Passive income is highly appealing but very difficult to obtain. The world doesn't generally allow for passive income unless you are an investor and have already obtained wealth. The idea of receiving an income with little to no effort required seems like just another get rich quick scheme. However, passive income is by no means fake, nor is it unearned. Once a passive income strategy is in place, it may take little effort to maintain but it certainly took everything you had to build. Passive income strategies rely on inbound marketing methdologies to work.

Membership marketing is an ideal way to build passive income. This is because memberships typically revolve around some form of content, such as a guide or video series. Memberships can also grant the subscriber access to products or services but generally, these are hands-off services that can be provided passively such as access to online knowledge libraries, content, resources or journals that have been made available for members. There may be a need to provide support and you are sure to encounter other complications along the way, but membership marketing is a very passive income source for most organizations.

We heard the greatest idea this past week from Fern at CFMA who told us that they hold a monthly Cookies & Content Program with all staff to help them to learn about the transition to HubSpot's inbound marketing platform and HighRoad's marketing methodologies and what it will mean to the entire organization. We offered to sponsor this month's program and Fern was nice enough to send us her feedback: 

Our new Topic of the Month series kicked off in October. This month we focused on "How to Attract" since so many associations are trying to grow their memberships and need to do so in the Digital Age. Whether you're trying to grow new members (those hard-to-attract Millennials) or grow non-dues revenue, this month's series has something for everyone using our new 3-session format which allows us three hours to really delve into the topic to look at: