Membership Software With A Viral Twist

If you want to start a membership site to bring you a stable, recurring income, the best way is to get your hands on a decent piece of software to help you manage and organise the site.

The other option is to manage everything by hand yourself. Can you imagine doing that? Having dozens of HTML files that need editing every time you add something to the membership area, different copies of the files for different member levels, maintaining databases of usernames and passwords so members can log in and out... the list goes on.

There are tons of affordable and powerful membership packages available. Some examples are AMember, Member Clicks, Easy Member Pro and even Wordpress or Joomla can be modified to handle membership and subscription systems.

But, by far and away the best reason to get some membership software for your site is that it can allow you to enter the wonderful world of viral marketing.

If you haven't heard of it, viral marketing is the technique of turning all your customers and subscribers into affiliates who will promote your site for you.

Think about it - say you have 100 members who pay you each month. That's great right? But, you have to do all the work if you want to recruit MORE members.

Imagine if those 100 members were all actively promoting the site for you! Think how fast it would grow then, and think how little extra work you'd have to do if the membership software you own does it all for you.

Here's some things to think about when you're choosing your membership software so you can be sure that it has appropriate features to help you make your site go viral:

1. Paid subscription options - free memberships are great and have their place, but you want to make the most of the time you're spending and you're providing valuable content to your members, so it's fair that they pay a small monthly fee to remain members.

2. Referral system - offer some kind of incentive to your members if they refer other members to the site. Count up points or give them access to more content if they refer a certain number. If you're in the money making niche, move on to point 3...

3. Affiliate system - nothing motivates better than the thought of a paycheque at the end of the month! Offer your members a cash incentive if they promote your site as an affiliate. Make sure the software you buy handles calculating commissions and paying the affiliates - it's a heck of a lot of work doing it all by hand each month!

4. Multi-level memberships - If your software can handle it, have multiple levels of membership status. As members move up through the levels, they gain access to more content, features or services. With the right incentives, there's something about being a "VIP", "Elite" or "Platinum" member at the top of the ladder that makes people feel great about your site.