Small business owners are increasingly turning to membership content (like online courses, content libraries, and digital products) as a way to scale their service offerings and earn passive income.
Many service-based businesses are limited in growth with 1:1 service offerings: the business owner/expert has a finite number of hours to provide those direct services, perhaps a limit to the number of people they can serve at once, and maybe geographic or time zone barriers to serving all the people who would be interested in their services.
Altogether, there tends to be less potential for growth with a service-based business model than a membership-based business model.
How memberships add value to your client’s business
Membership products are beneficial for your clients in that they offer a more flexible and scalable way to deliver services to a larger audience — which means more opportunities for impact and income. 🙌
With membership products, your clients can:
- Earn passive income — they create a product once and sell it many times over
- Connect with more customers and create more impact in their industry
- Free up time to spend in other areas of their business (or take more time away from their business!)
- Increase their income beyond what’s possible with a 1:1 service model
How memberships add value to your web design business
Helping clients build membership products is also beneficial for web designers and developers. Membership design is a sought-after skillset that adds value to your existing web design business.
Some of the ways memberships help grow your web design business:
- Membership design is an increasingly important skillset in web design. With more business owners looking to add membership sales to their website, it’s a more common request of web designers.
- Memberships are a higher value product — when you help your client make more $$, they can afford to invest more in their website’s storefront.
- Membership content can increase the lifetime value of your clients. Many designers appreciate getting to know and work with clients on a larger, longer-term, higher-value projects. This cuts down time in client turnover, nurtures stronger working relationships, and leads to happier, calmer web designers — who hustle less to earn more.
How to add memberships to your web design services
Interested in adding memberships to your existing web design business? Here’s how to get started!
1. Consider the types of membership products you’d like to create.
There’s a wide range of membership products you could help your clients build. Consider these different product types and if there are certain use cases you’d like to focus on — or, if you’d like to be well-versed in several. Are there certain use cases your existing audience would be most interested in?
2. Choose a membership software.
There’s also a wide variety of membership software, from specialized products, like course creation software, to more flexible options, like page protection software (that’s what we do here at MemberSpace!).
When researching the membership software you’ll need, be sure to check which CMS platforms and other business tools the software integrates with. Also consider what the workflow will be like for you as a web designer/developer. Will you have access to a support team and documentation along the way?
Confirm that the software works for the different membership products you’re interested in offering. Web designers often encounter a wider variety of use cases and special needs than the average membership business owner, so it’s a good idea to make sure the software you choose is flexible enough to handle the various types of membership products and set-ups you’ll need for your clients.
What styling options does the software offer? Will you be able to stylize the member experience to match your clients’ branding?
And, finally, also consider how easy to learn and use the software will be for your clients. Many web designers fully hand off completed membership sites for their clients to manage, so it’s important that you feel confident in your clients’ ability to use and maintain their membership after your project is complete.
We’ve designed MemberSpace to be both easy-to-use and robust. We support a wide range of CMS platforms, use cases, billing structures and design customizations — all from one easy-to-use platform, and with award-winning customer support. 🤗
For more details, check out our full list of MemberSpace features.
3. Get familiar with the software. Take some time to explore and familiarize yourself with your membership software of choice. If possible, set up a test site (or a few!). MemberSpace offers agencies the ability to create free test sites for your own education and development.
4. Create a portfolio. Those test sites also come in handy for creating a portfolio of your work to promote your membership service offerings. This can be especially helpful if you have not yet designed a membership site for a client and would like to begin showcasing your skills.
If you’re interested in getting started, here’s an overview of what MemberSpace offers for web designers and developers.
