Leverage your expertise
If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you and your company have developed some specialized expertise in your chosen business area. Some of it is likely proprietary but much of it you have no problem sharing. Or at least you should have no problem sharing as it can be a great way to get new clients/customers/patients and keep existing ones.
An often overlooked way to share that information is through a membership website. Sure, you need to have some information on the public side of your website, but you can keep the real juicy gems for those who sign-up as members.
The membership side of your site can be free or paid or both. If you are giving away general information, free is fine, but if what you have on the member side of your site is proprietary and unique to you, you might consider charging for access. A good membership site can be a wonderful added revenue stream for your business (or, for some, the main or only revenue stream).
Let’s look at a few examples.
joomfuse.com - This is my site for our JoomFuse product that integrates Infusionsoft with Joomla websites. We have 4 levels of membership. The public access promotes JoomFuse, has access to our forum and ways to contact us. When you buy JoomFuse, you get access to whatever product you bought (2 levels), all the documentation, ability to contribute to the forum etc. If you cancel your subscription, you are given a lower level free access where you can view the documentation and contribute to the forum, but you no longer have access to new versions of the product.
workshopguru.com - One of our clients is an actress and provides other actors access to all the upcoming actor workshops in both New York and Los Angeles. Essentially, she curates all workshops and provides them in one easy to access place. In addition, she has a ton of included information on casting directors and workshop companies, etc. all for a low monthly fee.
homehighschoolhelp.com - This site has a ton of free information on homeschooling high school students. But if you want more, they have many one-time-purchase products and several continuous subscription products. When you buy a one-time-purchase product, you get access to the product to download forever. If you purchase a subscription product, as long as you are paying for that subscription, you have access to the material.
These are but a few models of disseminating your expertise to your herd via a membership site. Awhile back I wrote an article on “Why Everyone Needs a Membership Site” for the Joomla Community Magazine….If you are interested, click the article title and it will take you there.
In closing, let me reiterate that there are many ways to share your expertise and you should be utilizing several of them….but don’t overlook the power of the membership site when you are choosing ways to share.