Many bloggers dream of adding a membership program to their blog in order to start earning money from their content instead of giving it away for free. This actually makes good business sense, a successful membership site can help you earn a steady stream of income every month.

However, it is important to look before you leap. The money may sound very attractive, but there is a real commitment involved in running a membership site that you might not be ready to make just yet. Let’s look at some of the ways to add a membership site to your business model without overstretching yourself.

Know Your Audience

Know who is coming to your site and what they are most interested in. Check your traffic logs, see which of your products are selling well, and survey them to see what their most pressing problems are. Create a poll on Facebook, connect with your email marketing list subscribers, and then compile all your results to see what kind of content they will be willing to pay for.

Plan Your Content

Once you know what they are most interested in, start planning your site and the content within it. Offer a variety, such as articles, video, audio and more. Determine if you want to offer a group or forum, and accessibility to you as an expert in your niche.

Create Your Content

Create ecourses or digital products to sell to your members. Add audio and video. Dust off any content you have created before and massage it into articles, checklists, PowerPoints, videos and more. Hire freelancers to create content for you as needed.

Plan Your Offer

You offer will not just be about price, but all of the benefits they will gain from a paid membership site, such as exclusive content, insider secrets, a comprehensive coaching program, and more. The offer has to be good enough to get them to sign up, and the content has to be good enough for them to decide to stay with you month after month.

When you create the site, under-promise and over-deliver. Wow them with what is on offer and they will want to remain a member. They might even tell others how great your membership site is.

Set Your Income Goal

Creating a new membership site will take time and effort, and will usually require you to hire more people sooner rather than later – such as a virtual assistant to load up content and help with customer service issues. Decide how much it will cost you in terms of time, effort, content, and freelancers to help.

Imagine you wish to make $72,000 per year, $6,000 per month, $200 per day. Look at the price you plan to charge and see how many people you need to sign up each day to meet your goals.

Plan Your Marketing

Once you have set your goal, you can decide how to market your new membership site to get a steady stream of new members. Tactics will include email marketing, gathering affiliates who will be willing to sell your content in exchange for a commission, social media marketing, and video marketing.

Plan ahead and you should soon have a successful membership site.