How to start your own industry sector membership portal or hub

Benefits of building your own sector specific hub

If you're looking into how to your own industry/sector specific membership portal and information hub, then you probably already have a fair idea of the benefits.

In our experience the primary reasons our clients seek to do something like this is to monetise what they already know or are doing anyway. With an additional benefit of getting their brand out there. There may be a particular service product or service you offer that your competitors do not, and the portal becomes a launch pad for getting your own brand or offering somehow into your competitors offering (either white label or direct to the client). All dependant on the relationship and how the industry generally operates - we know often this turns out to be impossible due to how companies often compete with one another.

What you could offer and build in your portal

How to launch an industry email newsletter

Let's start with the basic one that is applicable in almost every use case: an email newsletter. Begin by signing up for an email newsletter service like Mailchimp. It is a email newsletter service with many templates to choose from. Import your existing list (if you have one). Then begin to send out industry related news or regulatory changes as a key part of your offering.

Build your own membership portal or hub

The home-base, as you would, for your membership. The central hub for your resources, latest news and other offerings. This is something we can help you with if you need one (we recommend a portal or some other central location for everything, including membership management).

Industry & regulatory/policy news

The content of your portal and newsletter should contain the latest important headlines relating to the sector. Including regulatory changes, big shifts on operations and so forth.

Create your own news and content

In addition to simply regurgtating news from other sources (sorry for that mental image) you can create your own unique content. This can include:

Run surveys or polls

If there is information that all members, even competing members, would benefit from. You can use a service sich as SurveyMonkey to run your own in-house survey. Asking details you know members will not mind sharing with other members, and more importantly, know about other members. Keep the questions/topics sensible and sensitive. You want people to participate and get value out of the results. They will not want to share trade secrets.

Sector related FAQs or informational videos

Focus on "ever-green" content which may be of use to both new and long-standing members. Can you tell them about how the seasons of the year effect business? Are there questions commonly asked around recruiting or holding meetings that you can share? Separate to your news offering (which is time sensitive) create an offering of ever-green content which creates value on top of your news offering.

Add a unique feature to your portal

If you can come up with a "killer app", that one or two unique features not offered anywhere else. You have your hook or unique selling proposition that is going to sell your membership. We suggest you give us a call, even if you do not know because this is our wheel-house.

In the past we have built quite a few of these. Check out our portfolio to see them.

What can we do for you? That is really up to you (and your target market). It is what will elevate your offering beyond the basics.

Offer consulting or coaching

You can offer personalised service in the way of one-on-one consulting or coaching, or evaluations, appraisals.

How to monetise your industry sector membership portal

Charge a subscription

It is up to you what you offer (if anything) for free, and what you decide to charge for. We recommend having a basic level subscription to your offering which is affordable to everyone in your niche.

Create additional tiers for your membership portal

Beyond your basic level subscription, offer additional tiers for additional services or features. This could be for access to a specific software tool you have had to invest in, or for one-on-one consulting that you can offer.

Advertising within your system

There will be other business who wish to sell to your members. Take advantage of this by offering them the opportunity to advertise to your members in ways your members will find tasteful. Offer potential advertisers banners within your information portal or your email newsletter. Alternatively you could allow them to write a featured article where they write about their product or service.

How to get started

Give us a call. We have a fair bit of experience making customer and trade portals. We can build your portal, manage your membership and subscription and build a public facing website. You can start now with services like Mailchimp. Hope to hear from you soon.