Creating Content for Your Membership Site

If you’ve got a membership where you need to create a lot of content, such as a training site or PLR site, then you need to find a way to create that content that is fast and easy. And that’s what we’re going to talk about here in this report. We’ll cover ways to speed up your content creation if you’re doing it yourself, how to partner with others to get content, plus we’ll cover outsourcing as well.

Let’s get to it…

So, the first thing you need to decide is whether you’re going to create the content yourself, partner with others in your niche, or outsource the content to someone else.

Heads up here – you don’t need to select just one method. You can partner with others to create some of your content, do some of it yourself, and outsource the rest. It all depends on your needs, skill level and budget.

Also keep in mind that as your membership site grows, then the way you create the content may change. For example, you may start off today creating it largely yourself. But as your site grows, you can reinvest your profits back into your business to start outsourcing content.

Point is, as you read through the following methods for creating your content, start thinking about which method you’ll use or which combination of methods.

Do It Yourself

The first method is the one that many beginning membership site creators choose: they create some or even all of the content themselves.

The advantage of choosing this method is that since you’re the expert on your topic, it’s sometimes easier for you to share your expertise rather than trying to explain it to a freelance writer. Or to put it another way – you can share insights that a run-of-the-mill ghostwriter wouldn’t be able to come up with. Plus when you create the content yourself, it’s easier for you to share relevant stories from your own adventures in the niche and write using your own unique writing voice.

The downside? Creating all your own content can be exceedingly slow. Plus you’re likely also creating content to help market your membership site, such as blog posts, emails, social media content, webinar content, content for affiliates and much more.

So, if you’re going to even do part of the content yourself, then you need to find ways to speed up content creation.

One way to speed up content creation is to use speech-to-text software. If you run a Google search for this type of software, you’ll see the old standby – Dragon Naturally Speaking – as well as plenty of competitors at all price points.

And as you’ve likely noticed when you’ve used this technology with Siri, Google, Amazon Alexa and similar, this technology has really improved over the years. In the past, people needed to spend hours upon hours training the software to recognize their speech. Today people with different accents can pull the software out of the box and start using it almost immediately. The software is so good that your editing time is fairly minimal too.

The point here is that most people can speak faster than they can type. The average speaking rate tends to be around 150 to 170 words per minute. Meanwhile, the average typing speed is about 40 words per minute, though plenty work on improving their skills to get to 60 to 70 words per minute. But even then, speaking is more than two times faster, so you can really create content faster if you’re using a speech-to-text tool.

The second method for speeding up content creation is to start with private label rights content. If you pick high-quality PLR content that requires very little in the way of rewriting, then you can use this content to quickly and easily create your membership site content.

Now heads up: don’t use the content exactly as-is, no matter how good it is. If there are a lot of other license holders, then your audience may have already seen the content for free on someone’s blog, in their lead magnets or elsewhere. Or they may have purchased it from someone else.

Fortunately, you can make the content seem fresh and unique with very little effort. Let me share with you a few quick ideas…

One idea is to change the content’s format. For example, you can take a PLR report and turn it into a video. Or you can take an ebook and turn it into course – or better yet, turn it into a video course.

A second idea for making the content more unique is to mix and match different pieces of content. Here you can mix and match different PLR content with your own content. For example, you might pull an excerpt out of a PLR ebook and compile it with a few of your own blog articles to create something entirely new.

A third idea is to take the content and add to it. For example, if you have a list of five tips, then expand it out to ten tips and/or expand each tip.

Those are just a few ideas to get you thinking about the ways you can use PLR content. And check out your own existing content as well, as anything you’ve already created may be repurposed and re-used in your membership site, thus saving you a ton of time. For example, you can take a batch of your best blog posts, compile them, and boom – you’ve got a brand-new report to offer to your members.

As mentioned, still another way to speed up content creation is to outsource it. One way to do this is to hire a freelancer to create the bulk of any piece of content. You can then go through the content and add in your own unique viewpoints, stories, tips, examples and more. In other words, you work with a freelancer to create something quickly. This speeds up content creation, while still letting you put out content that is uniquely yours and very valuable.

Outsource Content Creation

Outsourcing is the fastest way to create content for your membership site, but it’s also going to take the biggest chunk out of your budget. So, if your business budget is relatively small, then you may start by outsourcing some of your content. And as mentioned, you can take what your ghostwriter has created and tweak it to add in your own expert insights, personal stories and unique viewpoints.

You’ve probably heard a few horror stories here and there from people who’ve outsourced and had poor experiences. Yes, that happens. The key to avoiding this sort of trouble is to do your due diligence – this means researching your potential freelancer thoroughly so that you can pick a reputable professional who’ll do good work on time and on budget for you. We’ll get to all of that in just a moment.

But first…

So, where do you find a freelancer? Ideally, you’ll want to utilize multiple methods for finding potential candidates. Create a big list so you have plenty of options, and then whittle that list down to the “best of the best” using your due diligence.

You can find potential freelancers in the following ways:

·         Search Google. Be sure to use multiple search terms in order to uncover multiple freelancers. In addition, check the organic search results as well as the sponsored results.

