OnlineVFR is a premium video library for pilots. The video content is restricted to members and for a 1-off payments users can view 155 speciality videos for piloting. The site boasts both membership functionality and a video library.

The Brief

PepperStreet has just launched a new website for OnlineVFR. James is a pilot and a TV cameraman who has worked all around the world with TV film crews. He combined a love of flying with his skills behind the camera to create 155 short videos for instructing pilots. OnliveVFR is a resource where pilots can access those videos and get access to valuable information helping with piloting.

We were given a 2-pronged brief. To create a functional and highly usable video library where pilots could search, filter and access the correct video content. In additon, the videos themselves needed to be behind a paywall. Users could browse the content and see the extent of the videos but would need a membership plan to view the actual content.

The Solution

All in one Video Gallery

The videos were hosted on vimeo and those resources were set to be private and accessibly only when played via a specific URL. This prevented public access to the content. PepperStreet chose a small lightweight but highly effective plugin called All-in-one Video Gallery but the plugin developer 360 Plugins. At $50 a year it’s a really powerful plugin for the price point and the support was phenomenal, quick and effective. I rate this plugin as one of the best I have used.

The plugin adds a new ‘Video’ taxonomy to the website. It allows easy up load of videos with title, description, video source (external or self hosted) length, categorisation, tags. You can add a thumbnail for the video manually or set automatic thumbnail generation from the video, and also specify chapter points. The plugin then uses shortcodes to pull in a category grid https://onlinevfr.co.uk/video-library/ or a list of specific videos – https://onlinevfr.co.uk/video-category/navigation/ These then link to a video details page where a user can get full information and watch the video.

Paid Membership Pro

We struggled with the sheer volume of WordPress Membership Plugins. The differing functionality and price points seemed overwhelming to say the least. So we started by opting for a cheaper Ultimate Membership Pro plugin. The price point of $60 was appealing and we felt the website didn’t need the advanced multi level memberships a lot of the more expensive plugins offered. We just needed a simple single level lifetime membership. That said we found that the plugin simply struggled to deliver a robust solution. Whilst the functionality worked we found plugin conflicts and emails weren’t being sent, in particular we found that the payment gateway was flakey and on testing had multiple issues. The support was poor and left us with no alternative but to change to a different plugin.

PepperStreet settled on Paid Membership Pro and the difference was noticable immediately. Paid Membership Pro has a free version which is good for testing but we opted for the more advanced Plus option. It’s expensive but we got a deal for $197 / year. The plugin integrated seemlessly into the site and all the basic functions were set up automatically. We integrated PayPal with no issues.

What we liked

• You can set up multiple membership levels, see below for all the different types
• You can restrict access to content based on the membership level
• Set a price for the level
• Set custom fields for the checkout for levels allowing you to gather bespoke information such as age, or pilot license
• You can add discount coupons
• You can customise the content of the emails indivudally and set up HTML emails
• There are a myriad of add-ons to allow additional functionality such as 2FA, donations, gift aid and loads more
• You can set a trial membership and the either manual or automatic upgrade to a paid membership level
• We use DIVI theme and it has good integration

The final piece of the puzzle for use was the locker system that allowed us to lock specific content on a page by membership level. What this meant is that in our video template all users can see the description and categories but we have locked the row that contains the video so that only logged in users with the correct membership level can access this content. Those without access are redirected to the login or register page.

Conclusion

We developed a robust membership site, locked down the relevant content behind a paywall, set up emails. We also developed an extremely user friendly video library with 155 videos in categories, tagged and with a keyword search function. This made sure users could easily find the content they needed, quickly.