How to build a Video Membership website: School Tools TV Case Study

by Travis Lima | General, Newsletter, Showcase

Look at how SchoolToolsTV.com  used Paid Memberships Pro to help build an educational online video membership website. They offers daily one-minute social skill videos to help teachers increase teachable time, reduce bullying, and improve academic results.

Screenshot of webpage

Making a membership only video library.

In order to build an effective video library that was only accessible to members, Schooltoolstv.com decided to use a really useful plugin called Vimeography. This plugin allows you to display videos hosted by Vimeo in a beautiful, modern gallery. This plugin is a simple solution for a membership site, portfolio, online course, or any other video collection.

Vimeography has a Pro version which unlocks an array of great features including hiding your videos on Vimeo but displaying them on your site, offer downloadable videos, and more.

In addition to Vimeography, Schooltoolstv.com is using Paid Memberships Pro to handle the membership side of their website. This includes restricting video and other content as well as handling the checkout process of the website. The WordPress theme that is being used on the website is Masterstudy, a premium WordPress theme by Stylemix themes.

Key components to creating a video membership website.

  1.  Install Paid Memberships Pro on your WordPress website.
  2. Create a Membership Level for your membership site and proceed to set up Paid Memberships Pro with all your relevant settings.
  3. Create a Vimeo Account and upload the videos that you want to include in your video library.
  4. Download and Install the Vimeography plugin.
  5. Use the Vimeography plugin to embed and display your videos on your WP page of choice.
  6. Use Paid Memberships Pro to restrict the page so that only members will have access to your video library.
  7. When users visit your video library they will be greeted with a login/register message encouraging them to either sign up for a membership level or if they are already a member, login to see your videos.

Top Tips for your video membership website

  • Select a theme with strong membership components like Memberlite.
  • Offer some free video content so that your visitors will have an idea of the type of content you provide.
  • Sync new PMPro membership signups with a MailChimp list. This will allow you to send out email newsletters, letting members know that you have released a new video(s).

Meet Rusty May

Rusty is a passionate educator and coach who is committed to helping teachers create caring working relationships with every student and giving them powerful tools that will help reduce negative classroom behaviors that rob them of their teachable time.

 

 

My web designer recomended Paid Memberships Pro, I found it easy to set up and use for my membership site. 

—Rusty May, SchoolToolsTV.com

About SchoolToolsTV.com

Effective teaching relies heavily on a healthy relationship between a teacher and the student. The better the relationship, the better the results. Schooltoolstv.com have made great effort to put together various videos and workshops for both teachers as well as students to help improve things like Social Skills, Classroom management and reducing bullying.  By subscribing to the School Tools TV membership, users will be granted access to daily educational videos, the SchoolsToolsTV community forum, and resources provided by subscribing teachers. Some of the benefits of being a subscriber and watching the SchoolsToolsTV show are:

  • Better Relationships
  • Fewer Problems
  • More Teachable Time
  • Improves Academic Results
  • Reduces Bullying

Visit SchoolToolsTV.com

Character Education Resources, Help against Bullying, Classroom School

If you have an interesting business that uses Paid Memberships Pro in a component of its technology suite, please submit an application and we will get in touch about preparing an in-depth showcase of your application.

 

How a Custom Member Dashboard Streamlined Client Communications for We Manage Your Site.

by Travis Lima | General, Showcase

We Manage Your Site helps their members with everything from mundane WordPress maintenance tasks, right up to custom development and design. Iwan Pieterse, “WMYS” founder, has built his online business completely around Paid Memberships Pro and has collectively used the plugin for close to 3 years.

We Manage Your Site

About We Manage Your Site

We Manage Your Site officially launched on June 15th, 2017. The business model behind WMYS is simple, yet effective. By offering their customers and members different website maintenance and development packages, Iwan and his team have built up an online recurring income business that offers quality digital solutions that can be attained by pretty much, anyone—regardless of their budget.

Some of the tasks that members can expect from their monthly subscription include: routine backups, updates, SEO Reviews, graphic design, and custom WordPress development. The higher the package, the more time and energy the team allocates to that site. This is a great way to offer quality, custom developed solutions at an affordable rate, regardless of the size of their website. For Iwan, it means having a more ‘predictable’ income flow and a more structured, sustainable and scalable business model.

Visit We Manage Your Site

Paid Memberships Pro helps us facilitate not only the recurring payments and user login functionality, but we also use the Paid Memberships Pro’s membership levels feature to offer various benefits for our different packages.

—Iwan Pieterse, We Manage Your Site

The Paid Memberships Pro Technology

Some of the specific Add Ons and customizations being used on WMYS include:

Other Plugins and Themes powering WMYS

  • Theme: The site is built on the Divi Theme by Elegant Themes (recommended by Iwan: “The Divi community is awesome!”)
  • Hosted on AWS, with Serverpilot as a management tool
  • Uses Wordfence for security and ManageWP for daily backups, performance monitoring, SEO rankings and an additional daily security scan. WMYS also performs daily database backups from the AWS server to our Hetzner server.

WMYS Custom Dashboard

One of the most impressive features that has been developed by WMYS is their Member Dashboard. This is a custom developed dashboard that masks the generic WordPress Dashboard and adds specific functionality to allow members to:

  • Log tasks and “to-dos”
  • Chat with the development team
  • Get an update on what has been done at any given time to their site
  • Get an update on how long development tasks have taken

This well-thought dashboard provides much needed clarity for both the developers and the clients. It is easy for the client to see how much work has been put in, what time is still available for new tasks. This solution creates transparency, prevents scope creep and streamlines member communications overall.

