Do you know what the average churn rate is for a typical online membership?

How about revenue benchmarks?

Average conversion rates?

What about the most popular tech solutions? Or the most effective marketing channels?

Truth is, there's very little reliable data available about the online membership industry.

That's because this market is relatively tiny.

It's a niche, of a niche, of a niche.

What data we do have tends to come from either the broader subscription industry, or from membership associations.

Neither of which reflect the online membership world.

Years ago we made it our on a mission to change that by conducting a survey of thousands of membership owners designed to shine a light on the real data and benchmarks for the online membership industry.

And now it's time for an update...

We’ve spent the past fews months tapping into our audience of tens of thousands of membership business owners to identify how they’re performing, what challenges they’re facing and which benchmarks and trends are prevalent.

And we've compiled those results into the Online Membership Industry Report 2024

In today's episode of the Membership Geeks Podcast, I'm sharing some of my top observations, takeaways, trends and other interesting tidbits and insights taken from this year's report.

We really appreciate you choosing to listen to us and for supporting the podcast.

We would be eternally grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and we read each and every one personally!

Finally, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to make sure that you never miss an episode.

In this episode, I delve into the often frustrating topic of handling member refunds.

Listen in as I explore the importance of a fair and generous refund policy, the concept of risk reversal, and why it can be beneficial despite the occasional setbacks.

I also share insights on managing the emotional side of facing refunds and how to maintain a positive outlook.

- Why is it important to have a fair and generous refund policy for your membership?

- What is risk reversal, and how does it help in reducing customer reluctance?

- How can you mentally cope with the frustration and disappointment of handling refund requests?

- What are some practical steps for managing refunds effectively, including delegating them to a team member?

We really appreciate you choosing to listen to us and for supporting the podcast.

We would be eternally grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and we read each and every one personally!

Finally, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to make sure that you never miss an episode.

In this episode of the Membership Geeks Podcast, I delve into key strategies and techniques for attracting committed members to your membership site.

I discuss key challenges, the importance of member commitment, and share six practical techniques for fostering long-term, engaged membership.

Join me as we explore how to cultivate a thriving community of dedicated members for your membership site.

In this episode:

- How can I overcome the challenges of attracting committed members to my membership site?

- What are the key reasons for wanting more committed members, and how can I address them?

- What specific techniques can I implement to attract and retain committed members to my membership site?

- How can content marketing and pre-filtering be used to ensure that potential new members are committed and aligned with the values of the membership business?

We really appreciate you choosing to listen to us and for supporting the podcast.

We would be eternally grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and we read each and every one personally!

Finally, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to make sure that you never miss an episode.

What’s the secret to marketing your membership? Spoiler: there isn’t just one secret! There are multiple different methods to try, but there are some universal truths to always bear in mind first.

In this episode, we share the 12 universal truths to membership marketing. There may not be some hidden secret that will guarantee you success, but these truths apply to all types of membership (and many other businesses as well.)

If you’re unsure of what marketing approach to take or whether you need to spend much time marketing at all, don’t miss this episode!

Essential Learning Points:

• The 12 universal truths that apply to all memberships
• Why there’s never a one-size-fits-all approach to marketing
• Why building trust should be a key part of your marketing
• The importance of marketing and why you can’t overlook it

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Guys
• Membership Academy
• Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans
• Bob Berg’s The Go-Giver book

Key Quotes:

“Think of your membership as a painkiller, not a vitamin. You want it to be a must-have, not a nice-to-have.”

“An average product that has great marketing will always beat a great product with average marketing.”

“What someone says about you is worth so much more than what you say about yourself.”

There’s a lot of advice out there about memberships, some of it good, some of it downright awful! If you’re not sure who to listen to or you’re worried you’ve made a mistake about starting a membership, don’t miss this episode.

In this episode, we break down the five top pieces of bad (and damaging) advice we’ve seen about running a membership.

We take you through competition in the membership world, whether you really need scarcity to sell and if memberships are as dead as people claim. *Spoiler* they’re not!

Essential Learning Points:

• How to recognize bad membership advice
• Why the membership model is NOT dying out
• Why healthy competition is good
• The problem with using scarcity to sell
• Why a closed-door membership does not mean less work

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Guys
• Membership Academy
• 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
• Competing with Established Memberships in Your Market
• Are You Leaving Money On The Table in Your Membership Business?

Key Quotes:

“It’s fine to leave money on the table if it’s not a table you want to sit at.”

“If you’re building your business and basing your strategy on whatever’s in vogue this month, then that’s the wrong approach.”

“We shouldn’t be scared off by the existence of competition or worried that a market is too oversaturated. In fact, it’s more of a worry if there’s no competition.”

In this special one-off episode, we're asking you guys to help us shape the future direction of The Membership Guys Podcast by having your say on the topics you'd like us to hear more about.

To help you do this, we're testing out some incredibly nifty new tech from our podcast hosts Captivate that add interactive surveys to our show - so not only do you help us out, you also get a glimpse at some cool tech stuff too. Win-win!

Head over to https://www.themembershipguys.com/podcastsurvey to make your voice heard.

How can you launch a membership without any audience? The simple answer is you don’t have to. You need to put in the work to build that audience first.  

That’s exactly what we did, and in this episode, we share all the little details that went into building our audience BEFORE we launched the Membership Academy.

So, join me on a trip down memory lane. We’re talking about the early days of The Membership Guys and what we did six years ago to get where we are today.

We share detailed tips on content marketing, blogging, building your email list, and gaining interest before you even sign up your first member.

Essential Learning Points:

• It doesn’t take thousands of dollars to launch a membership
• You don’t need a huge email list to launch your membership
• What steps you can take to build interest in your membership
• The importance of a solid launch strategy
• Where The Membership Guys are today.

