There’s a party going on right here.
A celebration to last throughout the years.
So bring your good ideas and your laptop too.
We’ve got major Celebration vibes going on over here at MemberPress – and for good reason! We’re celebrating 10 YEARS as the World’s Best Membership and Monetization WordPress Plugin!
It’s amazing to think how much has changed over the years when it comes to running an online business. But one thing’s for sure, MemberPress has dominated this past decade to help thousands of entrepreneurs turn dreams into reality.
In today’s post, I want to reflect back on some of my favorite MemberPress moments that have led up to this 10-year milestone. But before this party gets too out of control, I want to talk about the VIPs on our invite list: our customers!
Who Are We Really Celebrating? Our Users!
MemberPress is an amazing tool with an even more amazing team behind it. But we wouldn’t have gotten this far without our most amazingest customers. They’re the theme behind this $1 billion bash anyhow!
MemberPress Creators collectively reached the $1 billion benchmark in 2021, and continue to kill it in recurring revenue earnings.
How? By monetizing their passion with paywalled content!
In other words, people just like you are making money by sharing the things they love to do with their paying online audience – whether it’s teaching yoga, sharing recipes, or even live-streaming donkeys in their own backyard.
Check out more mind-blowing ways MemberPress users are making a living with membership and online courses businesses:
We even found the biggest billboard in Times Square to help get the word out on how easy it is to make money with MemberPress. And of course, we’d never miss an opportunity to brag on our customer’s $1 billion achievement!
Obviously, we have a pretty good thing going on with our MemberPress users. We provide them with the tools they need to power their business. In return, they provide us with some of our own bragging rights.
And the Award Goes to… MemberPress!
Last year alone, MemberPress brought home some top-shelf awards – all of which came from customer reviews, votes, and nominations.
Here’s some that are displayed front and center on our digital mantle:
WP Awards Gold Winner
The WP Awards is chock full of stiff competition. The who’s who of the WordPress world is on full display. This year, things were especially intense with so many big names battling it out for that #1 spot.
So you can imagine how thrilled we are to have brought home GOLD in the Membership and Courses category.
G2 Award Badges, and Badges, and More Badges
Then over on G2, the largest and most trusted software rating site in the world, we collected a whole coat’s worth of badges!
In all four quarters, we snagged recognitions ranging from BEST:
- Usability
- Estimated Return on Investment (ROI)
- Relationship
- Results
We have a few really shiny ones mixed in there too, including Fastest Implementation, High Performer, and Most Likely to Recommend.
That’s enough glory talk for now – before I start blushing. Let’s get into the traits and trademarks that make MemberPress the award-winning product that it is.
Poppin’ Party Features + Product Upgrades
Our core mission has been the same since our start in 2013: to ensure that MemberPress users reach their goals and achieve ultimate success with their businesses.
To make that happen, we are constantly listening to what our customers need in order to thrive in the continuously changing world of online business.
Based on their feedback and our own market research, we’ve released a ton of in-demand features.
Here’s a few fan favorites:
ReadyLaunch™
Creating a website is super easy with WordPress. But one of the biggest hurdles we kept seeing was the large amount of time it took for creators to actually hit that Publish button.
The holdup behind all that wasted time? Page building.
We couldn’t stand the thought of all that lost revenue in the days, weeks, even months of tinkering with different themes and templates.
So we created ReadyLaunch™, our very own automatic page maker that gets your MemberPress site set up and ready to sell in 60 seconds, or less!
The second you install MemberPress, your pages are:
- Pre-styled
- Brandable
- Mobile-responsive
- Optimized to sell
ReadyLaunch™ is a huge game changer. You don’t need to sink a bunch of time and money into a page builder to make your first sale. You just focus on your content, and let ReadyLaunch™ do the rest!
MemberPress Courses
Online learning has been around for ages, only to explode at the start of a worldwide pandemic. People were stuck at home and bored out of their minds.
The only thing that wasn’t closed for business was the internet.
Consumers were desperate for “community involvement” and “something to do”. As a result, membership site owners saw a huge uptick in new members.
