This article was originally published on Restrict Content Pro. 

One of the most critical aspects of running a membership website is how you price your memberships. And among many membership sites, the tiered membership model is by far the most popular choice. 

Offering tiered memberships allows you to set different levels of access to your members. Usually, there are around three tiers: good, better, and best. As tiers change, so do offerings and pricing. Tiered memberships allow your members to have flexibility while you gain more growth opportunities. 

If you plan on operating a successful membership site of any kind, there are more compelling reasons why tiered memberships could be your best option. Let’s take a look. 

1. Grow with loyal members 

Your most loyal members are the exact people who would most benefit from a tiered membership model. In fact, because they’re so active and always looking for new content from you, these people would jump at the chance to have increased access to exclusive, premium content.

And that not only benefits them, but it benefits you.

By implementing a tiered membership model, it’s possible to increase your revenue by offering loyal members a higher-priced, more exclusive experience on your membership site. Those members will happily upgrade their membership. By offering tiers, you give loyal members what they want while generating more revenue for yourself. 

2. Offer members unique experiences

Not only do membership tiers allow for varying use cases and commitment levels, but they also give people different ways to experience your content. 

Let’s look at an example of how this works.

Say that you live in a world where you run a photography course membership website. There’s a good chance that a percentage of your members are paid professionals or people who hope to become professionals. But you’ll also have paid members who have no desire to make a living with photography. They simply enjoy hobby photography and want to become better at it.

Perhaps your professional members are looking for premium content that will help them further develop advanced photography skills and business strategies. But your hobbyist members are there to learn beginner strategies that will help them achieve personal goals.

By creating tiered memberships, you can create different plans of action for each unique member’s needs. Every level of your tiered membership model will offer different levels of content access or completely different content.

For people who are serious about progressing through your content, a top-tier membership is more than just a small bonus. In reality, it can give them direct access to valuable material for an entirely new experience.

3. Take advantage of the anchor offer

When it comes to membership sites, an anchor offer helps trigger a positive psychological response and drive consumer action. But how does an anchor offer work?

An anchor offer usually refers to a higher-priced tier – an exclusive offer that “anchors” your customer’s attention and expectations to a higher price point. Your anchor offer should also offer customers the most value, making it the most attractive and sought-after offer.

The psychology of the anchor offer boosts conversions for lower-priced tiers while encouraging customers to get the most value for their money with the top-tier membership. By offering tiered memberships, you can have your own anchor offer and boost your overall revenue. 

4. Easily upsell and offer extras 

Do you plan on offering one-on-one coaching as part of your membership site? Do you want to produce extra content and downloadable materials that won’t be a part of your basic site membership?

By creating tiered memberships, you build the perfect structure to offer different levels of access to products, services, and content. Rather than making a one-time purchase from your site, members are able to sign up for higher membership levels that give them access to your extras whenever they want to access them.

Offering only a single-tier membership with individual extras and upsells is possible. However, you may not get as many people to consume that content or use a product or service. Plus, with more extras in tiers, you can price them higher and entice more members, making it easy to upsell. 

5. Automatically segment members

If you want to tailor your marketing and communications to specific segments of your audience, tiered memberships are the way to go. Although you certainly are able to segment your member base by filtering user activity and purchase and download history, tiered memberships make segment-specific marketing almost automatic.

Let’s say you want to direct some marketing messages toward your most active and engaged users. With tiered memberships, you could focus these efforts on your professional-level members while offering mid-level members a completely different message. 

If you want your standard or mid-level members to upgrade to the professional level, you could tempt them with special offers, such as a discounted premium membership or immediate access to your newest ebook.

Grow with tiered membership levels

Regardless of what other membership sites do, you are in charge of your own business. And you get to decide what makes the most sense for you and your members. However, a tiered membership model works for many due to its growth opportunities, and it’s one of the best ways to build your membership business. 

If you don’t have a membership site yet, check out MemberDash. It’s a flexible yet powerful membership plugin for WordPress. With MemberDash, you can easily restrict any content and create different subscription types and tiers. Try it out now in the free demo.