How to choose a membership plugin
September 6th, 2011
I’m going to break with tradition at write about work related stuff on my personal blog, so if the words WordPress, Membership and Plugin mean nothing to you (or they do and you don’t care), now if the time to stop reading.
This post has come about because almost every day, somebody asks on Warrior Forum (a hang out of online marketers and bedroom entrepreneurs) “What’s the best Membership Plugin to get“. Now I could just do a review site, but I won’t partly because loads already exist, partly because I sell membership plugins so I’m biased, but mainly because IT’S THE WRONG QUESTION TO ASK.
Asking “What Membership Plugin should I get” is like asking “What car should I buy”, the only useful answer is “it depends what you need”.
Even worse, people respond to the question with information they believe is correct, but a little logical analysis shows that in almost every case, it can’t answer correctly. Unless you’re conducting a controlled study of ALL the alternatives, what most people do is ask for some suggestions, try the top few suggestions and pick the first one that meets their personal requirements. Is this the best ? Almost certainly not, it’s just the first one that didn’t suck for them. Sure, people will be vocal about the ones they didn’t like (and with good reason) but the ones they didn’t try don’t even get considered. You soon end up with a vicious circle of the popular ones being classed as best, rather than the best ones becoming most popular. Ultimately nobody likes to think they didn’t make the best decision, so their choice is obviously the best choice.
This results of this vicious circle is bland, middle of the road, offerings like WishList Member being constantly reported as the best when often, it’s nothing of the sort. It’s simply a case of “it did what I expected and I don’t hate it”. For almost every situation there are “better” alternatives, but most people haven’t tried them.
However, this can work to your advantage. Selling membership online is now hugely competitive and in a market you should be striving to stand out in, if all your competitors are using a product that is a long well behind it’s lesser known competition, you immediately have a BIG advantage.
So, instead of telling what what plugin to buy (and if you’ve read this far, you’ll know that that can’t shouldn’t be done) I figured I’d write a guide to finding the right membership plugin for YOU, to save me making the same points over and over again on Warriors Forum and twitter.
So, how to find the right membership plugin.
Here are the key steps
- Work out your requirements. No two people want the same thing from their membership site, what is an essential feature for one person is unnecessary for another. Knowing exactly what you need will save you lots of time and effort later. Features you have to consider include which payment systems you need to integrate with, how many membership levels you need, wether you intend to upsell people from one level to another, what kind of promotion you are going to do for your membership, what your content is (text, pdfs, downloadable file, video, music etc), how many users you are expecting, do you need WordPress multi-site support, do you need multi-language support etc. Write down a list and keep referring back to it, don’t be drawn in by the bright lights only to realise list you’re missing a vital feature
- Ignore cost, think about ROI (Return on Investment) Some people mistakenly think the most expensive is the best, others prefer the cheap option (why pay more when I don’t have to) but normally, you’re running a membership site to make money, so if it doesn’t make the cost of the perfect membership plugin back, then you’re doing it wrong. After the content, it’s the most important part of the site (it takes the money after all) so don’t scrimp. Get the RIGHT one and ignore the cost (within reason) you’ll soon make your initial outlay back. Do however check to see whether you’re paying a one off fee or an an annual price
- Draw up a list of possible plugins and test them all Look through all the options of all possibilities, rule out those that don’t meet your requirements, ask for advice but don’t take “best” too seriously, but do take seriously any very negative feedback (also watch out for review sites, many are simply affiliate sites designed to promote specific plugins). Once you have a list, test them all! Don’t stop at the first one that’s OK, it could well be that the next one is better. Also check the advertised version includes all the things you expect, one major player expects you to join their club (additional monthly fee) to get access to features that others expect in the core (drip feeding, expiring posts etc).
- Look behind the plugin Don’t just look at the features, look at how the company deals with their customers, how long have they been in business, do they have a physical address, how big is their team etc. If something goes wrong with your plugin whilst they are taking a gap year travelling around the world or worse if it’s a one man band that has suddenly got a day job and can’t really support his product any more, it’s YOUR livelihood at stake! WordPress (and PHP in general) is great for individuals throwing together complex solutions really quickly, but the problem is individuals aren’t great for relying on for long term support.
Follow these simple steps and hopefully you’ll stay one step ahead of the saps that have fallen for “The Emperors New Clothes” by being lazy and buying inferior or less suitable product, simply because everyone else did.
In the interests of full disclosure, I work for Coding Futures who as well as being a kick-ass development agency specialising in payment flow systems, also happen to develop Your Members which whilst excellent, well priced and boasting many unique features, may not be the right choice for you.
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