15 Hidden MemberPress Plugin Features That Will Make Your Life Easier

In this blog series, I’m showing you the potential of this WordPress Plugin.

I have been using the MemberPress plugin for a while and it’s been pivotal for building my clients membership sites and allowing them to have a recurring income and a place where they can host their group program’s content.

The first struggle clients have when building their group programs is designing their program content in a way that it is not overwhelming to their members. This is crucial if you want to keep your members interested and engaging inside your membership.

The 2nd struggle is their non-tech knowledge. I needed to find a plugin that is going to make their lives easier and ultimately built their site for them because let’s face it, you rather be coaching or consulting your clients than messing with technical web design code!

Why do I use a WordPress plugin instead of using a 3rd party plugin like Kajabi?

• Firstly, there is the cost. Why paying monthly for a 3rd party platform when you can OWN yours once it’s build and tested. There is definitely an initial high cost when you ask someone to build your membership site but this will soon be recovered once you start your marketing activities and drive people to your programs and courses. The investment pays itself!
• Control and Flexibility. When you have your own platform it’s like having your own brick and mortar business. It’s your home and therefore you will be in total control and set your own rules.
• The customisation can be slightly hard if you don’t have any knowledge on how to do it. However many web developers can help you with this functionality and design and structure your membership site the way you want it and envisioned.
• When you create your program content structure it can sometimes be difficult to figure out what is the best way to design it and build the flow for your members so that they don’t feel lost.
• The MemberPress plugin comes with an add-on integration that enables you to build a community of Ambassadors for your services through an Affiliate Program.

Let me show you 5 features inside the MemberPress Plugin. You know the ones that you don’t see working until you use it!

1 – A price tag that does not break the bank

• • You have 3 payment options which can be found here.
  • Each option has different features, we use the Pro developer option in all our client’s membership site builds and the cost is included in the package provided.
  • In the Pro choice, you also get access to an Affiliate Plugin which will allow you to create your own Ambassador Program. More information about this plugin on this other article How to Build a Tribe of Ambassadors for your Business.
  • So, if you are thinking about building and launching your own member’s area for your audience this plugin could be a good solution for your business.

NOTE: This prices might be slightly different at the time of reading this post.

2. Membership Levels that can be customised to your audience’s want/need

• • Membership levels are used to set up different pricing options for your clients. Each level of membership offers your clients access to different levels of content—different lessons, resources, workbook downloads, additional one on one coaching, and so on. Each level will have its own content, and the pricing will increase as users go up.
  • You can also use this plugin for recurring monthly subscriptions i.e networking events, masterminds, subscription fitness workouts and so much more. The possibilities are endless.
  • With MemberPress, there’s no limit to the number of membership levels you can make, so you can customize your plans however you wish. If you are an Educator, Coach, Consultant or have a business that goes others on how to master a craft then membership sites are a good solution as they can be built online with a totally secure portal for your audience.
  • You can also drip the content access to your members so that they have time to implement what is required per module given to them. This is particularly effective if you want them to implement and be accountable for their actions.

3. Create Groups that allow upgrade and downgrade options:

• • Groups are a unique feature of MemberPress. Groups allow you to quickly and painlessly set up a nice features comparison page for users to get a quick snapshot of the various Memberships you offer.
  • Setting up a Group in MemberPress also allows your users to upgrade or downgrade their memberships.
  • Groups show up on your site just like a WordPress page would. You should give the Group page a title. The content is optional as the page will display the Membership pricing tables by default.
  • Anything you add as content on the group page will be shown above the Memberships pricing table. Below is a screenshot of what a Group pricing page can look like.
  • Below is an example of the group feature that has been used in a client’s membership site – Karen Baney – The Expert English Teacher Online Tutoring.

4. Rules within MemberPress control all your program/course content:

• • Once you’ve created your membership levels and your groups then the next step is to start building rules around your program content.
  • Here’s a basic breakdown of MemberPress Rules:
    • All Content – This allows you to protect all content. However, it is not as easy as it seems. You should exclude certain MemberPress pages that need to stay public, for the proper functioning of your website. Those include (but not limited to), Login page, Account page, Membership registration pages, and Unauthorized redirect page (if set).
    • You might need to add some other, non-MemberPress related pages to the exclusion list, like “Contact Us”, “About Us” and similar, but that is entirely up to you.
      • All Content Categorized – Same as above, but protects all content based on a category applied.
      • All Content Tagged – Same as above, but protects all content based on a tag applied.
      • A Single Post – This allows you to protect one individual post.
      • Posts Categorized – This allows you to protect any post(s) which has been assigned a certain category. Using categories in WordPress is a great way to keep your membership content organized.
      • Posts Tagged – This allows you to protect any post(s) which has been tagged with a specific tag. This is similar to the Categories rule but gives you a bit more control over how you want to organize your membership content.
      • All Posts – This allows you to protect all posts on your site at one time. Be sure to use this option with caution as it can conflict with other rules you may have set already such as “A Single Post”, “Posts Categorized”, or “Posts Tagged”.
      • A Single Page – This allows you to protect one individual page.
      • Child Pages of – This allows you to protect all children from the selected page. A child page in WordPress is any page in which you set a “Parent” value when creating/editing the page.
      • All Pages – This allows you to protect all pages at once. Be sure to use this option with caution as it can conflict with other rules you may have set already such as “Child Pages of” and “A Single Page”.
      By default, WordPress doesn’t allow you to add tags or categories to a page. However, you can install and activate Add Category to Pages plugin, which will allow you to do so and in return, you’ll get two additional rules – Pages Categorized and Pages Tagged, that will act exactly the same as the abovementioned Post rules.
      • Partial – Select this option if you only plan to use this rule to hide partial content with the use of a Shortcode or PHP Snippet (See here)
      • Custom URI – Allows you to protect files and pages by what’s in the URL. Read this page for more information on protecting files.
      • Custom Post Type – Any custom post types that you have created will appear in the drop-down menu when selecting rule type. You will have the option to protect any of the custom post types based on all custom post types or one individual custom post for the one you have selected.

      Account page advice: We recommend to exclude the Account page from any rule because it is by default, inaccessible to non-logged in visitors of your website. If you protect that page additionally, once a members’ subscription expires, they would not be able to access the Account page in order to update their credit card details, for instance. That will create more work for you and will not contribute to data protection in any way.
      

      Drips and Expiration’s – For a more detailed explanation of how these settings work, please see this page. You can set a time for the Rule to drip (become available) or expire (become unavailable) based on any “X” amount of days, weeks, months, or years after a trigger has been made. The triggers you can select are when the member registers (meaning on your site), after a fixed day in the future, or after they purchase any or a specific membership on your site (all created memberships will appear as options). So let’s say you have 12 protected posts, and you want the member to have access to only one post per month after they signup. Well enabling drips and expiration’s will allow you to do this easily, and much more.

5. Coupons are a great idea if you have a special promotion such as an early bird offer of your program. I explain in more detail in the video below.

IT’S A WRAP

I hope you’ve enjoyed knowing about these 5 hidden features of MemberPress, but there is more! More I say!

Next blog post I’m going to talk about membership reminders you can send to your users, all about reports that you can get inside the dashboard, payment gateways, what emails your users receive included within MemberPress system and finally the various email marketing integrations you have at your disposal with this plugin. You can read more in Part 2 of these series HERE.

Do you have any questions? Please let me know in the comments.