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Guys
• Membership Academy
• Member Machine book
• Membership Economy by Robbie Kellman Baxter
• Superfast Business
• Membership Toolkit

Key Quotes:

“Do what you can with what you have.”

“We hated having to turn people away and not being able to give them a suggestion of where to go.”

“450 people on an email list…you’re not going to brag to many people about that. It’s still fairly small…but it was big enough.”

How do you make your membership ‘stickier’? By that, we mean, how do you get members to stick around for your content?

The key is to give them something worth sticking around for. You might have great content on the horizon, but do you members know about it?

In this podcast episode, I share seven simple ways to let your members know about all the amazing things you have planned for future content.

Most of these are simple tweaks you can do today, such as posting on social media or emailing your members. We also share some less commonly known tactics to showcase upcoming valuable content.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why it’s so important to signpost future content
• How to use the ‘Pain of Disconnect’ or FOMO to keep your members interested
• Why an upcoming content list is a simple way to signpost future value
• The types of future content you should promote and how
• How to use future content to influence current content.

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy
• Digital Marketer
• The Memberoni theme
• AddEvent
• 7 Things to Consider When Choosing a Membership Site Theme
• 21 Quick Tips for Improving Member Retention

Key Quotes:

“Memberships are a value exchange.”

“The true value from a membership comes from the things the content enables, the results, the wins, the success stories.”

“You’re giving them a glimpse at a possible future that they could have, in terms of outcome, transformation, results, wins, if they actually apply the content that is being released.”

What should you do after you launch your membership?

Once the launch is all over and done with, what next? Do you just wait for more members to drop by? No, you’ve still got plenty of work to do to grow your membership business. In fact, the easy part is over!  

In this podcast episode, we share six things you need to do once you launch your membership to keep growing.

You’ll want to focus on member retention, follow up with non-buyers, and develop a solid marketing strategy. Listen in to hear my top tactics for making the most of your successful launch, so interest doesn’t just fizzle out.

Essential Learning Points:

• How your membership launch is probably the easiest marketing you’ll ever do
• Why the first 30 days of your new membership are the most important
• How to utilize your happy members for future marketing
• Why running a membership isn’t just about getting new members, it’s all about what happens after the sale

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy
• Google Analytics

Key Quotes:

“90% of success is all about what happens on the inside of a membership.”

“In the afterglow of your launch, those first 30 days or so, really keep an eye out for any posts, comments, and feedback that you can use from your community…and then turn that into marketing collateral.”

“You want those people that were on the fence during your launch and decided against joining to be kicking themselves for not signing up.”

Every superhero has an origin story…

And as we're celebrating a huge milestone of recording 300 episodes of The Membership Guys podcast, Callie and I decided to do something a little bit special and share ours.

In this episode we talk about things we’ve never talked about publicly before, giving you an insight into how The Membership Guys came to be and how we got to where we are today. 

Hopefully some of our story will resonate with you. 

Enjoy!  

Episode Summary:

• The story of how Callie and I met
• Our business journey, including bad partnerships, 20 hour work days, and of course… memberships
• Some personal struggles with depression, burnout and general health that we've never talked about before
• PLUS we discuss how Callie has never seen the movie Karate Kid (shock), how in a weird multiverse The Membership Guys may never have come to be and much more!

What if your membership has a natural end date? While no membership will last forever, some hit a natural point where members drop off. 

This doesn’t necessarily mean the content was bad or you did anything wrong. That’s a whole other story. Sometimes members get everything they need and simply don’t need to remain a member. 

For example, if you have a membership site for helping people pass a driving test, that has a natural end date. After they pass, they probably won’t need your content anymore. 

So, what can you do? Do you just accept it, or do you fight to keep these members?

In this episode, I discuss some of the tactics you can use to retain members, but also some alternatives and different ways of looking at it.

If you’ve been scratching your head trying to come up with a solution, give this episode a listen, and hopefully, it’ll give you some fresh ideas to try out.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why you need to question whether the membership model is right for you
• How you can extend the scope of your content to maximize interest
• Why retaining members isn’t always the right move
• How a natural end date could actually be a good thing
• The most important metric to know in a membership business.

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy
• Why Member Lifetime Value is More Important Than Churn Rate
• Despite What You’ve Heard, Average Member Retention is NOT Only 3 Months 

Key Quotes:

“Membership works best when it’s addressing a recurring need.”

“One-off needs like “I need to learn this specific process or pass this test” tend to work better as a course where there’s a very clear start and endpoint.”

“When it comes down to numbers, everything is about one metric: Customer Lifetime Value.”

We all want to win over as many new members as possible. But did you know that keeping those members is often more important?

Member acquisition is still essential. But unless you’re keeping those members, you’ll find yourself always relying on short-term, one-off members to make ends meet.

Making people stick around is often harder than getting them interested in the first place. However, this is exactly what will help you grow your membership business. 

In this episode, I discuss the six top member retention mistakes I see businesses make. I also talk about why retention is often more important and valuable than member acquisition. 

Essential Learning Points:

• Why member retention is so important
• Why cancellations are not always a bad thing
• How important feedback is for keeping members
• The best ways to approach canceling members

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy
• Intercom
• The Membership Economy book by Robbie Kellman Baxter

Key Quotes:

• “If the only thing standing in the way between someone being a member and someone leaving is that you have hidden the cancelation button, you’ve got bigger problems.”
• “When you’ve got members on your site engaging and using your membership, getting results, making progress, and forming connections, that is fuel for continued growth in your membership.”
• “Make the DECISION to cancel difficult, not the process.”

The guiding principle of membership sites is that they are a value exchange. People subscribe to your site and you provide them with enough reasons to keep their subscription going.

And so far, you are probably doing a fantastic job at solving their biggest problems and creating amazing content. But why stop there? 

You can sweeten the deal for your members by amplifying the perceived value your membership site has to offer.

