Free Membership Sites: Are Free Membership Sites Better Than Paid Membership Sites?
Posted Under: Internet Marketing Information
Weather or not free membership sites are better than paid membership sites used to be a matter of opinion however, because of the economic downturn, people have been flocking to free membership sites in droves.
Email marketers, Internet marketers and entrepreneurs are finding more advantages to free membership sites for their potential customers than they have in the past.
Lately, because of the obvious advantages of free membership sites, even the well established savvy Internet marketers who already have paid membership sites, are moving to free membership sites for their customers.
Because paid membership sites are usually limited to a specific number of members, your marketing efforts become limited to the number of people you have enrolled in your site.
Limiting your membership, also limits your marketing potential.
And, limiting your marketing potential is never a good idea, regardless of what type website you are operating.
We all know that marketing is a numbers game. By limiting your membership in a paid membership site; you have intentionally restricted your marketing potential and limited your bottom line earnings.
Although there are obvious reasons for limiting paid membership sites; that does not mean you can’t operate free membership sites right along side your paid sites.
Because there is never any reason to limit the amount of members you can enroll in free membership sites; there is no limit to the amount of money you can earn.
Most paid membership sites only retain their members for a period of three to six months before they cancel their memberships and opt out. In Internet marketing time, three to six months is a “blink of an eye”.
Once a member cancels their membership to a paid site, the site owner must replace them, sometimes at great deal of cost.
Membership cancellations at free membership sites are easily replaceable, usually at little to no cost to the site owner.
Additionally, marketing to members of free membership sites is virtually unlimited. You can continue to market to your free membership site members for as long as you care to.
Free membership sites are easy to run and cost almost nothing.
Free membership sites will supply their owners with an almost unlimited number of customers and potential customers to market all types of products and services to.
The passage and implementation of the CAN SPAM act made it mandatory for Internet marketers to use opt-in mailing lists in order to broadcast email marketing offers to their potential customers.
If you try to send bulk marketing emails without the consent of your recipients, you will likely see your online business closed down or subject to heavy fines.
This fact alone makes free membership sites and obvious choice for email marketers.
Instead of limiting your mailing list to the number of members in your paid membership site; why not just create a free membership site and gather an unlimited number of names and email addresses where you have the legal right to send your marketing emails?
Free membership sites are easy to set up, operate, and populate.
It’s much easier and more economical to populate a free site than is is to run PPC campaigns, pay for advertising, write ezines, etc. in order to attract members to your free membership sites.
Free sites are often made up of customers or potential customers, who will eventually become members of paid membership sites.
With that in mind, there is no reason why a savvy Internet marketer should not run both.
If you provide free membership sites that can be upgraded to paid membership sites when your members decide to upgrade, you have the better part of both worlds and it becomes a win win situation for everybody concerned.
