There’s a lot of buzz here in Internet marketing land about a topic that a lot of people are afraid of, and that’s membership sites.

I’m telling you that you shouldn’t be afraid of running your own membership site.  In fact, you should be practically jumping at the chance to create your own membership site!

Membership sites are one of the most powerful business models online today.  Think of it like this, you work really hard one time at creating amazing content that your audience will rave over, and then you get paid over and over again each month.

Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it?

But far too often, we become paralyzed at the thought of creating a membership site.  How do I set it up?  Where will the content come from?  How do I market the site successfully if and when I ever get off my rear end and get the thing up and running?  Do I really have what it takes to create content that people are willing to pay for month after month and not go running into the hills with their credit cards?

So, to help you (and me) get over some of our fears about creating and running a membership site, here’s five reasons why you need to start a membership site right now…

Reason #1 – Brand Establishment

Your business is new online.  You’ve got a niche that you know inside and out and have a ton of great information to share with people and improve their lives, fatten their wallet, help them lose weight, be more productive, or help them grow better tasting tomatoes.  Whatever.  You’re trying to establish your brand online.  Whether it be you or your company’s reputation you’re trying to build, a membership site is a great way to help establish that.

If people know you are running a membership site, they’re more likely to believe that you are an authority on your given subject.  I’m hoping that’s the case, but whether it is or not, that will be people’s perception.  And as we all know, perception is reality for us normal human folks.

Getting your membership site up and running is a great way to establish your brand for the long term.

Reason #2 – Focus Your Marketing

Why, o why, are you trying to build so many little sites that only sell one thing as a one-time purchase?  If you have a membership site, you can begin to focus the vast majority of your efforts on marketing that single site.  Then, when you have a new site you want to launch (related to your niche), you’ve already got an existing group to market that site to, your current members.

See, when you create you own membership site, you have an on-demand source of traffic for any other project that you work on in the future plus you have a base income from your memberships that can help finance your other projects.

Reason #3 – Continuity

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this subject, the explanation should be pretty apparent.  When you have a membership site, you have recurring income.  Whether you charge weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, bi-annually, or yearly, or whatever, that is income that you know will be coming in.  The beauty of a membership site is that if you want to give yourself a pay raise, all you have to do is get some more people signed up to your site!

And you’ve already done all the heavy lifting of creating content, now you’ve just got to use your marketing know-how to get 5, 10, 50, 100 more people to your site and sign up.  It sounds amazing and fairly simplistic, but I’m amazed at how difficuly many of us make this concept, including myself.

Reason #4 – Build Your List

I’m sure by now you’ve heard that it’s a lot easier to sell to someone that has already purchased from you.  If you’ve spent any time in any business, you know this is true.

So why do you want to build your membership site?  You’ve got a hot list that is already purchasing something from you each and every month like clockwork. Do you think that you will make more money sending a related offer to this list, or to the one that you built with some freebie giveaway event?  You do the math and let me see what you come up with.  I’m waiting with baited breath…

Reason #5 – Lighten Your Work Load

Back to something I said earlier, why are you trying to build so many little sites?  That’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately.  I’m pretty much a one-man operation at this point.  There’s no way that I can maintain 100 different websites.  No way, not gonna happen.  No matter how much I want it to.

And unless you have a full staff of employees or are bringing in enough money to outsource a lot of the work, neither can you.

If you’re trying to, the only thing you’re going to accomplish is sending yourself to an early grave.  Yes, you might be raking in a ton of cash, but I bet you don’t have any time to enjoy any of it.  And isn’t that why we all wanted to start our own business, so that we could finally have control of our time?

With a membership site, the bulk of your efforts are concentrated in one area. One site, one list, one group of customers.  The more you can focus on that one thing, the better your product will become.

Stop trying to be a jack of all trades.  Become the master of your niche, no matter what it is.  And yes, I truly believe that you can have a membership site in any niche, you just have to think about it.  And you are the master of your niche, so get to thinking.

Final note, I know many of you don’t know how to start a membership site.  What software do you use, how do I manage it, where do I get content, are all some questions you may have.  Right now, you can get a start on your membership site and get it up and running faster than you thought you could.  And for much less than what you probably thought it would cost.

Until this Sunday, you can pick up “How to Set up a Membership Site” for an amazingly low price. $17 as a matter of fact.  But, I can assure you that this offer will not last forever.  After Sunday, it will go back up, so don’t hesitate.  You’ve got a membership site to get started on, make sure you build it the right way so you can start making some money as quickly as possible.

Click here for your special price – “How to Set Up a Membership Site”

Once you get your site set up, let us know, won’t you?  I’d love to see what you’re doing.  Leave your comments below and let’s see how many amazingly great membership sites we can create.

Until next time, world changers,

Mike Paul