In this episode, I review four simple ideas to incorporate more incredible value for your members.

And I promise that these won't require more effort and time on your part! Have a listen and, hopefully, you will be inspired to take action on one or all of these strategies.

Essential Learning Points:

• How solving small problems creates big value.
• Ways to feature your members on your platform.
• Why your site is the perfect platform for building connections.
• How to make your members feel like they are flying First Class.

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy
• zenForo
• IP.Board

Key Quotes:

“You have to give people a reason to stay subscribed. The value you provide comes in the form of creating content and serving your community.”

“Quick wins are absolute gold. If you can solve lots of these smaller problems, then the value this will deliver to your members is huge.”

“Always make sure that your members are on the top of your list when it comes to preferential treatment.”

“Being a connector and filling that role for your members can be of huge value.”

In this episode, I discuss the importance of setting realistic expectations when aiming for growth in membership businesses.

Learn why ambitious membership owners need to ground big goals in practical reality and logistics, and how to avoid banking on "moonshot" opportunities.

I also share valuable insights on the philosophy of marginal gains and the impact of achieving ambitious goals on a business trajectory.

In this episode:

- How can membership businesses ensure their growth goals are grounded in practical reality and logistics?

- What are the potential pitfalls of focusing solely on ambitious, game-changing opportunities for growth?

- How does a measured, steady approach to growing memberships contribute to sustained success?

- What are the key considerations in setting realistic expectations for growth in online memberships?

We really appreciate you choosing to listen to us and for supporting the podcast.

We would be eternally grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and we read each and every one personally!

Finally, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to make sure that you never miss an episode.

Choosing where to house your new membership site is a major decision. And you are not alone in feeling confused and uncertain about the options.

In this episode of the Membership Guys Podcast, we will provide some clarity around this topic and hopefully, you will get the facts you need to choose what works best for you.

In case you were wondering, we are not talking about which web hosting company to use, or whether you should use shared hosting or a dedicated server.

We are talking about whether you should:

a)     have your membership site hosted as part of your main website,

b)     have the site live on its own with a separate, dedicated domain, or

c)     have the site live on a subdomain.

We will discuss these three options and the pros and cons of each.

Essential Learning Points:

• The three key implications that could impact your decision
• Why a single site is more appealing to the tech-averse folks
• How branding can factor into your decision
• What your long-term plan is for your membership site and why that’s important

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Mastermind Facebook Group
• The Membership Academy
• WooCommerce
• BuddyPress
• bbPress
• Kajabi
• Thinkific
• Google Analytics

Key Quotes:

“If you’re going to ask your users to register for a free community on your main site, but then ask them to register on a completely different website to join your membership then this causes a disconnect and is not great from a user experience perspective.”

“Having everything under one roof gives you a single point of failure. If something goes wrong with that single website, then everything is offline.”

“If you have separate sites for your main and your membership, then the decision making for the membership site is done in isolation. This can greatly uncomplicate things.”

So, you've launched your membership site and are ready to reach those goals and fulfill those dreams you imagined for yourself and for your membership.

A word of caution: you may face a few challenges once your site is up and running. 

We want you to be prepared for the potential issues you may face when you become a new membership site owner.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I go through six of the most common challenges new owners face after a brand-new launch and share my advice on how to deal with them head on.

Essential Learning Points:

• How to keep your start-up costs in check and avoid ‘shiny object syndrome’
• Tips for mitigating finicky tech issues – whether you’re tech-savvy or not
• What the momentum conundrum is and the 90 / 9 / 1 rule
• How to manage your time better so your membership site doesn't fall off your priority list
• The highs and lows post-launch and what to do when your motivation runs dry  

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy
• The Membership Mastermind Facebook Group
• Tackling the 6 Biggest Challenges Every New Membership Owner Faces
• The Membership Guys on Twitter

Key Quotes:

“When it comes to start-up costs, be realistic about what you actually need.”

“Be patient, save your money, and wait before you jump into Facebook ads.”

“Successful membership owners worry about the members they have far more than the members they don't have.”

“There is no one size fits all or silver bullet strategy for bringing in new members.”

Did you know that private podcasting could enhance your membership business?

By now, most of us are familiar with podcasts. Many of us are avid listeners already. Private podcasting hasn’t quite taken off as much as regular podcasting, mostly because of a lack of systems in place to create them. But, if you could get your private podcast set up the right way, it could be a great way to offer your members exclusive content and extra value.

At The Membership Guys, we use Captivate.FM to host our podcast. Captivate is a great podcasting host which offers private podcasting. Using a selection of great automation tools, Captivate has really nailed their private podcasting system.

In this episode, I’m joined by Mark Asquith, the CEO and founder of Captivate.FM to discuss how private podcasts work and how they can enhance your membership business. I also reveal some great strategies to help you create a private podcast for your membership.

Essential Learning Points:

●      What private podcasting is and why you should consider creating one for your membership site

●      How to use Captivate.FM to create and host your private podcast

●      How to use private podcasts to enhance the quality of your membership site

Important Links & Mentions:

●      The Membership Guys

●      The Membership Academy

●      Captivate.FM

●      6 Ways to Use a Podcast to Promote Your Membership

Did you know that every membership has a revenue ceiling?

The revenue ceiling refers to the absolute peak of how much your membership is capable of generating. Knowing what your revenue ceiling is will help motivate you to achieve your full earning potential. And, if you’ve already hit the revenue ceiling for your membership business, you can begin to explore ways to raise the ceiling.

If this is the first time you’ve heard anything about a revenue ceiling, you’re not alone. However, it is worth taking the time to consider whether or not you’ve hit the revenue ceiling for your membership business.

In this episode, I help you calculate your revenue ceiling and discuss how you can raise the ceiling if you’re not ready to stall just yet.

