There are many scripts available, many pieces of software that provide simple product download management. Somebody pays a one-time fee and they are sent to a special download page where they can get their ebook, report, or video for the next 24 hours. So, if a software like that adequately manages your download links, why would you use anything else? What is the big idea about having it on a membership site? I’m going to explain that to you today.
My big reasons for that is the lost password functionality, the ability to have membership levels, and the ability to cut off access, and the best part is that many membership software already allows you to expire your download links. So, the big advantage for me is that I don’t have to give people their lost download URLs, I don’t even have to reactivate old expired download links. They could simply click on the lost password button, and even if they don’t know their username, they can fill out the email address they used to pay and WordPress will not just create a new password for them, it will email that password to the email address they used to purchase. And even when they log back in, there is the ability to change their own information. They can change their contact email, their name, their URL – any of that stuff is all managed without you having to do anything. It’s all managed in WordPress. So, that is the number one reason for me why I prefer membership sites over download areas because they can recover a lost password.
Next is the ability to have different membership levels. So, imagine you had five different one-time products, somebody could buy five different things from you. You could put each of those things on your membership site as a different page of your blog. Then set those pages onto different levels. And then set up your payment buttons so that if they bought your first product, that would get them onto one particular membership level and give them access to that product. Now, if you wanted to go and add bonuses later on, just add those bonuses onto that same membership level. So, when somebody buys the one product, they get the product plus the bonuses.
The cool thing about different membership levels is that much of the popular membership software, such as Wishlist member, allows you to set an expiration date on your membership level. So, if you are paranoid, if you want the same functionality as many download managers and cut off access to a download after two days or seven days, you can set that level to expire after several days, if someone purchase this, they get access, they can download, but after sever days, their access is expired and they are now canceled from that level, and they have to contact you to get access again. So, if you want to duplicate the same exact functionality as a download solution, you can do that in a membership site.
And finally, if you decide to refund somebody or if they ask you for a refund or for any reason, if you want to add them to a specific level as a bonus, you can make one click in Wishlist and it adds into that level. If you want to remove or cancel somebody from a level, you can do that in a few clicks as well; whereas with many download scripts, it’s a long and tedious process. With a membership site, it’s just a few clicks.
So, that’s why I prefer a membership site over a download area for the lost password functionality, the ability to have different membership levels and expire any of those levels you want after as many days as you want and add or remove access to different levels and different products for a particular user anytime you want.
Stop using download manager scripts or avoid those download manager scripts if you haven’t already. And instead, get this membership plugin available right now.