annual subscription renewals hold a solid 72%, giving site
owners an impressive recurring residual income. Renewals account for
nearly half of paid content sales.
A Rapidly Growing Market
Less than 9% of online users currently pay for online content. This
means the market is wide open for the savvy entrepreneur. Paying for
content last year was more than 5 times what it was in the previous
year. That’s a massive 500% growth! Those who capture the market
first in their niche will have the obvious advantage. It’s an
international market, so anyone can play.
How to Start Your Own Membership Site
Target the right market: Find a market that is passionate about a
subject, and then build your membership site around it. There are so
many topics to choose from: doing a keyword search will reveal what
people are searching for online. You can know before you even launch
a membership site if there’s a big enough market.
Make it unique: Ideally potential subscribers shouldn’t be able to
find the same information elsewhere for free online. Your job is to
search online (and in some case offline) for content, and provide it
in a convenient manner for your subscribers. Being unique could just
mean having exclusive interviews with experts in your field.
If you’ve done the interview, then that’s unique. Finding experts
(and even famous people) to interview is not hard. In fact, as your
site grows in popularity they are likely to contact you. This
situation gives you a two-fold advantage. It gives you credibility
or an endorsement, and it gives you exclusive content. Of course
your exclusive content may be from your own specialized knowledge!
Finding Subscribers: If you’ve started off targeting the right
market, then finding traffic and subscribers isn’t as difficult as
some people would have you believe.
The best methods for generating quality traffic to your website
include: Search engine positioning (including pay-per-click),
Internet Joint Venture Marketing, Ezines (online newsletters),
affiliate programs, and viral marketing (accelerated word of mouth
marketing).
Add tools or services: To enhance your membership site try including
simple software, tools, e-books, resources, etc., as a give-away.
These can usually be found for free or at a very low cost online.
"Marrying services, resources or tools with content can dramatically
boost your subscription rates" Gough says. "However, it’s best to
include something that doesn’t take up too much of your time.
"Giving people a reason to return to your members-only area is
critical – tools, resources, discussion forums and quality content
will do that!
"The exciting thing is, you can take your hobby, specialized
knowledge or profession and turn it into a profitable membership
site. Your challenge will be finding exclusive content.
"You can start it part time – something I did myself, while working a
full time job. As your subscriptions increase you can plan on
full-time involvement in your area of interest."
Starting and running a membership site can be a lot of fun and very
fulfilling. However, you need to know what’s involved in setting one
up, and then managing it effectively.
Planning and allowing for auto-responders, automated sign-ups,
credit card processing, automated cancellations, etc., is all part
of a successful membership website.
As complex as this seems, many companies offer a low cost,
easy-to-use software solution. A few companies, like
MembershipSiteAdvisor.com offer a free software membership
management tool to subscribers, allowing them to manage all of these
routine tasks. This makes it possible for almost anyone to start and
market a membership site for next to nothing.
Gough is quick to challenge that "Paying for online content is
inevitable. You can either be the one paying for it, or the one
profiting from it. Ideally you’ll do both, and learn a great deal in
the process.
(continue reading Create an e-Book that Generates Passive Income)
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