A Different Strategy To Make Money Online
The majority of people use either Adsense or Affiliate Marketing to make money online because it is easy and cheap to setup. Most quit after a while because they’re too lazy to do it but there’s a smaller group of people that for one reason or another don’t fully identify with any of these methods and try to find another way. This post is for those people, it shows there’s in fact a different way and how to achieve it.
For me one of the problems I had with the traditional methods was that I just couldn’t stand doing all the hard work of generating traffic to my website, just to have visitors go away through a sly ad (and make $0.20 per click) or through an affiliate link.
A Strategy For Different People
I was not satisfied with these traditional methods so I set to find a strategy that allowed me to be open about making money but at the same time doing something valuable that truly helped people and felt more real to me. We are all different, why should we do the same things, the same way like everyone else?
What I found is a combination of methods that work for me and before I explain you what the strategy is I would just like to say that this strategy is not for everyone, it’s a different strategy for different people, it’s not better or worse, it just requires a different mindset then the one you’re probably used to.
Membership Websites
After a lot of research I started learning about recurring revenue and information products such as step-by-step courses or other valuable content and suddenly it all made sense. I imagined a blog with plenty of free information about a niche and then a special part that people would pay to access. This special part would contain a course about a a specific topic in the niche plus a support system where people personally asked me questions and a forum to create a community feeling and increase the value.
Basically, I would sell a product (the course) and a service at the same time (the forum and the support) and use the blog and other marketing techniques to attract people.
I then figured out that a type of these websites already existed and had a name. They were called content-based membership websites, where members pay to get access to the content on a regular basis.
There are several advantages with content-based membership websites. For once, they allow you to completely focus on the content and the users, building a loyal community of members that are happy to pay you. Plus it’s a great way to make money because it gives you a stable and dependable income that feels like a real business and that’s a motivation factor.
The Strategy
1. Find a Topic That Takes a Long Time To Achieve or One Where There’s An Infinite Need For New Content
Let’s say the topic is for example Improving Your English Pronunciation. This is a good topic because it takes a long time to achieve and members have to practice and get directions regularly. Another good idea would be Photoshop Brushes, because there’s an infinite need for these files.
Some membership websites need more work to be sustained than others. Websites where there’s an infinite need for paid content are harder to maintain but have a longer membership life cycle. Websites like the one about Improving Your English Pronunciation can be setup with a time-limited course but then again, the membership life cycle will not be so long.
2. Build an E-Mail List of Interested People (Before Creating The Paid Content Itself!)
The best way to do this is by using a combination of marketing tactics like guest posting, blog commenting, forum posting and social media, all connecting to an e-mail opt-in list. You would use content marketing as the encompassing strategy and your blog as your marketing hub, creating free high quality content about your niche and posting it there.
For example, if your topic is Improve Your English Pronunciation, you can write free content about your niche which would be something around Learning English. Your blog is the the hub of all your free content and your e-mail list the way to communicate with your followers.
3. Create an Engaging Premium Section (The Paid Membership Of The Website)
The blog would harness all your free content but the premium section is where you would put all your paid content and other goodies. This can be anything, from step-by-step courses, forums, databases of files or any combination of them, such as a course, a forum and a support system.
Regardless of what your premium section consists, it has to be easy to use and comprehensive enough to be useful.
Also, you shouldn’t worry about completely creating the Premium section before opening the membership doors. Instead, you should just create the first part your members will see and then build the rest from there, using their feedback. For example, if your Premium section is a course, a good strategy is to create one month or so in advance and then build the rest while your members consume what you’ve already created.
4. Launch The Website
When the e-mail list is rocking with subscribers, the blog is full of activity (comments) and the basics of the Premium section is ready, it’s time to put a price tag on it and open doors to your Premium section. This phase is important but its success largely depends on the amount of followers you built in step 2 and your relationship with them.
The idea is to let everybody and their friends know that you’re going to offer something to the world and that they can benefit greatly from it.
5. Automate The Website
Once you have some members and everything is running, you’ll have to find a way to automate the marketing (affiliates, for example) and content delivery (using software). Some websites, like the ones based on a step-by-step course are easier to automate because they don’t need to be fed new content regularly.
The most important is that you keep new members coming, compensating for the members that leave.
Conclusion
Finally, like I said above, this strategy will not work with everyone because it requires a different mindset, but even if doesn’t fit you or your plans, it’s always good to know about new strategies.
Either way I would like to know what you think about this strategy so let me know about it in the comments.
