Running your own membership site is still a very popular way to make money online and in order to be successful you need to use software to manager everything for you. This software is called a membership management script.

There are a number of them out there on the market, all with their strengths and weaknesses and with a large difference in price range.

Below I have mentioned a few of the membership scripts that I have personally used (I only recommend what I use or have been told is excellent by someone I trust as an authority) that you can use to run your own membership site.

This post is long because I wanted to provide you with as much information as I could so get yourself a cup of something hot and a biscuit and take your time! It will be worth it. I originally wrote it just for people I had been mentoring but thought I would share it on my blog. It’s available as a downloadable podcast too so download the audio and listen to it at your own convenience.

Your choice should depend on your ultimate goal. If you are a business professional looking to leverage your business expertise and create a community online I recommend you focus on the high end membership management scripts.

If you are just starting out and/or you are thinking about creating loads of different membership sites in different niches then you might find the low-end scripts more suitable.

Whatever you decide before putting up your membership site it is important you spend time doing your research. You know how it goes… find a hungry market and give them what they want!

One of the reasons I love membership site scripts so much is because they save you having to go the traditional route of putting up a sales page, adding a payment button, adding a thank you page, including a one time offer page, and then having the product available on a download page. With membership site scripts all of that is managed for you plus you have the added benefit of being able to build your list and have that list in one central place.

I have listed below a few of the membership site scripts that I have used in the last 3 years of me being online in order of using them….!

Butterfly Marketing

My very first membership site doesn’t exist anymore. I created a life coaching site using the inspirational guidance domain but soon decided that I perfer building my passive income without having to provide as much one to one support as I was giving at the time. But there are plenty of testimonials from happy marketers who have used this product on the sales page. Click here to take a look

Thousands upon thousands of sites have been built using butterfly marketing! It works well as a system and I still love it even though it does STILL contain a number of bugs several months after being released but the support team are usually quite quick at helping you out (well they were with me anyway) and you get things working again quickly.

The script comes with it’s own affiliate package so you can set up an affiliate program and allow members to sell your membership site for you (this is important if you want to spread far and wide around the web). It also provides space for you to add affiliate tools like banners, signature links, email promotions etc so you can provide resources for your affiliates. This is an extremely important element of any membership management script.

With Butterfly Marketing you receive a whole package of online business building tools and resources so it’s far more than just the membership management script. Its a comprehensive online business building package that if you stick to and focus on will help you to make money quickly. You can build an unlimited number of membership sites using this software and the important thing to do is to ensure you register each domain in your membership area.

Here’s a quote taken from the website

FACT: 97% of marketers making over $10,000 per month online have their own products, membership sites, or both!

Mike Filsaime
Butterfly Marketing

Click here to visit the site, read through the sales page (read it twice at least) and look through the testimonials. They speak for themselves!

Launch Formula Marketing

Until a few months ago LFM was a low cost alternative to the higher end membership scripts but the cost increased considerably and it’s now in the higher end market.

Launch Formula Marketing has added a lot of additional features since it originally launched which makes the price rise quite acceptable because it has not stood still but instead continues to develop and grow as a great piece of software for anyone looking to run membership sites.

The ability to run as many membership sites as you like with this script is a big plus. Pay once and benefit over and over again! And one of it’s star features is the ability to “drip feed” your members.

There is nothing more frustrating than someone joining your site, paying one month’s fee, downloading all your content then cancelling their subscription – but it does happen. Launch Formula Marketing allows you to provide content one month at a time as soon as they pay their subscription. This is a great plus. Now members only receive what they pay. If they cancel and rejoin within a few months their subscription continues where they left off but if it has been more than a few (I believe it’s 3 months but don’t quote me on that!) they have to start again from month 1. This is a fantastic tool and will help to increase customer retention (monthly memberhship sites can often lose many members after the first few months).

There is also a forum area where you can gain access to support. I own this software after receiving a free copy because I booked onto an internet marketing seminar in October 2007 but have never got round to running a membership site using it because I already had butterfly marketing and then went on to receive a copy of the next major player called Memberspeed! Visit Launch Formula Marketing here

Memberspeed

I had no intention of buying this product when it came out and boy would I have missed out big time! The main reason for not buying it was a bad experience of one of their other products called Marketing Main Event II and I just decided I wasn’t about to buy into Marketing Main Event III that included this software.

And I didn’t end up buying it directly because I had indirectly reserved myself a copy! During the launch of a source code software package part of my bonus for buying that software package using their affiliate link was free access to this software once it launched.

I had forgotten all about it until one day when I received an email saying “here is the link to CMS infusion” as it was called when it first launched. A few months later they had a name change and now it is known as Memberspeed.

I figured I may as well give it a go as I had a copy and now some six membership sites later (LOL) I love it!

This is the creme de la creme of membership sites and if you are a business professional looking to make money from your skills it’s my 100% recommended product right now.

When you use Memberspeed you gain the ability to set up your own membership site that has some amazing plugins.