Essential Learning Points:

• How to calculate your revenue ceiling
• What to do if your monthly revenue is higher than your revenue ceiling calculation
• Why hitting your revenue ceiling isn’t a bad thing
• How to raise your revenue ceiling

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Guys
• The Membership Academy
• The blog post for this episode
• Episode 292: Are You Leaving Money On The Table in Your Membership Business?
• Episode 61: How to Add Multiple Revenue Streams to an Existing Membership

Key Quotes:

“The reality is every membership and every subscription has a ceiling.”

“If you do the math, and the ceiling that you're coming out with is less than where you are right now… most likely, it means that your sales or your churn rates have dropped recently.”

If you run a membership site (or any business for that matter), you've probably heard things like, "You're leaving money on the table," from other so-called business professionals.

They might encourage you to launch a new product, start hosting events, or doing one-to-one coaching sessions, etc., with the sole purpose of generating more revenue. While this may be true for some people, it doesn’t mean it’s the right move for everyone.

In this episode of the podcast, I reflect on why it’s okay to “leave money on the table” if it's not a table you want to be at, how to be more confident in your decisions, and why you need to trust that you know what’s best for your membership site.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why it’s okay to leave money on the table when it’s a table you don’t want to sit at
• Understanding why people like to share “business advice” and why you shouldn’t feel under pressure to listen!
• The true meaning of success and why you should choose opportunities carefully

Important Links & Mentions:

• Episode 61: How to Add Multiple Revenue Streams to an Existing Membership    

Key Quotes:

“Memberships can work very well as part of a larger ecosystem of products and services.”

“A lot of entrepreneurs will feel driven by their nature to feel like they have to jump on every possible opportunity available to them. However, that doesn't mean that you have to go in that direction.”

“What works for one person isn't always guaranteed to work for someone else. There are no guarantees, no one-size-fits-all business model and no absolutes in this game.”

Are you struggling to encourage disengaged members?

Member engagement can be a tricky thing. We want people to consume the content, engage with the community, and really use the membership that they’re paying for, but we don’t want to nag people with constant emails either. Once someone becomes disengaged, it can be difficult to nudge them back into action.

In this episode I look at the ways you can maintain a careful balance between encouraging engagement without getting on people’s nerves, from soft unsubscribes to using email tags to using remarketing ads to gently encourage your members back to courses and back into the community.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why it’s important to maintain a balance between nudging and nagging
• Using tools in your CRM and messaging apps to create a buffer to reduce the nagging
• How to use soft unsubscribes to reduce email overwhelm
• How you can mix up the formats you use to send reminders
• Making sure you don’t overdo it with your messages and emails
• Why it's important to remember that people engage in different ways

Important Links & Mentions:

• Membership Academy Courses
• ConvertKit
• ActiveCampaign
• Intercom
• Drift
• The 90-9-1 Rule of Community Engagement

Key Quotes:

“If the reason they haven’t logged in is because they have something serious going on or a major change in circumstance, you don’t want to be that annoying person nagging them every week. Giving them the ability to soft unsubscribe from certain types of reminders and emails ensures that you don’t alienate or annoy those members.”

“Mix up the format and how you get yourself in front of people to try and reengage them to log in, rejoin the community, or finish that course.”

“You need to be smart and think about that bigger picture for the member and don’t overdo it, don’t try to force it and know when to stop. Make sure that you’re not going overboard.”

Do you have an effective membership exit survey in place?

It’s a depressing fact that no matter how hard you try, you cannot stop people from leaving your membership site. Cancellations are just par for the course in the membership game. But don’t despair, because there is one tool that can make all the difference and that all membership site owners should have in their arsenal – the exit survey.

In this episode, I explain why it is so important to have exit surveys in place, what 3 simple questions will give you the information you need to change that person’s mind as well as creating a last final plea page, and gathering valuable data that could improve your content and marketing strategy in the future.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why exit surveys are so important for your membership site
• What questions to ask on an exit survey
• What to do with that information once you have collected it
• How to use the survey answers to create conditional messaging and a final plea page
• Why it is so important to keep your exit surveys simple

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy
• The Membership Academy – Enhancing Your Membership Site with Gravity Forms course

Key Quotes:

“A membership exit survey is a critical tool in the arsenal of every single membership site owner.”

“An exit survey is a great way to look at what changes you can make to improve the retention of the members you still have.”

“If you can show people conditional messaging related to the reasons they’re leaving, then that enables you to make a relevant and very specific final plea to that member.”

Do you want to launch a membership, or have you launched already and now found that there are big, established competitors in your market?

Don’t panic. Your competitors may have a massive library of content, years and years of experience under their belt, or thousands of members, but don’t let that intimidate you.

Your size, your uniqueness, and your ability to zig when your competitors zag, gives you an edge – if you know how to take advantage of it.

In this episode, I share many tips on how to differentiate yourself from the competitors. From zeroing in on your specialty and niche to emphasizing your personal brand and offering a personalized service, these tips will help you get a share of that membership pie.

Essential Learning Points:

1.   How understanding ‘why you exist’ can help you differentiate from your competitors

2.   Why specializing and niching down on your topic and who you serve can help your positioning

3.   The benefits of focusing on your personal side, embracing your underdog nature, and striving for quality

4.   Why you should avoid getting wrapped up in competitor numbers and look for opportunities

5.   What to avoid doing when dealing with competitors

Important Links & Mentions:

• Bob Burg, “The Go Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea”
• The Membership Academy
• The Membership Mastermind Facebook Group
• The Membership Guys’ Twitter
• Mike’s Instagram
• Callie’s Instagram

Key Quotes:

“If you can offer something that caters to a specific segment of your audience, then you are going to stand out and beat your competition every single time.”

“Don’t be intimidated by that established competitor with a library of content. It’s all about what value and what results you can deliver.”

