Thinkific is an easy-to-use online platform that enables teachers, coaches, and entrepreneurs to launch their successful online courses quickly. This platform includes everything you need to start creating and selling your courses from the ground up. From customizing content, setting prices, collecting payments, tracking engagement data, and more – you can find everything you need within the intuitive dashboard of Thinkific.
Within Thinkific, a membership site is a website where you offer exclusive content and access to members who purchase monthly or yearly subscriptions. It allows you to take advantage of recurring income streams which are key when building any business online.
I have expert knowledge of Thinkific and experience in using it to create membership sites. This article will provide a step-by-step guide for moving your Thinkific course to a membership site. We’ll take you through everything you need to know for moving your existing Thinkific course into a full membership program on your website so you can grow as a creator – and earn extra cash!
Creating a Membership in Thinkific
I have extensive knowledge of Thinkific and use it to create membership sites. In this section, I will provide an overview of setting up a membership plan within Thinkific and the steps you need to take to get started.
Setting up a Membership Plan
1. Choosing a Membership Plan Type
The first step is choosing the membership plan that best fits your needs. Depending on your goals, you can choose from recurring plans (monthly or yearly subscriptions) or one-time purchase plans (pay once for lifetime access). After selecting a plan type, you define your membership levels.
2. Defining Membership Levels
Thinkific allows users to set up multiple membership tiers for each plan type with different associated features and pricing. This feature is great for those who want to offer members different access levels depending on their subscription tier, giving them more value as they upgrade their subscriptions.
3. Setting up Membership Pricing
Once you’ve decided on the type of plan and defined the levels, it’s time to set up your pricing structure by adding prices for each level according to what works best for your business model and goals. You can also configure discounts or special offers displayed automatically when a customer signs up for a particular level or bundle package within your membership program!
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Customizing Membership Settings
1. Customizing Member Sign-up Pages
As an instructor, one of the most important elements of your membership site will be the pages where members sign up and purchase access to your content. Thinkific allows you to customize all aspects of these pages, including adding custom logos, images, background colors, fonts, and more. You can also set up different member payment plans, such as monthly or yearly subscriptions.
2. Setting Up Access Controls
Once you have customized the member sign-up pages, it’s time to configure your access controls in Thinkific. You can specify which courses and content will be accessible to members depending on their subscription plan.
You can also set time limits on course access so that once a member has been subscribed for a certain amount of time, they no longer have access to the course materials.
3. Enabling Drip Content
Drip content is when new course material is automatically released over time rather than available immediately upon purchase. Thinkific makes it easy to enable drip content with just a few clicks of your mouse!
You can decide when each new piece of material should be released based on how often you want members to receive new material from you – daily, weekly, or even monthly!
4. Creating a Members-Only Homepage
The final step in setting up your membership site in Thinkific is creating a members-only homepage that serves as a hub for all of your exclusive content and resources. This page will give members easy access to everything they need without having to search through multiple menus and tabs on your website.
On this page, you can include links to courses and other resources related to those courses and announcements about upcoming events or updates related to those topics!
Configuring Payment Settings
When setting up payments for your membership site, Thinkific offers a range of options. You can set up one-time payments or recurring billing for memberships and add discount codes for discounts on the membership.
1. Setting Up Payment Methods
Thinkific allows you to accept credit cards and other payment methods, including PayPal, Stripe, and Apple Pay. To start accepting payments from your customers, go to the Payments tab in your Thinkific dashboard and enter the necessary information for each payment processor you want to use.
2. Configuring Recurring Payments
Suppose you’re offering subscriptions as part of your membership program on Thinkific. In that case, you’ll need to configure recurring payments so that customers will be automatically charged each month or year until they cancel their subscriptions.
To do this, go to the Subscription Settings section within the Payments tab in your dashboard and select which payment processors you would like to use for recurring billing.
3. Creating Discount Codes
Finally, if you want to offer discounts on memberships, you can create discount codes using the Discounts tab in your Thinkific dashboard.
Here you can create promotional codes that allow customers to get a percentage off their membership purchase when they enter a code during checkout. This is great for incentivizing people to join your membership program!
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Moving a Course into a Membership
Creating Course Content
As part of moving your Thinkific course to a membership, you will need to create course content for the membership. This includes creating modules and lessons within those modules.
Creating Course Modules
The first step is to create course modules that will be available on the membership site. To do this, log into your Thinkific dashboard and navigate to the “Courses” tab. Select “Create New Course” and follow the steps provided by Thinkific to set up your course.
Once you have created a new course, click “Content” from the left-side menu. You can add a new module by clicking “Add Module.” Name something memorable so members can easily understand what’s included in each module.
You can also rearrange or delete modules as needed here.
Creating Lessons Within Modules
Once you have created your modules, it’s time to start adding lessons within them! To do this, click on any modules you’ve created and select “Add Lesson” from the right-hand side menu bar. From here, you can upload existing material or create new lesson content directly on Thinkific using their drag & drop interface (which is great if you don’t already have existing material).
Don’t forget that every lesson needs an assignment at the end – this helps keep members engaged with your content!
Creating Members-Only Content
Setting Up Members-only Courses
The first step in creating your members-only content is setting up members-only courses. With Thinkific, you can easily set up a course only accessible to those who have purchased the membership. You can use this feature to create exclusive content for your members and ensure it remains private and secure.
To do this, navigate to “Courses” in your Thinkific dashboard and click “Create New Course.” From here, you’ll be able to choose a template or start from scratch, customize the course look and feel with images and videos, add lessons and modules, and set prices for the membership – all within the intuitive interface of Thinkific!
Creating Members-only Modules and Lessons
Once you’ve created your course, it’s time to add exclusive content for your members. You can include additional lessons or modules only available to those who purchased the membership.
To do this in Thinkific, simply navigate to “Modules” or “Lessons” within your course settings and check off the box labeled “Members Only” at the bottom of each module/lesson page. Doing so will ensure that these pages are locked and inaccessible unless someone has purchased a subscription through your website!
Adding Courses to Membership Plans
Adding existing courses to membership plans is an easy way to get started with creating a membership site. Within the Thinkific dashboard, you can select which courses you want to be included in your membership plans by simply selecting them from the available courses. If desired, you can also set up specific discounts or special offers within the plan settings.
In addition to adding existing courses, you can also set up courses to be automatically added to new membership sign-ups. When someone joins your membership program, they will automatically receive access to any applicable courses associated with their plan. Doing this allows for more flexibility when offering memberships since it allows them access to current and future content as well!
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Conclusion
To recap, the steps to move your existing course into a membership site on Thinkific are as follows: create the membership plan(s), add courses to those plans, set up courses to be automatically added to new memberships, and then customize the member’s experience by adding content specifically designed for members.
Here are some final thoughts and tips for creating successful membership sites:
- Make sure that your content is high quality and regularly updated
- Provide exclusive content or discounts to entice people to join; focus on creating an engaged community
- Set up different access levels to offer more value at higher prices without creating completely separate courses.
- Use automation tools like Zapier or Automate.io if possible
- Design a clear onboarding process for new members