• Your membership site could include it’s own article directory (with the ability for your members to include those articles on their site using a piece of code).
• There is an audio and video plugin so that you can include yours and those of your members.
• A member to member offer plugin allows your members to send out offers to other members.
• A joint venture plugin provides your members with the ability to send out joint venture requests to members
• Affiliate plugin allows you to run your own inhouse affiliate program including affiliate tools like banners, emails/blog posts they can use. You can include everything in there. I could go on and on….!

The system encourages you to include meta tags and important keyword information on every page you include and this is probably why the sites rise so quickly in the search engines. If your current Alexa ranking is at 8 million that will all change with this software. My lowest ranking site has been at 1 million and that’s because I don’t focus on it as much once it’s up. Regular promotion, article writing and blogging (on the same platform) and you will soon see it rise quickly in the ranks.

If there was one thing Memberspeed needs it’s the ability to start a blog. It provides forum facilities so you can run your own forum which is great but knowing how powerful blogs are it’s a shame that a blog plugin isn’t included (yet!).

I install my own sites but you can pay to have your site installed. This is best membership script I have used so far and gets a definite 8 out of 10. Being able to add a blog plugin that uses the same template as the site would make it perfect 10 for me. My sites using memberspeed include

http://www.myinternetmarketingmistakes.com

http://www.internetmarketingmentor.info

http://www.wimsite.com

http://www.teleseminarriches.net (fairly new as of June 2008)

There are quite a few others but this post is getting a little long!!! If you visit http://www.womeninternetmarketers.tv/dianecorriette you will see a list of my sites and the majority of them are run by memberspeed. You are given 10 licenses but that’s more than enough for me!

LOWER END MEMBERSHIP MANAGEMENT SCRIPTS

If you don’t have alot to spend on your memebership management script or you are looking to make one after another after another then you might want to try cheaper alternatives. But be warned. The more expensive the product the more that is done for you. So you may think you are saving money and lowering costs but ultimately there is more to do so you are spending more time on getting your site working.

I can only mention two scripts right now. One I didn’t get on with very well but is very popular in the internet marketing industry. The other is new to be but as I am now looking at setting up multiple membership sites (and selling some but keeping others) this is the script I have decided provides me with the best scope to do that.

The first is the one I didn’t manage to get on with and is called amemberpro.

I think it had more to do with me than the script…. although having said that I do install my own butterfly and memberspeed sites.

I just found amemberpro too difficult to understand as you are protecting folders and I was used to my membership scripts automatically protecting them for me without me having to tell the script which ones to protect! Plus you need to be able to edit html.

A friend helped me out and once he did that I could see how easy it was to use but to be honest for a complete newbie I knew if I recommended it I would be inundated with questions that I didn’t want to answer!

They do provide help notes and they do install the software free which I think is great but the notes were not enough for me and were not clear enough. Videos would be far more powerful! There is a video site that helps you understand how to use amember pro and I would suggest investing in that if you are going to use this script. http://www.amember.com/

FAST Membership Sites

This membership management script is an actual wordpress plugin that provides you with the ability to create a membership site using your wordpress blog. I love the fact that it is fully integrated with your blog so watch out for Inspirational Guidance turning into a membership site using Fastmemberships

Here’s a quote from the site

FAST Membership Sites is the first and only exclusive members-only site created specifically to provide a cost-effective & turnkey solution for creating Authority Membership Sites™ with recurring profit streams.

You gain access to products, training videos, teleseminars and a forum so its not just a system you buy and plugin it’s a whole community that you gain ongoing support from.

It has a monthly fee attached to it (which some may see as a disadvantage) and fits in seamlessly with their wordpress themes but you can also discover how to use your own wordpress theme with the plugin. Installation is available for an extra fee.

I have just joined the FAST Membership site community as of June 2008 so can’t comment on it yet but will update this post when I have more to say on it.

I am going to use this as my low cost alternative to recommend to clients but also to create and run my own membership sites (which is how I earn my living online).

The site offers two membership levels. You can become a member and pay to use the plugin on your membership site or you can upgrade to their pro package ( which is what I did) and build sites for yourself and others. Click here to visit FAST Membership Site

ADDITION TO POST 2 July 08 : An internet marketing expert I respect is Rick Butts

I found a link on his blog about a membership script that he recommends. I haven’t used it so can’t comment but if Rick thinks its good then it definitely is.

Here’s the link http://rickbutts.com/265/cheap-membership-software/

Membership sites are awesome so don’t ignore them. One site with 100 members paying £10.00, $10.00… whatever your currency is will make you £1,000 a month… now imagine if you site has 500 members paying £47.00 a month each or even £97.00!

If you are in business membership sites provide a valuable second income to what you are doing offline.

If you are looking to make money online membership sites provide you with everything you need to get stated. Just do your research, decide on your marketing, add your content and promote, promote, promote!

Good luck with it all and remember Inspirational Guidance will be providing regular workshops offline and through teleseminars on blogging, podcasting and membership sites. A winning 3 step combination to building residual income online.

Diane Corriette
Internet Marketing Mentor and elearning consultant

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