“Don’t obsess about the fact your competitor has more members than you or that they have cornered a percentage of the market because, in all honesty, you only need a small percentage of the marketplace to succeed.” 

Are you finding Instagram a frustrating platform to promote your membership?

Instagram is the one social channel where it is hard to add links to promote your content. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore it. As well as just using it as a content outlet to promote your blog, podcast, or video content, there are multiple ways Stories can be used to promote your membership business.

In this episode, we share 7 ways you can make the most out of Instagram Stories. From creating native content to utilising interactive Stories badges. We have lots of suggestions about how you can use Stories to showcase your social side and promote your business at the same time.

Essential Learning Points:

• How to creatively use Instagram Stories to promote your membership
• Ways to use native content on Stories to engage your members
• The benefits of using Stories to show behind the scenes content
• How you can use Stories to share social proof and brag about yourself
• The benefits of features like the Stories countdown and question badges to promote your content and engage your audience

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy
• The Membership Mastermind Facebook Group
• The Membership Guys’ Twitter
• Mike’s Instagram
• Callie’s Instagram

Key Quotes:

“Instagram Stories has a lot of potential. But, you will have to be more creative to take advantage of it.”

“You can use Stories to brag about your members and to showcase them. By shining, a spotlight on your member’s successes will show a different dimension to your business.”

“Stories are great for getting existing members excited about what’s coming up and building connections, but also for enticing new members.”

Did your membership achieve its goals this year? If it did, congratulations! If not, could your approach to goal setting have improved your chances?

As the year draws to a close, there's no better time to take stock of how far you've come. Reviewing the last 12 months is a great way to appreciate your achievements and the first steps to planning for your membership's future.

Goal setting is a vital part of setting your membership up for success. But it can be challenging knowing what goals to set for your membership and, once you've figured those out, even harder to know the right way to achieve them.

In this episode, we're sharing a practical goal-setting process that will help you determine where you want your membership to go and reveal how to get you there.

Essential Learning Points:

• How the CO-STAR process can help you set and achieve goals
• Practical goal setting examples and actionable steps
• Why your goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound)
• The optimum time period for a planning and review cycle

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy
• The Membership Mastermind Facebook Group
• The Membership Guys’ Twitter
• Mike’s Instagram
• Callie’s Instagram

Key Quotes:

“Any time you're setting goals, any time you're planning, you need to take stock. You almost need to audit what's going on right now.”

“You need to be able to measure the goals that you're setting in order to determine if you're on track.”

“You have to consider your priorities and the relevance of what you're spending your time on, and what you're prioritizing within your plan.”

In this episode of the Membership Geeks Podcast, I discuss whether membership businesses should prevent canceled members from ever rejoining.

While not commonplace, it's a practice that does exist! But is it worth considering?

I delve into the reasons behind this concept and how it can be detrimental to the growth and success of a membership business.

In this episode:

- Why would a membership businesses prevent canceled members from rejoining?

- What are the main drawbacks of preventing canceled members from rejoining your membership?

- How do cancellations fit into the member lifecycle and why do most membership owners view them the wrong way?

- What is the importance of member lifetime value and how does it relate to the handling of canceled members?

We really appreciate you choosing to listen to us and for supporting the podcast.

We would be eternally grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and we read each and every one personally!

Finally, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to make sure that you never miss an episode.

Just like that, another year is over...

And what a year 2020 has been!

Rather than dwell on what could only be described as an insane 12 months, let’s end the year on a high and think about what we’ve all achieved. 

It has certainly been a big year for Callie and I.

We’ve: 

• Grown our team with two full-time hires - Kathryn, our Head of Digital Content and Tom, our Graphic Designer.  
• Launched some amazing new features in Membership Academy including our Game Plans and Member Huddles, and…
• Created another year’s worth of The Membership Guys weekly podcast and season 4 of Callie’s Behind The Membership podcast. 

It’s been a lot of fun! 

We hope it’s been a successful and productive year for you and your membership. 

With only a few days left of 2020, it’s time for our traditional end of year recap show.

Listen for our top 10 most popular episodes of The Membership Guys podcasts in 2020. 

Thank you so much for your continued support of the show this year - I really appreciate each and every one of you. 

Here’s to an awesome 2021. 

• Using Facebook Ads to Promote Your Membership With Gavin Bell
• 8 Things You Need to Know Before Starting a Membership Site  
• 9 Simple Marketing Tactics That’ll Get You More Members
• Using Pinterest to Market Your Membership With Cara Chace 
• Should You Allow Competitors to Join Your Membership?
• 7 Things to do Before You Publish Your Next Piece of Content
• Why Signal vs Noise Ratio is Key to Membership Community Engagement 
• Should You Build Your Website Yourself or Hire Help - With Martin and Lyndsay from Jammy Digital
• Celebrating the 5th Anniversary of Membership Academy 
• How to Use Content Marketing to Sell Your Online Membership

• 10 Most Popular Episodes of The Membership Guys Podcast 2019
• 10 Most Popular Episodes of The Membership Guys Podcast in 2018
• 10 Most Popular Episodes of The Membership Guys Podcast in 2017
• 10 Most Popular Episodes of The Membership Guys Podcast in 2016

How are you planning to run your membership over the festive season?

As a membership site owner, you have the freedom to choose how you run your membership all year round. However, the holidays present unique opportunities for producing content, running promotions, and taking the time to sit back and relax.

In this episode, I tell you the six things you can start doing now to plan for the holiday season. From what seasonal content to plan, to when to start thinking about next year, these six things will help you figure out how your membership can effectively navigate the festivities.

Essential Learning Points:

• Which content types are perfect for the festive season
• How to run a seasonal promotion
• Why taking a break is essential to your membership’s success
• How to prepare your members for your reduced availability
• What to reflect on and how it can shape your membership’s future
• How to start planning for the year ahead

Key Quotes:

“The holidays are a great time to run a promotional campaign, whether it's a discount, whether it's a promotion where you offer some bonuses, some sort of event marketing, like a summit or a challenge.”

