Membership sites come in various forms depending on the niche and each type is best optimized to provide the right type of value to its target audience.
1. Content Library
This is usually a niche-focused site that delivers daily or periodic content to its members to help them keep abreast of the happenings in the relevant niche.
The content can be news, training materials, courses, webinars, and any other type of content that helps keep the site’s members in the loop.
The Duncan Rhodes Academy is an excellent example of this kind of membership site. The site covers painting techniques, and new content is added every week. This includes tutorials, videos, and blog posts.
That leads me to one key issue with this type of membership site. You must consistently upload fresh content if you want to keep your community engaged.
Members must be able to forward to something new each week if you want them to keep paying their membership fee.
2. Drip Feed Site
This is another type of content site that gives members access to gated content. What makes this type of site unique is how the owner controls access to the content library.
Instead of making all the resources available at once to the community, the site owner will release the content on a rigid schedule.
This creates a situation where each member only has access to small parts of the content library and must continue subscribing to be able to view each new addition that drops according to a set schedule.
This schedule often starts counting from the time the date the new member joined the community.
You may take this approach to avoid overwhelming your readers.
It can also be a defensive strategy for membership sites that offer free trial plans to prevent undecided users from getting all the resources on the platform without paying a dime.
3. Online Coaching Site
This type of site can either offer one-on-one training or an online course to help the subscriber master a skill.
The course or training program can about anything. You find online coaching sites that teach things that range from business leadership to hobby robotics.
The content can be in form of video courses, webinars, workshops, ebooks, and how-to guides.
A great example is the Bonicelli Cooking Club. People join to get membership access to hundreds of video lessons on how to shop and cook better.
There are also live cooking sessions and blog posts about various kinds of recipes.
4. Service Site
This type of membership site is all about helping people that have a very specific skill set meet with prospective clients.
You are essentially bringing freelancers and buyers who are willing to pay for their skills together.
A service membership site can be created for any type of professional or digital skill.
This includes web design services, freelance writing services, legal services, virtual assistant services, blog commenter services, and so on.
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