When building a membership site, if at all possible, you should include a forum function. The forum provides members with a place to discuss issues relating to your niche, brainstorm ideas, and form relationships. It adds a personal feel to your website. Forums help the membership site owner in many ways. They allow you to interact with your customers, building a personal web presence. They keep members coming to your site on a frequent basis to check in, and they allow these same members to share ideas.

Put a personal face on your site

By using your forum to build a personal web presence, you are putting a face with your name. You become more than just a signature at the end of a sales letter. Your forum allows you, the administrator, to put up a picture of yourself, and add your face and ideas to the fray. You showcase yourself as a real, live individual with opinions and information to add to the discussions.

Community builds continuity

Your forum can also help remind members what they pay for each month. Members who participate frequently in the site’s forum are more likely to see it as a source of information and continue to subscribe each month. Some of them may never post, but gain lots of information simply by lurking in the forum. This information, as well as the relationships they build, can often be enough to keep them from hitting the unsubscribe button.

Idea sharing, relationship building

Forums also allow your members to share ideas in a personal setting. They can interact with other people who care about the same things they do. They develop a personal attachment with other members, and will often check in each day to see how a thread in the forum is developing. This social aspect of human nature can be very marketable – be sure you’re capitalizing on it!

By adding a forum to your membership site, you’re adding a social aspect as well. You’re making your site more personable. You are putting a face with your name and brand. In the process, you’re reminding members why they’ve chosen to be members. You’re giving them valuable information, as well as a chance to share their ideas with other like-minded individuals. How can you afford NOT to have a forum on your membership site?

First, you need to know what type of content you are planning on providing those who subscribe to your membership site. Some software limites you to providing your members with access to files, such as downloadable reports, audio and video content. On the other hand, there are other titles available that will create robust membership sites with additional features such as allowing your members to private message each other, create their own blogs and post their own content to share with other members.

Automatic Payment Processing

Since you are planning a subscription based membership, you’ll want to make sure that the software is integrated with one of the popular payment processors such as paypal. This will automate the process of charging your members and granting or denying them access depending on whether their subscription is current or not.
Best of all, automated payment processing means you can spend more time on growing your membership and collecting your earnings and less time dealing with billing.

Affiliate Integration

One of the most valuable features you can look for in membership site software is the ability to turn your current members into active affiliates. Chances are, if someone is currently paying to be a part of your membership, they’d probably be happy to promote it to others for a share of the monthly subscription fee.

Several of the top membership site creators have this feature built right in, which can reduce your marketing costs while increasing your paid subscriber base.
Bonus Tip: You can compare pricing and features of the top subscription membership software titles by visiting http://MembershipAcademy.com right now.