“Even if you've got to force yourself to take some time off, know that time away is actually an extremely important investment in your business.”

“If you haven't hit your goals, or things haven't gone the way you want, that's business. That's life. A lot of the time, these goals are arbitrary, they’re guesses, they’re best estimates. So, don't dwell. Make a deliberate effort to focus on the positives from your year.”

How do people view your brand?

Businesses don’t achieve brand loyalty because they’ve picked a great color scheme for their website. You earn brand loyalty by aligning and effectively communicating your principles and purpose.

You probably already know your membership’s values, vision, and mission, but does your audience? These key elements play a big part in how people view and interpret your brand. Your brand is far more than just your logo.

In this episode, I break down what elements make up a brand and how you can use them to set up your brand for success. 

Essential Learning Points:

• What a brand actually is (and what it isn’t)
• Why your brand’s principles are important
• How to position your brand correctly

Important Links & Mentions:

• Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why
• Membership Academy Courses
• Subscribe to the Membership Academy
• The Membership Mastermind Facebook Group

Key Quotes:

 “People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it.”

 “Imagine your brand as a person and think about what its personality would be like – what it would be like to hang out with them, what it would do, what it would be into, how it would talk, how it would sound.”

 “Your purpose, your mission, your vision, and your values: getting clear on those will inform everything else you do. This is the heart of what your business and what your brand is all about.”

Does your WordPress membership site have sufficient security measures in place?

Many membership site owners live in fear of their website being attacked, and for good reason...

If someone manages to hack into your Wordpress website, install something nasty or delete or steal your data, it could cripple your membership business.

That's why it's so important to be extra vigilant and make sure you take adequate steps to keep your site secure...

In this episode, I'm sharing my top tips for keeping your membership site secure and advising which plugins and services you can use to help.

Essential Learning Points:

• Whether or not WordPress is an insecure platform to build your site on
• Why it's crucial that your membership site has security measures in place
• The eight top tips to proactively safeguard your membership site
• What you can do if the worst happens and your site is hacked

Important Links & Mentions:

• ManageWP
• Sucuri
• Wordfence
• WP Engine
• Liquid Web
• BackupBuddy
• WP Fix It
• FixRunner

Key Quotes:

“The fact that WordPress powers 455 million sites definitely makes it more of a target. The counterbalance to that is that there's also a lot of people involved in keeping it secure and responding extremely quickly to any issues.”

“If you need to give admin access temporarily to your web designer, or maybe someone from tech support at your plugin company, make sure you remove their account after they no longer need it. It's not about not trusting those people, it's about there being an additional potential account that someone could get into.” 

Are you considering increasing the price your existing members are paying?

When you first launched your membership, you might have offered your initial members an amazing deal to entice them to join. However, it’s now a few years later and your membership has evolved. You’ve added lots of new content, your community’s grown, and your membership is much more valuable.

You’ve increased the price for new members, and now you’re questioning the fee that your initial members are paying – and thinking about raising the cost of their subscriptions.

In this episode, I explain why this is a short-sighted approach and highlight why you shouldn’t increase membership prices for your long-term members.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why you might be considering raising costs for existing members
• Three reasons why you shouldn’t put existing member prices up
• The one situation where you can increase existing member prices

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Guys Facebook Group
• Membership Academy

Key Quotes:

“People who invest in a tech company when they're still working out of their dad's garage, they deserve the return. They deserve to be in that stronger position, years down the line, than investors who waited until they could back a winning horse.”

“Remember just how important those earlier members are to your long-term journey.”

“It doesn't matter that your membership has increased in value because you would not be in the position to grow your membership to where it is now if not for those initial members.”

Are you celebrating the milestones in your membership business?

If not, you should be!

Whether it's an anniversary or hitting an important goal, it's worth making an effort to mark those significant achievements.

In this episode, I share my top tips for celebrating your membership milestones in style...

Turning your membership idea into a reality can take a lot of time and, often, a lot of money.

As such you might be trying to find a way to raise funds earlier in the process.

Some membership owners do this with a pre-sale.

A pre-sale works like this: you have a great idea for a membership, so you test its viability by taking it to your audience to see if they are willing to invest in your concept (even though it doesn't exist yet!).

If they are, then you can generate seed money to help finance the development of your membership.

However, before pre-selling your membership idea, it's important to know the pros and cons...

Essential Learning Points:

• How a pre-sale works, and how it relates to terms like "seed launch" or "founder launch"
• What the three main benefits to a promoting a pre-sale are
• Three big drawbacks to a pre-sale that you need to consider
• Our preferred alternative launch strategy with better chances of success

Important Links & Mentions:

• Pros and Cons of Offering Lifetime Memberships
• Creating an MVP to Test and Validate Your Membership Idea
• The Lean Live Launch Strategy
• The Membership Guys Facebook Group
• Membership Academy

Key Quotes:

“The vast majority of ideas don't go any further than just thoughts in a brain or scribbles on a page. This kind of pre-sell, having money change hands, makes you more committed.”

“If you don't get a good response to a seed launch, that doesn't tell you anything. That isn't a sign that your membership is not going to be successful.”

Customer service is at the heart of the member experience.

No matter how great your membership site is, you’re going to have members contacting you for additional support at some point.

Providing your members with good customer service is an easy way to elevate their experience of your site, and similarly a bad customer service experience will quickly turn their opinion of your membership sour.

In this episode, I break down the 4 step approach to master your customer service strategy, as well as specific tactics for streamlining customer service as your membership scales.

As a membership site owner it’s easy to tie yourself in knots trying to come up with the best ways to get your members to engage with your site, your content, and your community.

From fancy progress tracking to complex loyalty schemes; laborious member outreach programs through to advanced gamification systems.

