By Trevor weir

If you are running a membership site, one of the most important areas of concern for you is membership retention. However, while this is certainly one of your key issues, your members have a different problem and that is perception of value for their time and or money.

Creating huge value is very important if you want to get members and keep members. Everyone likes to feel as if they have received significantly more than they paid for. While they might be satisfied with a basic level of content, its often true that you can do a little more work to give a much higher impression of value. Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising medium.

There are a couple of ways to raise the bar, so to speak and one is the offer of special bonuses. These can be either announced or unannounced. Using a combination of both works well because you get people excited, and you make them feel like you really care when they get something they weren't expecting. So, what kinds of bonuses would your site members think are great? What about bonuses related to additional material such as Private Label products related to your niche that you might pick up inexpensively. These can be for you to purchase and the perceived increased value can be quite high!

Another thing you can do is offer multiple forms of content. That doesn't mean you need to create new information for each form of content. You might do an audio interview with an industry luminary or you might be a trade show with your camera and simply capture 10 seconds of opinions from the public or well known speakers. This is a good thing to do because you'll be hitting on a variety of different learning styles. Member A might like to watch videos, while Member B Prefers to read text. You'll be satisfying more members without having to do much additional work.

One of my media instructors, taught me that sometimes, cheating is the best way. That wonderful video that you shot has an audio track that can be re-used and re syndicated perhaps even as a podcast. Look mom, no additional work. You can then have the video transcribed in the form of text. Voil! You now have three different formats to give your members and make them feel like they are getting a much stronger value from your membership site!

The last of our tips today, has to do with making your site look seriously professional. Some membership site owners manage to squeak by with minimalistic sites but the truth is that simple but relevant graphics and a clean easy to navigate layout will go far towards membership satisfaction.The old saying goes that "you shouldn't judge a book by its cover," but we all know that people end up doing that anyway! A great looking site is always a joy to explore.

Doing these things will help to build value that can really impress your members. If the membership costs $20 per month, try to give $200 dollars worth of value each member each month.The first month is the most critical, this is when more than 80% of your members typically re-question whether they are getting value of their money.

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