·         Ask colleagues for recommendations. You can privately message your colleagues to ask for recommendations for specific types of freelancers, or you can post in business communities. These include business-related Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, forums and similar.

·         Reach out to your network. Here you can post about your needs on social media. You may just find that someone in your network “knows someone who knows someone,” and you’re likely to get multiple recommendations this way.

·         Post on freelancing sites. Another good way to uncover plenty of freelancers is by posting on a freelance site. You can post on sites like upwork.com, peopleperhour.com, guru.com, freelancer.com and similar.

Once you have several potential candidates in hand, then your next step is to research them to see which one is the best fit for your needs.

Heads up – at this point, a lot of beginners basically take a quick glance the freelancer’s portfolio, and then they look at what the freelancer charges. And many beginners also shop around based on price, by picking the lowest-cost freelancer.

Don’t do that. If you pay peanuts, then don’t be surprised if you get the equivalent of monkeys banging on keyboards to create your content.

Instead, research freelancers based on the quality of their work and their reputation. Eliminate any potential candidates that aren’t up to your standards. And THEN check their pricing.

So, what sort of research should you be doing?

For starters, if you posted on a freelancing site, then check the freelancer’s onsite reputation. Most freelancing sites show how employers have rated the freelancer and you can also read reviews and feedback.

You can also see how long the person has been freelancing on the site – though their overall history as a freelancer may be longer. You want someone who’s been doing for at least a year or two. The more experience, the better.

Secondly, take a peek at the freelancer’s portfolio. Do they do good work? Is this work similar to what you need done? And do they have experience working in your particular niche? Note that the more technical your niche is, the more important it is that your freelancer has experience in it.

Third, check for verifiable testimonials and references. Has the freelancer worked with anyone you know? Have they worked with any known business owners or other organizations that you know about?

Fourth, run a quick search for the freelancer’s name and business name in Google. Do you see any red flags, such as some alarming complaints from clients or business partners? Keep in mind that any business that grows large enough will get some complaints – what you’re looking for is a disturbing pattern of complaints.

You’ll also want to check on how this person responded to these complaints, where applicable. For example, if the freelancer started fights with clients on social media, that’s not a good thing.

Once you’ve gone through all these research steps, it should be pretty clear which freelancers you can kick off your big list, and which ones look like good fits for your business. You may even choose multiple freelancers – hire several of them for small projects, and then you can see firsthand which ones are going to work well with you and produce great results.

Now let’s look at another proven method for creating content more quickly and easily…

Partner With Others

The idea behind this particular method is to get other people to create your content for you…FOR FREE.

Why on earth would people want to do this?

Simple – because you’re going to give them a little publicity and exposure in your membership site. Their name and link will appear next to their contribution, plus you might also create a special place in your membership site where you list all your contributors and their offers. You can even list these offers using your affiliate links, so both you and your partners make money when someone clicks on these links.

There are multiple ways to use this strategy to create some highly valuable content.

One method is to interview experts in your niche. You can do this via a live webinar, and then create video recordings to distribute in your membership site. Here you interview people one by one and produce a 30-60 minute video for each person you interview. For example, if you interview 24 experts in your niche, then you have a new video to send your members every week for six entire months. Or you can send out new videos every two weeks, in which case you have a year’s worth of content.

Another method is to ask your experts a question, and then compile their answers to create a product. This works best when your experts all specialize in different areas, so you can get a variety of answers.

For example, you can ask several web marketers the best way to get 1000 new visitors to a website per month, and each marketer is likely to answer based on their specialty, such as paid advertising, joint venture marketing, guest blogging, search engine optimization and similar. Thus, you’ll have a product with a lot of variation and solid answers.

A third way to crowdsource a product is to ask the experts for their favorite niche tip, or a common mistake, or even their favorite tool. Then you can create a list of tips, mistakes, tools and more to give to your members.

A fourth way to crowdsource content for your membership site is to ask your partners to all contribute something specific to a product. For example, you might ask each partner to share a five-minute video talking about their area of expertise. Then you can compile this content to create one product, or you can distribute the individual videos over time.

Still another way to crowdsource content is to have a weekly “ask me anything” session with a different expert. You can jump on a video conference and let your site’s members ask all their toughest niche questions. You’ll then have the recordings of these sessions to distribute to both current and future members.

These are just a few ideas to get you started thinking about how to create content with the help of partners. Note that if you’re just getting started in a niche, this can be a good way to get a strong foothold in the niche, fast. That’s because having your name alongside the names of other experts in your niche instantly elevates your status. You basically get to borrow other people’s credibility and move into the upper tiers of your niche, fast.

Another benefit of crowdsourcing content in this manner is that your fellow experts will usually help you promote the site. You can even offer special commissions to your contributors. For example, if your general affiliates earn 50% recurring commissions for their referrals, you might offer 75% recurring commissions to your contributors.

You don’t want to do this all the time, of course. In order to establish yourself as an expert, you can’t lean on other experts continuously to create your content. However, it’s a great strategy to use on occasion for all the reasons listed above. You can use it to kick off a membership site, or even as a way to provide extra value to your members.