One of the most common backend marketing products is a continuity program. A customer buys something and they are enrolled in a “club” or “membership” which provides them with ongoing benefits for a monthly fee.

But, to have this method work, you need to have a continuity program that provides real value to real people. According to Daniel Hall, you just need to follow these five steps and you’ll be able to create a one that will not only provide regular income, but can also support a lifestyle you actually want to live.

Step 1: Examine your interests.
A continuity program is not something you create lightly. You’ll be more successful and able to keep it going for the long haul if it is based on something you are actually interested in and passionate about. Also, if it is based on something you are good at, that helps.

Step 2: Find a hungry audience.
Now take your list of interests, passions and expertise and do the research to find out if there is a hungry audience for what you have to offer. Do some key word research. Search phrases that are three or more words long and are searched for between 50 and 100 times a day are more likely to have buyers searching than just researchers.

Step 3: Determine the model you want to use.
There are several different types of continuity programs you can have:

• membership site
• fixed-term membership site
• coaching program
• association or club

And several other variations on the theme. Which one will work best for what you want to offer and the audience you want to offer it to?

Step 4: Set up the platform to make it work.
You can use protected directories, a membership plugin for Wordpress, and autoresponder service, or just a monthly mailing list. What ever systems and/or technology you need to make your model work, set that up.

Step 5: Market, market, market.
No one will join your program if they don’t know it exists. So you’ll have to continuously market the program to keep up membership.

O.K. You’ve decided to jump into the membership or continuity program business. How do you continually produce fresh, valuable content that will keep your members contentedly paying their monthly fees while, at the same time, not causing you to have a nervous breakdown?

Here are some ideas:

Encourage Member-Generated Content.
You can do this by adding a forum, a FAQ submitter, or even commenting functionality. You can run contests that generate content. What about a chat feature?

Interview Experts.
You should be able to get at least one expert on the phone each month. Record the call and get it transcribed. Ta da! Content that only took you about an hour to create.

Private Label Rights Articles.
If you have a niche membership program, there probably are some private label articles you can use as the basis of your content. I don’t recommend using them as is, but they can make wonderful leaping off points. What are private label rights? Basically, someone creates content then sells you the permission to use it any way you wish, including slapping your name on it!

Public Domain Content.
Check out www.gutenberg.org and you’ll find a wealth of content — text, image and audio — that has passed the expiration of its copyright. For example, have you seen people giving away copies of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill as a bonus? That’s because it is now in the public domain and you can do what ever you want with it — including breaking it up into articles and even adding your name as co-author.

Hire a freelancer.
You can hire someone to create content for you. Places such as elance.com and guru.com have lots of content developers (writers, graphic artists, etc.) waiting to bid on your project.

Repurpose old content.
Take a look at your old content — books you’ve written, email you’ve sent, articles you’ve posted. Can you freshen any of this up and re-purpose it in a new format to make it a value part of your membership program. For example, take an article and record yourself reading it. Then create a slide show to illustrate it and merge the two into an online video! Voila! Higher value content from something you’d already produced before!

I’m sure there are more ideas out there, and I’d love it if you’d post them as a comment on this post so others can learn from your experience. But, in the meantime, I think these six ideas should give you a good head start on developing content for your membership program.

NOTE: One of the topics that will be covered in Volume 3 of Turbo-Charge Your Marketing is membership sites and continuity programs. Be sure to sign up for the free live calls so you don’t miss out!

There will always be people who value information they can hold in their hand over information they acquire over the Internet — no matter how much they paid for it. There is something to the visceral experience of holding something in your hand that increases the perceived value of a product.

Therefore, it makes sense that your continuity program would provide offline, physical benefits to its members. Some examples include:

• Newsletters printed on paper.
• CDs of the monthly call.
• DVDs of the monthly video.
• Binders to hold the newsletters.
• Special reports.
• Membership card.
• Members-only paraphernalia, such as T-shirts, mugs and key chains.

But why would you go through the added expense of not only shipping these things, but producing them, as well?

In short, increased perceived value.

You can charge more for your membership when you include physical products — much more. For example, let’s say that your membership benefits include a monthly informational call with guest experts. If the membership is virtual, you could probably charge anywhere from $15 to $35 for monthly fee.

