Are you pulling your hair out trying to figure out the the technical details of  how to offer your content to members-only?

Let’s face it..there is only so much time in a day and you have big ideas and are eager to get your work out there and make some money, of course!

Worry not, it doesn’t have to be complicated! And there are plenty of solutions out there to help. But first..

Break your Ideas into Smaller Parts

For those of you that know me or have worked with me, you know that I am a big practitioner of the K.I.S.S method (Keep it short and simple) and try to use this approach as much as possible when trying out new project ideas.

It’s super easy to get excited about an idea and then feel deflated when don’t think you have the tech know-how to put it all together.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of reevaluating/prioritizing/breaking down your ideas into smaller chunks and then building on them as you go.

Do you need all the bells and whistles of a social network right away? Probably not. Especially, if you are in the early-stages of your idea/product you may not need all that.

Essentially, you need:

  • a way for people to pay you
  • a way for paying members to access content

Eventually, you can add more features and build a community/forum and way for members to interact but let’s keep it simple to start and focus on having a way to share your work with paying members :).

If your goal is to have a way to have member-only access to your content, here are several options that you can explore.

6 DIY options for offering member-only content

1. Password-Protected Page: You can create a password protected page on your website and only give access to paying members. This is what a Password Protected Page would look like on a WordPress site (password: test).  Note:  branding, pages, widgets are all still visible!

2. Create a Secret/Closed Facebook group where members only get added after they have paid for access. Pretty simple, eh? Cost: Free!

3. Ning is pretty much as out of the box as it gets. I’ve used this network for several years and have never had any problems. It’s easy to customize and has all the familiar social network features. They offer the mini- plan at  $19.99/year for up to 150 members. At this level, domain mapping is not included so you would have a url with yourbizname.ning.com.  I don’t see that as a negative though, considering you could link to your Ning network from within your site or share the link to members after they sign up and pay.

WordPress Specific

4. Optimize Press:  I find for the price ($77) Optimize Press provides a lot of value. You can easily setup your membership site using the templates and divide the content into sections, modules etc. and display a navigation menu and/or side bar that makes it easy to access the content and understand how it is organized. Bonus: You can but choose from many templates and create sales pages as well! You can also install OptimizePress on multiple sites that you own.

I haven’t personally used the next two but they come with rave reviews as well:

5. Buddy-Press:  Everything you need to start your own self-hosted and WordPress-powered social network.   (Opensource)

6. Wishlist:   Easy enough to use that you really don’t need to be a techie to build a great membership site with it. The plugin allows you to build a high quality membership site that looks sleek and is easy to manage as an admin. (single site license:  $97)

So as you can see there are several to choose from depending on what is you need to do!

Is there a tool/technique that you have used? I’d love to hear about it!

Have a question? Leave a comment, I’d be happy to help!

 

21 comments

  1. Jen Brown ~ Sparta PT

    A great post Sandy & very timely as it is something I have been considering as well!

    There are two others that I know of.

    I was (very pleasantly) surprised to find that Premise (the landing page creation plugin from Copyblogger) now includes the functionality to create membership sites. I haven’t used that part of it yet but knowing how good Premise (and Copyblogger) are, I suspect it’s outstanding.

    And the other one is S2Member which my WordPress guru actually recommends instead of Wishlist member.

    Love your work!

    Regards
    Jen

  2. Janine @loveyoursmallbusiness.com

    Hi Sandy,

    Great post and really relevant for us right now.

    We use NING and love it. Why?

    Because we were looking for a platform that was great visually (we work with creatives) and that would encourage a sense of real community. With ning, members can easily upload their profile pics and interact with each other directly ,as well as access their resources and materials. It’s also incredibly easy to manage and set-up, even if you are a bit of a technophone.

    The downside? Even if you pay to add NINGs paid-for membership site feature your members still have to resubscribe every month to get continued access ( though I understand that NING are planning to make recurring payments a feature in the near future).

    This is causing a bit of a problem for us as we grow our membership site community and try to add new programs to our site.

    Love to hear from anyone who has experience with NING who might be able to help us overcome this problem!

    Warm wishes,
    Janine

    • Loralee Hutton

      Janine, are you able to have your clients pay you through your merchant account or paypal subscription (ongoing monthly) & not have the ning membership tied directly to their payments? I see several other business owners doing this with ongoing ning membership groups. Maybe there’s other ways too?

      This is a great post! And relevant to a project I’m working on right now too. Your comments will help us move forward. Thanks! 🙂 ~ Loralee

      • Sandy

        Thanks for the comment,Loralee! that’s the same thing that I was going to suggest. It does mean that they will have to manage things manually but I think it’s the best of both worlds (and you eliminate paying to Ning for the ‘membership’ feature.

    • Sandy

      Hi Janine!

      I couldn’t agree more! Ning is great and easy to use and very familiar for those who have already been using social networking sites like Facebook with the added benefits of groups and discussions that you can moderate.

      I’m a bit surprised that Ning dropped the ball with the recurring payments feature..sounds incomplete to me! And a quick search on the Ning Creators forum looks like they don’t plan on adding it to the product roadmap anytime soon.

      I was going to suggest the same thing as Loralee…why not manage the payment process through Paypal (you can easily setup recurring payments) and then accept/invite people once they have paid. Granted there is a bit of a managementpiece (removing people once they no longer subscribe) but you do eliminate the Ning payment overhead (since you have to pay to have that feature, right?) Natalie Sisson does this with the Social Meida Club, you subscribe to Paypal and then get added to the group.
      Hope this helps!

  3. Claire Kerslake

    Thanks for outlining these options, Sandy.

    I LOVE your definition of KISS – Keep it short & simple. The usual definition has never sat well with me – It really rankles to be calling anyone stupid, so thanks for that!

    • Sandy

      Thanks, Claire! Not sure if I can take credit for that particular definition 😉 But I agree it definitely works better for me as well!

  4. Angela

    Hi Sandy

    Thanks so much for this! I suspect it’s going to come in really handy in the coming months as I work my way towards my WE Mastermind product launch! Brilliant post!

    Ang 🙂

  6. Naomi Lancet

    Hey Sandy

    Awesome post on exposing lots of membership sites, most of which I have never heard of. I was perhaps interested in a non-paid membership site. Mainly for people to post videos, share tips and tricks. What would you recommend as far as posting video style forums? I was leaning with BuddyPress. Let me know your thoughts!!
    <3 Nao

    • Sandy

      Hi Naomi,

      Any of the above solutions would work (with the exception of probably the Facebook group and protected page)…it just depends on whether you want to pay for a solution or use somthing opensource like Buddypress which is free.

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  8. Fabrice Calando

    Hey Sandy,
    Do you know how easy it would be to start with one of your six options and transfer to another? For example, start with a password protected page and later move on to Optimize Press?

    • Sandy

      Hey Fabrice!
      Thanks for the question! It wouldn’t be that hard to transfer. If you start with a password protected page, I am assuming behind that page you will be sharing content, whether it is videos, podcasts, exclusive content and so on. Once you decide to go to OptimizePress it would be a matter of transferring and plugging in that content however you decide to structure it (i.e different modules) with the added bonus of being able to integrate forums etc. The heavy-lifting is creating the content, and once you have that packaging it won’t be too hard.

  10. Jill Kelley-Gannon

    Someone mentioned that having a paid member’s only group on FB is against their rules, I have searched and searched and dont find anything that says that.

    • Sandy Sidhu

      I haven’t come across that and have been running a group like this for 2 years with no issue so far.note the payment transaction doesn’t happen on Facebook. And a lot of people offer these groups as part of a course or something else.