Have You Considered A Fixed-Term Membership?

Internet marketer Jimmy D. Brown coined the term “Fixed Term Membership” when he created his program.
Membernaire

Jimmy created his approach before membership site plugins, like WishList Member, were as readily available as they are today. His approach was innovative because he used an auto-responder sequence to deliver his content.

You bought his fixed-term program, added your name to the list, and then received the training via email.

Two aspects of Jimmy’s approach are particularly worth noting for membership site owners:

1. Fixed-Length Membership
2. No Mid-Course Restarts

Continue reading to find out about these techniques.

Overcoming The Retention Problem

Retention is the biggest problem of an ongoing subscription site.

Experts will tell you to expect a three to four-month “lifespan” of a subscriber. After that, they will most likely cancel.



Jimmy’s “Fixed-Term” approach solved the problem of retention brilliantly. You pay once, get the course, and that’s it. No recurring monthly payments forever into the future, which means that the subscriber feels assured that his/her risk is minimal.

Most people avoid commitment whenever possible so Jimmy’s approach gave the commitment a specific end-point.

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No Restarts

Jimmy also used a limitation of auto-responder sequences to his advantage.

You can’t start someone in the middle of an email sequence – if you have a 20-email sequence, there’s no way to start a subscriber on email number nine. The system just doesn’t work that way.

Jimmy took this limitation, and turned it into an advantage – “No Restarts.”

If a subscriber cancelled his/her fixed-term membership and then wanted to come back later, s/he would have to start over from the beginning.

You can use this approach to both motivate your subscribers to continue with your program, and to discourage them from cancelling.

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Take-Aways

We can take these ideas and apply them to our own membership sites.


A membership site with a “Fixed Term” on it can improve sales while reassuring the buyer that s/he is not stuck in a long-term money commitment with no easy way to cancel.

A fixed-term program has the “cancellation” built in to it. As the site owner, you can decide whether your subscribers receive ongoing access to your content after the end of the term.

No restarts. If you decide to offer a payment plan for your fixed term membership, and your member cancels before payments are complete, then that member will have to “start over” and pay you from the beginning when s/he wants to come back into the program. This is a powerful deterrent to those who may cancel.

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Years ago, we didn’t have membership site plugins, and Jimmy was trying to make a simple solution with the tools he had at hand.

You gotta love how creative and innovative he was!

How can you apply this method to your own membership site?