Now add to that membership a recording of that call on CD, along with a hard copy of the transcript and a binder to keep it all nice and neat. This would probably cost you around $5 a month to produce and ship. But, you could now charge anywhere from $10 to $30 more per month!

By adding a physical benefit, you’ve increases the value of the membership way more than you increased the cost of the membership.

Not only that, but your membership retention can be much higher, as well — making your income potential that much more predictable.

Now that’s a benefit I’m sure you would like for your business!

NOTE: One of the topics that will be covered in Volume 3 of Turbo-Charge Your Marketing is membership sites and continuity programs. Be sure to sign up for the free live calls so you don’t miss out!

To answer this question, you really need to understand the primary purpose of your membership site. What do you want the membership program to accomplish for you? Is it a list-building tool or a revenue model?

Obviously, if it is primarily a revenue model, then a paid membership program is going to help you accomplish your goal a bit faster. Membership fees create a steady, fairly predictable income. If you run a program with a monthly fee of $25 and you have an average of 100 members each month, then you know you’ll have an income of at least $2,500 every month or $30,000 each year.

So, you say, what benefits does a free membership offer? Let me list them for you:

• They are a great way to build a list of fans.
• They can reduce the number of “tire kickers” you have on your list, because they do need to jump through a few more hoops.
• They help create rapport between the business owner and the members.
• They can build a sense of community, depending on what model you use.
• They can establish credibility and, possibly, even celebrity status.
• They can make you money.

What? you say. It’s a free program, how does it make me money? Well, you can promote your products and services through the site. People would get angry if you did this with a paid site!

If this still doesn’t work for you, you could try developing a low-fee membership program, say $5 or less a month. This way you get the benefit of having at least some residual income, and you can actually increase the quality of your members!

NOTE: One of the topics that will be covered in Volume 3 of Turbo-Charge Your Marketing is membership sites and continuity programs. Be sure to sign up for the free live calls so you don’t miss out!

PS: Happy Friday the 13th!

Continuity programs and membership sites are becoming quite popular — both to business owners, as well as consumers. Consumers like it because they can become part of a community and gain access to high-quality information. Business owners like it because it helps level out their income and make it a bit more predictable.

There are essentially two types of membership site: the paid membership and the free membership. Now, you might say, I’m a business owner, why would I want to run a free membership site? So, I’m going to talk a little bit about this before I go into the different kinds of continuity programs you can run to earn a predictable income. (Besides, I’m going to go more into the difference between free and paid sites next week.)

A membership site produces one of the most sought after goals of any business owner, and that is trust. A free membership — as well as a paid one — can established you as an expert in your field, especially in the eyes of your membership. But, with a free membership site, you have created a group of people who are more likely to buy from you later. Think of it as an ezine on steroids.

And, you always have the option of having a multi-tiered membership site that has a free level. Then you can market the paid levels repeatedly.

So now let’s talk about the different models you can use for your continuity program. Because this is a blog post, I really can go into depth on each one, but I think I’ve provided enough to get your creative entrepreneurial juices flowing!

Website Model

You provide membership benefits via a password-protected website.

Setup:
Sales Page -> Payment Processor -> Thank You/Login Page
An autoresponder may be a part of this process, as well.

Pro: Your membership content and services can be very robust, incorporating information, downloads, a forum, and more.

Con: Requires a script to manage the membership levels.

Offline Model

You provide membership benefits via telephone and mail.

Setup:
Sales Page -> Payment Processor -> Thank You Page -> Mail Box
An autoresponder should be a part of this process, as well, especially if telephone calls are a part of the benefits.

Pro: No fancy script necessary.

Con: Postage costs! And, there are all the logistics that go with shipping.

Email Model

You provide membership benefits via email.

Setup:
Sales Page -> Payment Processor -> Thank You Page with Opt-in Box -> Autoresponder

Pro: Easy to set up and you can provide content that is in text, audio, video or PDF format. It is also very easy to set this up on autopilot.

Con: You may have to manually unsubscribe members if they cancel their membership. Also, your content needs to be relatively evergreen.

In Conclusion

Of course, this short blog post only scratches the surface of what you can do to offer value through a continuity program. If you’ve had any “aha”s while reading this, be sure to jot them down and act on them as soon as possible!

NOTE: One of the topics that will be covered in Volume 3 of Turbo-Charge Your Marketing is membership sites and continuity programs. Be sure to sign up for the free live calls so you don’t miss out!