ClickFunnels membership sites: your questions answered!
Building a recurring revenue stream with a membership site can be a critical piece of your online business.
It doesn’t matter what kind of membership you want to build – ClickFunnels has some fantastic features that make building a membership site fast and easy.
But is ClickFunnels good for creating membership sites?
Sometimes people are critical of the ClickFunnels platform when it comes to building out a membership site and I don’t think that criticism is fair.
Is ClickFunnels perfect for every membership site?
Of course not.
No more than one shoe style is a good fit for every person’s personal tastes.
But it’s not for every kind of membership site, so how do you know whether or not you should use ClickFunnels?
I think you’d be surprised both at how robust the features available to you for building a membership site with ClickFunnels can be and how easy it is to do it, and that’s what I’m covering in this post.
ClickFunnels membership sites: Is ClickFunnels good for creating membership sites?
Creating a membership site is no small thing to do.
It’s vital that you find the right tool for the job.
And the way that you find the right tool for the job is by first figuring out what features you need for your membership site.
Because before you need to figure out what tool you need, you need to figure this part out.
So let’s start by saying this:
ClickFunnels is a fantastic platform to use for simple and fast membership sites.
If your needs are complex then there are other platforms that will probably serve your needs better.
But the important thing to remember is this:
Complexity is the enemy of success.
By that I mean that the more complex things are the harder they are to finish and if you’re wanting to get online with your idea fast then ClickFunnels is the perfect solution.
One of the things I tell my design & development clients all the time is “let necessity drive the need for complex functionality”.
That means that there’s no need to get involved with a platform that may have every bell and whistle you can think of – even when the price is comparable.
In the development world we refer to tools like that as those that are full of “feature bloat” and suffer way too much from feature and scope creep.
Start simple and as your membership site grows you’ll see how well ClickFunnels matches – or does not match – the needs you have for your site.
If it outgrows the features and functionality that are offered via a ClickFunnels membership site, then there are a lot of great platforms available to switch to.
But if you’re like most people the needs really aren’t that complicated and you’ll just might be surprised at how robust the features and functionality are available to you in a ClickFunnels membership site.
By the way – keep in mind that the development team at ClickFunnels is always working on making improvements on their platform, so when you’re getting started the features you need to get started are already there and as you grow the platform grows, so by the time your membership site has grown and you need more complex functionality, those features could be being integrated during that time.
What are the ClickFunnels membership site features?
ClickFunnels is primarily known for its amazing online sales funnel features and one of the most important parts of online sales funnels is delivering the resources to your new customers who bought your products through your funnel.
Create multiple levels of access for your ClickFunnels membership site
One of the best features is the ability to create multiple levels of access inside your ClickFunnels membership site.
Instead of creating multiple different membership sites to manage different levels of members, you can create one ClickFunnels membership site and set it up so that all the membership levels can be managed within one membership site.
You have the ability to sell upgrades and multiple levels of access at different price points depending on what product your customer purchases.
Communicate and market to your members with the integrated email autoresponder for your ClickFunnels membership site
As an all-in-one platform, ClickFunnels provides you the ability to communicate with your members right within the ClickFunnels application.
You can set it up so that your membership site automatically sends a welcome sequence to your new members, send marketing sequences (called “follow up funnels” in the funnel hacker world), or even send one-off broadcast messages.
And just like any other email service provider, you will also see all the relevant statistics regarding your campaigns so you can learn about what works, and what doesn’t work and improve your overall marketing efforts.
ClickFunnels membership site payment gateways
There are a variety of Payment gateways available to you in your ClickFunnels account so you’ll be able to collect the subscription payments from your subscribers easily.
You can use Stripe, Paypal, Recurly, Easy Pay Direct and BlueSnap to handle your membership subscription payments.
Easily manage affiliates to promote your ClickFunnels membership site
Marketing and promotion should be part of your plan for your ClickFunnels membership site, so it should go without saying that you’ll want to recruit affiliates to promote it.
A lot of times, this can be a muddy process.
But not with ClickFunnels.
It’s all integrated into one platform so you can recruit, manage and pay your affiliates right within ClickFunnels itself.
Create a full marketing funnel for your ClickFunnels membership site
ClickFunnels is the complete solution for your membership site needs because, not only do you have all those features I’ve already mentioned (and more), but you can build an entire digital marketing funnel on top of your membership site using ClickFunnels.
You don’t need a separate website to build your marketing funnel – everything you need is right there within the ClickFunnels application.
All of the options that you could possibly need to build out an amazing sales funnel are right at your fingertips within ClickFunnels.
Is it worth it to create your membership site with ClickFunnels?
So should you spend your time, money, and effort on ClickFunnels to build out your membership site? Is it worth doing all that?
Absolutely it is.
The best thing about ClickFunnels is that it’s not just a tool that you can use to build a membership site, but it will handle every single part of the membership process from sales, to member management for you within the one platform.
You can use it to create your front-facing public membership sales funnel pages and make them look awesome, and you can use it to manage every single aspect of what you need to do to manage everything from being able to host your course, to being able to allow different levels of access to materials at different price-points, to managing your membership site’s email sequences and more.
Sometimes people get down on ClickFunnels as a platform because it’s simple.
I see it completely differently.
Simple is good.
Simple is fast.
When things are simple that means that things are a lot easier and faster to get done.
And you don’t need a computer science or IT degree to use it.
You see, more elaborate functionality bring greater complexity to the issue.
So are there alternatives if you outgrow ClickFunnels?
Of course there are.
Teachable, Circle, Thinkific, Mighty Networks and Kajabi among many others give you the ability to create amazing membership sites.
But here’s the question you need to ask:
Do you really need all that functionality?
I mean, are you really going to use it all right now to start your membership site?
In most instances the answer to that question is no.
