1) Allow Open Registration which is level zero - free subscribers. Your current 400 subscribers would already become level zero members once you installed S2.
2) In Registration and Profile Fields, design a form that asks enough questions to qualify your new subscribers, such as mailing address for sending them invoices and hoping that they send you money.
3) In email configuration, send your newly signed up members a welcome message that provides your mailing address and ask for money. When they send you a money order you can manually elevate their membership status up to Level 1 through 4 (the paid subscription levels).
4) When you receive payment in the mail, as the administrator, you can retrieve the WordPress User (who should be level zero) add their payment info into the S2 section refered to as the "Paid Subcriber ID," and manually edit them up to the paid level that was promised. This takes two entries on the User Profile page. You can also add in an Automatic EOT (subscription End Of Term) time that will cause your manual member to expire.
I do not believe that S2 has a facility to automatically email your manual subscribers that they need to renew their subscription when their EOT time is approaching. If you integrate PAYPAL Subscriptions in a few months, then your next step should be to move manual subscribers to the PayPal button method where all this is automated between PayPal and S2 Member. Doing this is as easy as giving them a member options purchase page with PayPal buttons describing what they would be purchasing.
You could also use S2 conditionals to have such a sales page pop-up after the subscriber's manual EOT has run out. How? When they run out of EOT time on a level 1 membership, they demote to level zero. Make the menbership options PayPal buttons only appear to Level zero members...
Once again, these are just suggestions for how to use the S2Member tools to create manual members, I do recommend that you migrate from manual members to the PayPal subscribers method. If you need OFFLINE manual payment management for a few month till you can setup your PayPal business account, then S2 Member seems to have that ability. It may create a bunch of manual work, but once you move your members to PayPal, then your time will free up to create member content. You don't want to spend too much time managing your members at the detriment of developing fresh content which is what attracts your customers in the first place.Statistics: Posted by opohar — November 14th, 2011, 10:50 am
]]>