JV partners can assist you greatly in promoting a new membership site and gaining new members. JV stands for joint venture and involves other people promoting your website, usually via their own email list, in exchange for a commission of each sale made.

People with large opt-in lists are often approached for joint venture opportunities, but naturally cannot promote all of them.

Another common way of promoting a new membership site is via your own existing opt-in list. If you’ve already built trust and liking from your subscribers, you will get a positive response every time you send an email to them.

But what if you can’t find any JV partners or simply do not want to joint venture? And what if you do not have an existing email list to promote to?

Well, there are other ways to promote your membership site without a list or JV partners, but some methods simply work better than others.

Let's take a look at the most common membership site promotional methods.

1) Promote on Related Forums

Forums are an excellent way to promote a membership site. Track down popular forums in your niche and start interacting within members by posting helpful replies to existing threads.

Do not use a signature link until you have at least 100 posts. This could take around a month (you do not want to build your post count up too fast), but it is worth the wait.

By this time you would have earned trust and respect from the other members and they will be more inclined to visit your site.

2) Offer a Free Membership

This is the best way to gain paying members. Entice people to sign up with a free membership level. Let them enjoy it but also tease them with what they are missing out on in the paid members area.

You can even send them screen shots of the content in there! After a while, curiosity will get the better of many people and they will be inclined to become paying members.

3) Give Away Free E-books

Write some short reports or e-books, then give them away on forums and on your website. Throughout your e-book or report, mention and link to your membership site whilst talking about the benefits of being a member.

Remember, this report is something you are giving away for free, so you are entitled to advertise in it as long as you’re also giving away valuable content.

4) Engage in Article Marketing

Submitting articles about topics related to your membership site will earn you instant credibility and respect, particularly if the articles are of a high quality.

People will be intrigued and interested enough to click to your website, especially if you make your resource box enticing enough.

5) Do Some Social Networking

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace provide excellent opportunities for promoting your membership sites, all using slightly different methods but with the same aim in mind - having a community of people take notice of your postings/content and click through to your web site (and hopefully join your membership site).

Facebook and MySpace allow you to make networks of friends who can see your profile. You can post information there about your site.

YouTube allows you to post videos you have made, so make sure you include a link back to your site – both in the video and in the description.

Twitter lets other people 'follow' you, so you can post information there that leads them to visit your membership site. Twitter is particularly handy if you are targeting the internet marketing crowd.

These are just a few of the best ways to promote membership sites without a list or JV partners.