A subscription-based business model is a great way to scale your existing business, or even start a new business altogether. While the subscription business model has been around since the advent of the newspaper, this concept has really exploded in the past couple of years with businesses like Amazon, Netflix, and the Dollar Shave Club.
If you’re considering moving to this business model yourself, or if you already offer a subscription service and are looking to improve it, you’ll need to start that journey by selecting a powerful content management system (CMS). Your CMS will provide the foundation your system needs, and so your business can grow and thrive, you’ll need a good one.
While there are many great CMSs out there, Drupal stands apart in its ability to support even enterprise-level subscription systems. Here are just 7 reasons Drupal is a great platform for a subscription business model.
Flexibility for varying business models.
No subscription business model is the same. Your subscription business model could be similar to that of the Dollar Shave Club, where users can pay a monthly fee to receive varying levels of packages in the mail on a timed basis. Conversely, like many marketers to even fitness gurus, a membership on your site could provide access to online content, guides, videos, and more.
Whatever your needs may be, Drupal can support most any type of subscription business model you choose, whether it be service, membership, subscription, or otherwise. This is thanks to Drupal’s modularity, which allows developers to easily integrate the necessary ecommerce tools (like Drupal Commerce), implement third-party integrations, enhance the power of your site, and more.
Open-source for ever-growing opportunities.
Technically speaking, Drupal isn’t your average CMS: It’s actually an open-source content management framework (CMF). As an open-source CMF, Drupal is free for developers to use, modify, and distribute. So, what does that mean for business owners like you? Not only do you have a large community backing your site and Drupal development team, but the Drupal community is always growing and creating more content for you to use.
Did you know that well over half (78%) of companies use open-source software?
To be more specific, the Drupal community provides resources that you and your development team can use to continue building upon your subscription-based ecommerce site. For example, the Drupal community members continue creating modules and themes that make customizing your site easier for your developer. Moreover, members of the Drupal community are likely to alert other Drupal users of security risks, so your developer can keep your site secure (more on that later).
Extendability through thousands of modules.
With a membership or subscription-based system, your site will need quite a few features to function as it should. Regardless of the specific type of subscription-based model you choose, you’ll likely need accounting, marketing, and reporting integrations (if not more)—thankfully, most of this can be done through third-party integrations.
For Drupal specifically, integrations come in the form of modules. Modules are essentially plugins that allow developers to easily bring together your favorite software applications, such as Facebook or the HubSpot CRM, with your Drupal site. On the day of this writing, Drupal has over 42,000+ modules to choose from, and that number continues to rise.
Browse our app directory to see if there are modules for your favorite apps.
Power & support for content-heavy sites.
If you plan on your subscription-based site offering your subscribers an abundance of content, or accruing a large community of members, your CMS will need to be capable of supporting a heavy content load. Similarly, it will need the power to sustain periods of high traffic as your userbase grows. Good news—Drupal’s got your back in this department as well.
Drupal is well-known as a powerful CMS (or CMF as noted earlier) for several reasons, but namely for its database capabilities, which allow you to store and organize a large number of articles, videos, pictures, and more within your Drupal library. A few examples of content-heavy sites that run on Drupal, which you may be familiar with, include the sites for the Grammy Awards, Fox News, and the Patriots.
Scalability to continue growing your business.
Every business owner hopes that their business will continue to grow and thrive into the years to come, and if a large portion of your business happens online (if not all of it), your site will need to be able to adapt and change as your business does. Many CMSs come with their share of limitations in terms of scalability, but Drupal, of course, is an exception.
Drupal core provides your business’s site with a strong foundation. This gives you the opportunity to start small and grow your site as you’re ready to. With the help of contributed modules, which we’ve mentioned above, you can extend and enhance the foundation that is Drupal. That means, in addition to being able to do more with your site, you’ll be able to boost the power of your CMS as well.
Security to keep your data safe.
With a subscription business model, your site will process and store valuable customer information, from their names, addresses, and emails to their credit card information. Your important accounting information, from invoices to tax information, will likely be stored within that site as well. That being said, you’ll need a CMS that can keep your data secure.
One of the primary reasons organizations choose Drupal as their CMS is because of the profound level of security it has to offer. Not only does Drupal have built-in features that offer security, but as mentioned, the Drupal community is sure to alert other community members when something is up. As such, many well-known businesses, government entities, and higher education institutions use the platform—view the full list here.
Customizability—a site tailored to you.
The greatest benefit of using Drupal for a subscription business model is that—thanks to all of the aforementioned features—it can be customized to meet the needs of most any business. Whether it's customizing the design of your site, the membership levels provided, or which third-party integrations are included, Drupal is ready to accommodate your unique needs.
Build a Membership & Subscription System with Drupal!
From its flexibility to its customizability, Drupal is a great choice for building a membership and subscription system. If you now feel confident that Drupal is the right choice for your CMS, it’s time to hire a team of Drupal developers to build your system for you, and you’ll want a team that can offer you experience, expertise, and an interest in furthering your vision.
ClikFocus has built ecommerce membership and subscription systems for small to enterprise-level businesses. Whether you’re selling physical products or access to content, we can use our skills and prior experience to build you the system you’ve been dreaming of.
To start moving toward making that dream a reality, reach out to us today.