The WMYS team are now looking to include content writing, social media management and other more marketing-focused services to their dashboard.

Iwan Pieterse

Our entire system was built around PMPro, we depend on the levels and other properties of the plugin to do stuff within our own customer dashboard, so it’s an absolutely crucial part of our business. What I can say is that the support received from joining the PMPro premium offering has proved invaluable to us as we we’ve built this
—Iwan Pieterse, We Manage Your Site

If you have an interesting business that uses Paid Memberships Pro in a component of its technology suite, please submit an application and we will get in touch about preparing an in-depth showcase of your application.

 

In-Depth Showcase: How Rob Schwartz Used PMPro to Double His Salary While Pursuing His Dreams

by Kimberly Coleman | Newsletter, Showcase

ACATestPrep.com is a site for gaining industry certifications with the Adobe Certified Associate exams provided by Certiport. Rob Schwartz, the program’s founder, was an early adopter of Paid Memberships Pro and has been using our plugin to power his training platform for over 3 years.

Continue reading this in-depth showcase to see what technologies power the ACA Test Prep program and why it has been such a huge success for founder Rob Schwartz.

ACA Test Prep

About ACA Test Prep

ACA Test Prep is a subscription program providing the best video tutorials for the ACA exams from the top certifying teachers in the world. These exams recognize entry-level skills in the design industries of Print, Web, or Video media.

Students learn at their own pace with world-class educators with decades of experience and recognition for excellence in their fields. It’s the training students need to obtain certification from people who know how to make content engaging and easy to retain.

Go to ACA Test Prep

When looking for a membership solution for my training tutorials, I wanted a team that was capable and confident. I love that the code is all open-source, this makes me confident that I’ll never be left in the lurch if Jason and Kim decide to focus on other things (like the plugin I started with and had invested much time and money into!)

—Rob Schwartz, ACA Test Prep

Rob Schwartz, ACA Test Prep

The Paid Memberships Pro Technology

We worked with Rob and the team at ACA Test Prep to develop several features around Paid Memberships Pro to meet their unique needs. Some of the specific add ons and customizations include:

  • Student Accounts

    The site uses this add on to sell “class” or “Campus” Licenses. In this way, an institution can purchase a single login that allows a bulk number of simultaneous users to be shared among the students in their program.

  • WP Bouncer

    In combination with the Student Accounts add on, ACA Test Prep uses WP Bouncer to impose the limit of simultaneous logins they have access to. For example, if the limit is set 15 and a 16th person attempts to log in, the first person using the shared login is automatically booted.

  • Member History

    This add on allows the team to see a customer’s purchase history in one simple view.

  • Register Helper for Profile Fields

    ACA Test Prep uses our Register Helper add on to gather some helpful information when a student or institution account is created that is later used for technical support.

Other Plugins and Themes powering ACA Test Prep

The PMPro team is really there to support you as you venture out into an online business. I couldn’t be happier with my decision to go with PMPro. Customers can easily sign up online and funds go directly into my account, or I can sell through resellers and create discount codes which I can deploy with a welcome email in literally minutes.
—Rob Schwartz, ACA Test Prep

Powering the Members-only Video Library

We get a lot of requests for how to embed protected videos in a membership site. The team at ACA Test Prep currently uses FV Player Pro after moving from WP Lightbox Ultimate (also good, but not as flexible). FV Player Pro does a great job handling the videos through Cloudfront and this has cut download times in half for our videos, and there are many display options (check out the demo pages).

Videos are hosted on Amazon Web Services S3 Cloud Storage Services or via Amazon Cloudfront CDN.

We also recommend secure video hosting via Vimeo Plus or JW Player.

Paid Memberships Pro took my classroom website and allowed me to turn it into a business. I was able to get started in just a month or two, and now have 500,000 visitors monthly from all over the world, generating a healthy supplement to my job at the school. Paid Memberships Pro makes it so easy, I can generate twice my teacher’s pay in just my free time after school!

—Rob Schwartz, ACA Test Prep

Rob Schwartz, ACA Test Prep

Learn More About ACA Test Prep + PMPro

Rob prepared an excellent tutorial video demonstrating his certification program and how Paid Memberships Pro is an integral piece of his business. Watch the video below to gain more insight into the site’s software setup.

Be More Like Rob Schwartz

Paid Memberships Pro is just a tool. The real driving force behind Rob’s success is himself. He starts with in-demand knowledge and a skill for teaching that allowed him to build a compelling education product. He also has enough technical knowledge to piece together all of the various plugins and services he uses into one coherent website. He also knew where his technical knowledge was lacking and brought in a skilled developer (Jason) to complete the program, which we recommend to many of our customers who aren’t as technically “literate”.

Rob also has the tenacity to get things done. He didn’t wait for every piece of his workflow to be automated before he started selling. He didn’t wait for 100% protection against account sharing or shy away because of the many ways people take advantage of virtual products on the internet. He built strong content and focused on the good customers who wanted that content and were paying for it.

Rob is a model customer for Paid Memberships Pro, and we are excited to continue to support his business’ growth.

If you have an interesting business that uses Paid Memberships Pro in a component of its technology suite, please submit a testimonial and we will get in touch about preparing an in-depth showcase of your application.