However it can be easy to forget that often some of the less glamorous methods of engagement are the most effective.

So in today's episode I’m going to take a look at one of my favourite tactics for member communication, engagement and retention – the humble “member roundup email”.

When people think about launching a membership, they think about the day that they finally open their doors for the very first time and welcome their first crop of new members.

It's a big deal!

However that grand opening isn't the only opportunity you have to launch...

There are different launch types for each stage of your business, depending on how far along you are in the membership site creation process, or what you might need your members to do to help get your product ready for market.

Listen in for a full breakdown of the 6 different launch strategies you can use at various stages of your membership journey... 

Essential Learning Points:

• Validating your membership idea by running a pilot program
• The difference between launch strategy for open memberships vs closed door
• How to generate seed money to help you develop your membership idea
• The best way to reduce the stress of a big launch and ease yourself into the membership model

Important Links & Mentions:

•  The 6 Different Types of Membership Launch
• When the closed door membership makes sense
• Jeff Walker's book, Launch
• Creating an MVP for your membership
• The lean live launch strategy
• Membership Academy
• The Membership Guys Facebook Group

Key Quotes:

“Your big launch event will usually be a week or two, where you're doing lots of promotional marketing activity to get as many eyeballs as possible on your launch – in the hopes that you'll get that influx of initial members.”

 “The beta launch can be extremely useful for helping you to ensure that you are in absolute top shape, or as close as you can get to top shape, before you open the doors to your membership. And, it has the great side effect of also ensuring that you already have people there in your community.”

“If you know you need a little bit of a softer entry into the world of running an online membership, then a soft launch can work for you.”

In this episode, I discuss the challenges faced by membership owners as their business grows and the day-to-day operations become more complex.

Join me as I provide practical tips on how to intentionally become less hands-on in a membership business without compromising the quality and value of the member experience.

In this episode:

- How can membership owners become less hands-on in the day-to-day operations as their business grows?

- What are the key steps in growing a reliable team and delegating key tasks to empower the team?

- In what ways can processes be streamlined and automated to make operations more efficient?

- How can membership owners create self-serve resources for their members to foster a culture of self-sufficiency within the community?

We really appreciate you choosing to listen to us and for supporting the podcast.

We would be eternally grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and we read each and every one personally!

Finally, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to make sure that you never miss an episode.

Have you launched your membership and then found yourself regretting your choice of technology that runs your website? Or maybe you haven't yet launched but you live in fear of that turning out to be your reality.

“What if I make the wrong choice and then in 6 months’ time I discover I’m stuck with it?”

Because of this we see a lot of people have a lot of anxiety about deciding on which platform or plugin is right for them. In this episode I reveal everything you need to know about switching your membership platform.

Essential Learning Points:

• The questions you need to ask yourself before deciding to switch platforms
• Why data migration is the most crucial aspect of switching
• How to communicate this big change to your members
• What you need your members to do, and how to get it
• The reality of what switching platforms can cost you

Important Links & Mentions:

• Guide To Choosing A Membership Plugin

Key Quotes:

“This isn't something you do on a whim, or because a new tool sounds cool and has got a lot of buzz. This isn’t a small decision...”

When communicating, make sure you address the question that's going to be in their minds. “What's in it for me?” Focus your message on how the new system is going to benefit them.

“At all times in all memberships there will be a percentage of the member base who are only there because of inertia. The only reason they’re still members is because they keep forgetting to cancel their subscription.”

“Don’t start switching over, then run a couple of tests and regret the change you’ve made. Test first and test thoroughly, before you do anything else.”

Do you know the difference between good marketing advice and bad marketing advice?

The marketing industry is full of information. Some can help you build meaningful customer relationships and effectively generate sales. But some is based on misinformation, pressure tactics, and “shortcuts” that could lead to slower audience growth or even a damaged reputation.

I find it so infuriating that people are being pressured and pushed around by membership marketing myths that they believe are the industry standard. In this episode, I get on my soapbox to bust the most common marketing myths and help steer you away from the nonsense.

• Why pressurizing leads can drive them to buy elsewhere
• How to prevent your customers getting buyer’s remorse
• Why a good product isn’t enough to generate sales
• The number of followers you really need

• Open Every Day by Ross O'Lochlainn
• 1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
• Our free Membership Mastermind Facebook Group
• Membership Academy

“Successful marketing is all about getting the right message, to the right person, at the right time.”

“Some people are just not ready to buy when you’re ready to sell. Your business and how you market it is actually more about being there when someone is ready to buy, rather than trying to force the sale too quickly.”

“If you’re not able to connect the dots and to compel people to put their hand in their pocket and pay you for the solution to their problem then it doesn’t matter how great your membership is, it doesn’t matter how great your product is. “Build it and they will come” is not a valid strategy.”

How much should you charge for your membership site? And, what should your pricing strategy look like?

Well, the answers to both of those questions depend on your membership. However, there are some advanced pricing tactics that successful membership sites use when it comes to determining their prices.

As I’m sure you’re aware, getting the price of your membership right is so important. But it’s often more than that, you also need to make sure that you use effective pricing strategies to convince people to join your membership. In this episode, I reveal my top and most advanced tips and tactics to help you with your membership pricing strategy!

Essential Learning Points:

• The differences between B2C and B2B pricing
• Why you need to consider the numbers within your price
• How to create compelling discounts
• Three ways to leverage price anchoring for your membership

Important Links & Mentions:

• ResponseSuite
• Membership Academy

Key Quotes:

“The more choices you give, the more you add friction to the buying process, which can lead to decision fatigue.”

“With a decoy product, you specifically create an option with the entire purpose of that option being that it makes your main option look better. You actually don't want people to buy this product.”

Is your membership community a ghost town? Are you constantly banging your head against a wall trying to figure out ways to get your members to actually converse with each other? This guide has got the answers.

