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There are several ways to get members to join your membership website and start paying you. You might recall that this is how you plan to make your money? One way that you can get members to your site is to offer some sort of a free trial membership. Free trial memberships are one way that you can advertise how great your site is. In fact, you are telling people that you are so sure they will love it and sign up, that you will offer them the free trial.

The best way to set up a free trial membership for your membership website is to have potential members register in full first. This way, you have all of the contact information that you need for your database, and for any follow-up that you might need to do, and they are all set up to transfer into a real, full-fledged, card-carrying, paying member after the trial membership expires.

You can choose the length of time that the free trial membership should last. Often, owners of membership software websites will decide that a 30-day or 60-day free trial membership is best. This offers potential members to sample the software you offer, poke around your site and learn about your different membership levels, obtain any technical support or business support that you offer through your FAQ and contact pages, and explore and participate in your discussion forums. If your membership site is worth its weight, these potential members will be hooked and stay long after the free trial membership expires.

Once the free trial membership expires, you will already have the payment information that you need to charge your subscription fees to these new members. Make sure that you have a mechanism in place for them to cancel without penalty if they choose to pull out before the trial membership ends (but why in the world would they want to??). However, you will probably find that many will stay on knowing your full benefits, and they won’t have to worry about any re-registering or any lapse in their services.

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1. Multiple Membership Levels - Adding to What You Offer