At the time, MemberPress had a solid reputation for building online communities. But we wanted our users to take full advantage of the switch to ecommerce entertainment and add another revenue stream to their business.
If you remember right, all of this was happening early into 2020. That same year, we released MemberPress Courses.
MemberPress users could finally create, paywall, and sell online courses without additional plugins or software. Built right into the MemberPress platform, Courses became the easiest drag-and-drop online course builder tool for WordPress.
And we didn’t stop there. Over the years, we added new features to rival major LMS platforms – without taking a hefty chunk of your profits like they do.
We also want our MemberPress Course Creators to stand out. These features help make it happen:
Speedy Course Customization
Pages in MemberPress Courses are built specifically for online learning. Its simple and distraction-free interface lets students focus solely on your content.
This learning-first experience is achieved with ReadyLaunch™ styling. Course pages are designed right out of the box, and they’re a cinch to customize.
Just select a logo and brand color, and you’ll have a simple and sleek course that matches your brand. You can even use the WordPress Customizer to style course pages with a side-by-side view, so you can get it just right.
Quizzes
One of our biggest additions to MemberPress Courses is our quiz feature. It’s stocked with 5 different question types so you can add fun twists to your learning material.
Quizzes not only make courses more interactive, but also help students retain material in the long run. Who knew all those tests in school actually worked?
With instant and customizable feedback, the quiz feature is a great way for students to see what’s sticking, and what they need to brush up on.
As the gradebook keeper of your courses, you can monitor students’ scores to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses, then make adjustments to your course content accordingly.
This ensures that you’re delivering an effective and comprehensive learning experience.
Course Content Dripping
A successful course is one that provides thorough information for students. That being the case, chances are, your course has a lot of topics to cover.
Dripping course content can make sure you’re not overwhelming your students by “assigning” it all at once.
With our powerful drip feed feature, you can choose exactly what courses, lessons, and quizzes to release, and when. This gives a real classroom-like feel to your course and keeps your students showing up for class.
Certificates
MemberPress Course Certificates allow course creators to reward dedicated students for all the hard work they put in to complete a course.
Creating a certificate is super easy too. All you have to do is:
- Choose what courses get a certificate
- Select a pre-made design
- Add a signature and an optional seal of approval
Then, students can download a customized PDF certificate or use a shareable link to flex on their portfolio or LinkedIn. This not only shows off their accomplishments, but it’s also a great reflection of your course.
Plus, with our latest certificates update, you now have the option to add start dates and expiry dates to your certificates.
This not only gives you the opportunity of repeat business, but it also reaffirms your brand’s commitment to quality and current best practices.
Read more about the amazing ROI potential of offering certificates here.
MemberPress Downloads
Much like the increase in online course enrollment, virtual product sales are also shooting through the ecommerce roof. We wanted to give our customers a competitive edge in this digital marketplace.
So then came our MemberPress Downloads Add-On release. MemberPress Downloads makes it super easy to sell digital products on WordPress, such as:
- eBooks
- Templates
- PDFs
- Guides
- Videos
- Software
- Audio Files
- Literally anything digital!
All you need to do is upload your digital file, and MemberPress Downloads will automatically create an individual URL for each upload. That way you can track the number of times members click to download.
You can also limit the number of file downloads per membership and drip them out over time, all while keeping things safe and protected with MemberPress Rules.
MemberPress PDF Invoice
The release of our PDF Invoice Add-on filled another much-needed gap to help MemberPress users dot their i’s and cross their t’s in the ways of doing business.
Now, you can create invoices for every transaction on your site. This is an easy and convenient way for online business owners to stay compliant with laws in their region.
Providing a downloadable receipt is also a nice touch of customer service for your avid-record-keeping customers.
You can enable an invoice on your checkout page, or customers can access and download their PDF receipt at any time right from their account page.
Redefining the Membership Business
In our early years, many were still unfamiliar with the “membership” term – let alone the endless opportunities in pursuing this business model.
