After you start a membership website with Paid Membership Pro (PMP) WordPress plugin, the premium posts are accessible by paying members according to their membership levels. That means all the content that you set aside for those who have paid membership are accessible at once. While this is a preferred way for members to get access to what they paid for, there is another way to deliver the content.
The way that I am talking about is dripping the content in the form of a series. When you drip content, you are essentially delivering paid content at certain intervals. You can configure the posts or pages to be accessible after a certain number of days. That means, you set aside a few articles that a paying member can access immediately. Then there are other articles which are accessible after some days, weeks or months.
What this does is that it encourages the members to renew their periodic memberships. They get access to all the premium content but not all at once. They get it one by one at a certain interval that you define. It makes it possible for you to make the most out of the premium content that you created.
For example: You have a video tutorial series. Members will sign up and they will receive a certain number of starter videos. Then every week, 2 videos are released to them. This goes on until the tutorial finally ends. During the duration of the course, the premium member pays regularly to get access to newer lessons.
It does sound complicated but it is really simple to do if you are using the PMP plugin for WordPress. The feature does not come inbuilt but it is possible with the help of an add-on. It is called PMPro Series.
How to Install the PMPro Series Add On for Free:
- Visit https://github.com/strangerstudios/pmpro-series.
- Click the Download Zip link present on the right.
- Back in WordPress, go to Plugins > Add New.
- Click on Upload Plugin, browse to the location of the pmpro-series-master.zip file you downloaded and click Install Now.
- After installation, activate it.
If you get confused while installing a plugin manually: 3 Ways How You Can Install a WordPress Plugin
Now you will see a different admin link called Series in your dashboard.
How to Create a New Series
- Access the admin link Series.
- Click on New Series.
- Give the new series a title and add some content as its description. It’s like composing a new post.
- From the options present in the right, under Require Membership, choose a membership plan for which you are creating this series.
- Scroll down to Posts in the series.
- Choose Posts/Page and input the Delay (# of days).
Notes:
- The day that you enter is the number of days after which the premium member can access the post you select.
- It should be the cumulative number of days. For example: If a post is to be released on the second week enter 14.
You can add new posts as you create them and remove them if necessary. The number of days can also be updated. Click on Publish to make the series publicly accessible. It will have a link like: http://www.yoursite.com/series/name-of-series/. It will use your website’s template. Make sure to make the link publicly available by adding it to your menu or the membership area. Congratulations, you have just set up drip content or a series for your premium members.
Following the series link, your members will be able to access the content by the age of their membership. The ones that are already available are shown as Available Now. Its link can be clicked to view it. The currently unavailable posts in the series will show the date when it will be accessible. So, members can view what is coming next for them. Even if they get the link to the unreleased post and open it, they won’t be able to access the content. They will just see the date when it will be available.