And if the membership functionality in ClickFunnels is good enough for Russell Brunson and his membership sites, along with thousands of others, why overcomplicate things?
I think that’s a huge mistake.
I’ve been there myself.
I’ve been in situations where I was so sold on a particular platform, but it was super complicated and in the end I never used it because I couldn’t get off the ground with it.
ClickFunnels will help you build your membership site and give you all the functionality that you need to get started, and nothing you don’t.
That’s the most important factor to consider when asking yourself whether or not ClickFunnels is worth it when it comes to building your membership site.
Can you host your course on ClickFunnels?
I’m a member of dozens and dozens of membership sites that are built on ClickFunnels.
Seriously – I couldn’t count them all if I had to.
And these are all kinds of different courses too.
I’m a member of membership sites with course material that are free and some that are premium sites.
I’ve even created several courses of my own that are built using ClickFunnels and utilize ClickFunnels’ membership site features to do it.
One of the best parts of using ClickFunnels for your membership site is that you can create varying degrees or levels of access using ClickFunnels.
You can create a basic level access at one price, a mid-level access at another price, and a premium level at still yet another price and host all that course material in one place using ClickFunnels.
Can I connect my community to a ClickFunnels membership site?
Let me answer this one for you by telling you a story.
One of the first membership sites I ever joined was built on the predecessor to Mighty Networks.
It was a premium community and from day 1 it was built out with all the content and course material in one place and that was all built with that platform.
So as their community grew people got really used to using it and it was great.
It quickly became part of my daily routine to check in on that site and see what was going on.
But a couple years later the community outgrew that platform and there were too many problems with it so they had to make a change.
So what they did – which I thought was an absolutely brilliant move – was they moved it to a private invite-only Facebook group.
And it was awesome.
The biggest benefit, at least in my opinion, was that the community merged into a place where their dream customers, clients and active members were already spending at least part of their day.
It was a win-win situation without a doubt and that community absolutely thrived!
But a couple years back, they decided that they wanted to return to the newer version of Mighty Networks and so they ended up shutting down the Facebook group.
That was a huge mistake.
When they went back to the Mighty Networks platform activity and engagement plummeted.
It was yet another entirely new interface that people had to learn and figure out, and for many, they simply stopped participating.
I don’t know the numbers of what happened behind the scenes but it was obvious that people were cancelling and no longer participating.
How do I know that?
Because that’s what I did.
They stopped trying to connect with me where I was already spending time every day and tried to take me somewhere else.
It wasn’t a huge distance that I myself or anyone else had to travel, but was somewhere we all had to go that was outside of our normal world.
So why did I tell you all that?
It’s because of this:
The community feature that you need is already there for you to use and it’s a private Facebook group.
You don’t need a member forum, Facebook will do that for you.
And not only that, but Facebook has gone to great lengths to promote their groups feature for a while now.
They even had a commercial about groups during the 2020 Super Bowl.
So the features are there and they’re rich.
No need to reinvent the wheel when there’s a solution out there like Facebook Groups.
But what about capturing member info and being able to control something on a web property that you don’t own?
The solution is actually quite simple:
You capture their email and contact information when they sign up for your group and you always have them on your list.
As long as you control your list you control your audience.
So if Mark Zuckerberg gets a wild hair and decides that he doesn’t like how you’re using his platform you always have a means of communication through your list so you’re never in danger of losing your audience.
So what most ClickFunnels users do is create a simple link in their ClickFunnels membership site that points users to the private Facebook group.
That’s it.
It’s that simple.
Should I use ClickFunnels to create a membership site?
So by now you should have a pretty good idea as to whether or not you should use ClickFunnels to create your membership site.
If you have complex needs for a complex course with expansive feature needs and a very fine-grained learning management system, then ClickFunnels probably isn’t the platform for you.
But if your membership site idea is pretty basic – and all membership sites start out that way – then you need to give it a shot.
Going from concept to completion is such a huge factor in the success of an online business project and ClickFunnels will get your membership site done faster.
ClickFunnels membership examples
So by now you’re at least intrigued enough about ClickFunnels for your membership site that you’d at least like to see a couple examples.
It’s understandable – it’s exactly what I’d be wanting to know too!
So here are just a couple of the membership sites that I’m a member of or have built myself.
One Funnel Away Challenge
This is the membership site for the One Funnel Away Challenge that I’m such a huge fan of.
I’ve bought several upgrades to the original course over time and you can see those in the member dashboard.
Funnel Builder Secrets
This is one of the early products that I bought from Russell and the ClickFunnels team. There is a TON of deep content here and levels of access (a lot of which I don’t have access to in the version I have!)
Free WordPress Course
This is one of my very simple membership sites for a free course I created that teaches you how to build your own self-hosted WordPress site from scratch with multiple levels of access.
Designer for a Day
This was one of the very first funnel hacks I ever did and I’m so glad I did because everything here is absolutely amazing from content to design.
Next Steps
Here’s the deal:
There is nothing to risk by starting the free 14 day trial to see whether or not ClickFunnels can be a good solution for your membership site needs.
You get full access to everything you could possibly need when you sign up for the trial – it’s unrestricted.
So I suggest you check it out and give a test run.
See if you like the way it works and how it can handle your membership site’s needs.
All you need to do to start your own ClickFunnels membership is to follow this link. In my opinion as one who’s built several membership sites and funnels using ClickFunnels as well as being a member of several more, there simply isn’t a better platform out there for your basic membership site needs.
If you need help implementing what you’ve learned here, let me know.
If you want to learn more about digital marketing and this whole online business thing I want you to come join me in my own free private Facebook group, Digital Marketing Mastery. This is a new, small group of other business owners and entrepreneurs of all kinds, who are working hard to build their businesses online.
Join me in Digital Marketing Mastery here.
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