But in our attempt to break down what a membership website is, we also kinda blew up the possibilities of what a membership site can be too. Let’s call it a happy accident…
We discovered so many ways to partner up with powerful tools to help WordPress users take their membership businesses to new heights.
Build Better Online Communities
One of the most rewarding parts of running a membership business is the chance to build a loyal, niche community.
You get to be the mayor of like-minded people who share the same interests and provide them with a way to interact with each other.
We’ve been steadily adding to our list of community features, so you can keep your members connected in popular online chat spaces like:
- Discord servers
- Facebook Groups
- Slack channels
Want to keep things closer to home? That’s easy to do too! You can keep all the action and communication on your site in WordPress community forums, built with our favorite integrations with bbPress and BuddyBoss.
Make a Pretty Penny Podcasting
Over the past 10 years, podcasts have exploded in popularity, opening up loads of opportunities for podcasters to utilize the membership model.
MemberPress podcasters can launch, host, and release podcasts right on WordPress – without giving up ownership like you would with a big host.
With integrations like Castos, Crowdcast, Supercast, and Blubrry PowerPress, you can completely transform the listening experience by creating an exclusive community where you can sell members-only episodes, bonus content, brand merch, and access to VIP community platforms.
Add Another Income Stream with Affiliate Marketing
Okay, I have to shamelessly sneak our own product into this section – but for good reason!
We released Easy Affiliate in 2021, and it’s been a huge revenue-booster for a lot of MemberPress businesses. Most have reported an additional 30% increase in income revenue!
Easy Affiliate is the ultimate “create your own affiliate program” plugin that seamlessly integrates with any WordPress site.
Because Easy Affiliate was designed by the brilliant minds here at MemberPress, we also threw in a Setup Wizard that will build an affiliate program out for you in just a few minutes.
There are endless advantages to creating an affiliate program for your MemberPress site. In addition to that 30% increase in revenue, you can also add these benefits to the list:
- Low-Risk
- Minimal Start-Up Costs
- High Return On Investment (ROI)
- Boosts Brand Awareness
- Expands Audience Reach
Best of all, Easy Affiliate has an even longer list of automation features – so your program will basically run itself! You oversee affiliate applications to determine who you want on your team, as well as set your commission rates for how much you want to pay an affiliate per sale.
Then all you have to do is sit back and watch all the new sales come in! It’s by far the most effective and affordable promotional tool for small businesses.
Party with the Big Leagues
As a leader among small business tools, we’ve also paved a path into the corporate world. This way we can serve businesses of all sizes: from the solopreneur crushing it from the couch to the CEOs who also want in on the subscription success.
MemberPress Corporate Accounts
This is another add-on we’re exceptionally proud of. Our community has been wanting this feature for a long time, and we’re glad to offer it as a way to grow their membership bases – and revenue.
With the MemberPress Corporate Accounts Add-On, you can sell memberships to a business, organization, group, or family that wants to have multiple accounts under one.
For example, a small business can buy a corporate membership for a premium price, then create sub-accounts to give to employees. This model is great for training material, courses, etc.
You can also set the number of sub-accounts that are allowed per subscription. That way, you’re able to charge based on how many users an account has.
MemberMouse Joins the MemberPress Fam
Last but not least, I want to do a quick recap on the exciting announcement I made just last week when MemberMouse officially joined the Caseproof family of products!
Did you miss that one? Read all about the acquisition here >>
MemberMouse is a membership plugin just like MemberPress, but serves a very different and distinct market. This partnership is a great opportunity to foster and grow our place in the WordPress community with their enterprise-grade plugin.
We look forward to helping MemberMouse’s stellar team expand the product to its full potential.
Let’s Wrap Things Up – With Cake!
Phew! We’ve been busy, haven’t we?
The best part? This party’s just getting started! More features, integrations, and content are on the way – all to help our MemberPress creators run successful businesses and achieve more online sales.
We want our customers to be on the cutting edge of selling memberships and online courses on WordPress. By continuing down this path, we hope to propel them to that $2 billion dollar benchmark in no time!
Cheers to 10 years,
Blair
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