We’ve said it many times before - people come for the content but they stay for the community. However, getting an active, thriving community inside your membership is easier said than done.

It’s not a case of just setting up a Facebook group and assuming that all the conversations will start flowing, and connections will happen automatically. You need to put in the work to drive the discussion and the connections within your community. It can take quite a bit of time to get the discussion flowing, particularly in the early days where this can feel like trying to push a boulder up a hill. But these steps will help get it done.

Essential Learning Points: 

• Start The Discussion Yourself
• Encourage “Low-Hanging Fruit” Conversations
• Don’t Rush To Answer Every Questions Yourself
• Tag Other Members In Discussion
• Include Your Community As Part Of New Member Onboarding

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Academy - https://www.membershipacademy.com/
• The Membership Guys Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/MembershipGuys/groups 

Key Quotes:

“You’re going to have to be the one who drives the conversation. It’s not going to be a case of creating a forum or a Slack channel, giving people the link and seeing the engagements and discussions just happen.”

“If you’re getting to every question first and answering straight away, you’re shutting down discussions before they get a chance to start. So, it can be worth strategically stalling.”

“Embrace the role of not just the expert who answers questions, but as the community leader. Embrace being the person who creates connections between your members and facilitates the best path of learning.”

“The best way to encourage people to be active in your community is to get them in there early and ensure your community is an integral part of the member experience.”

Wow... 5 years of Membership Academy!

And what a rollercoaster ride our fifth year has been.

Listen in as Callie and I recap the highs and lows of the past 12 months of Membership Academy, and look ahead to what's in store in the next year and beyond.

• The real impact that running our first conference had on our membership business
• How we navigated personal illness and a global pandemic
• Changes we've made to our content strategy, and the results we're seeing so far
• The big step up we're taking in the coming year

• Inside the launch of the Membership Academy
• Looking Back at the First 12 Months of the Membership Academy
• Insights & Reflections on Year 2 of the Membership Academy
• Looking Back at Year 3 of the Membership Academy
• Celebrating the 4th Anniversary of Membership Academy

As always, we want to thank each and every one of your for your support over the past 5 years - whether you're a podcast listener, Facebook group member, blog reader or one of our highly treasured Academy members (or indeed, all of the above) - we just want to take this opportunity to thank you, sincerely, for being with us on our journey.

A membership has many moving parts, lots of technical elements, and will take plenty of hard work to get started.

But there is one element of running a membership site that is constant and, if you don’t have it, you won’t keep your membership alive.

If you don’t have an audience, you won’t have a membership.

So, if you’re just starting out and eager to get your membership going, it’ll pay dividends if you invest in finding and growing your audience now. This classic episode of The Membership Guys will show you how.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why it’s important to build your audience before you release your product
• Where the best places are to look for your potential audience
• How finding your audience will also help you fine-tune your membership content and marketing strategy
• Where you can go to learn more about establishing and growing your audience

Important Links & Mentions:

• How to Generate Email Leads for Your Membership Site
• Using Segmentation to Increase Leads and Member Sales
• How To Use Content Marketing To Sell Your Online Membership
• Marketing Tactics for Attracting New Members
• 4 Ways to Discover What Your Audience REALLY Want from your Membership

Key Quotes:

“If you’re building a product, you need to have someone to sell it to!”

 “Passionate people find each other and they congregate around different places online.”

“A lot of your initial audience building efforts are going to center around finding where your particular crowd are and hanging out with them.”

“Don’t take it for granted that your existing audience will have an interest in what you’re doing with your membership.”

Setting boundaries is essential if you want your membership to be productive and positive for you – and your members.

But how do you do it without cutting people off, coming across as aloof or inaccessible, and how can you ensure your members are having their questions answered whilst still respecting your boundaries.

It’s certainly a balancing act, but it’s one you can perfect by putting into practice some of these tips and tricks. We’ve tested and refined these approaches over time with our own Membership Academy and our members have also found these approaches to be beneficial in their memberships too.

Tune in to find out how we, and many other membership site owners, set healthy boundaries with our members that benefit everyone. 

Essential Learning Points:

• Why opening yourself up to more communication can actually reduce contact overwhelm
• Some of the best tools and tactics we’ve used to set healthy boundaries within our membership
• Why setting the right boundaries will benefit your members as much as you

Important Links & Mentions:

• Is Starting a Membership Website the Right Move for You?
• Recommended Tools & Resources
• How to Add an Online Forum to your Membership Website
• Live Membership Q&A with Mike and Callie
• Membership Academy

Key Quotes:

 “Your members will contact you and any successful membership site owner will respond when they do reach out. That’s not to say that you can’t set boundaries and that you can’t be the one to set the terms.”

 “When people know that they don’t have to try hard to reach you, that takes the urgency out of the equation.”

 “Nobody should be in a position where they send you a message and they have no idea of when to expect a response.”

 “Setting and managing expectations is good not just for you, but for your members too.”

“Cancellation” is a word that sends a shiver down the spine of any membership site owner, but are membership site owners missing a trick when it comes to how they handle cancelled members?

In our own membership, Membership Academy, 25% of members who leave end up rejoining. This is why it’s essential not to burn your bridges – and to put a rock-solid win-back strategy in place.

Join us in this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast to learn what a win-back campaign is, how to structure it, and what some of the essential tactics you need to use are.

Essential Learning Points:

• Where many membership site owners are getting it wrong when it comes to cancelled members
• How to create a win-back sequence that gives lapsed members a great reason to come back
• What the three key notes you need to hit are if you want to create a compelling case for re-joining your membership

Important Links & Mentions:

• Try These Tactics to Pre-empt and Prevent Member Cancellations
• 4 Essential Email Automations Every Membership Website Needs
• Facebook Remarketing Strategies for Membership Websites
• What To Do (And What to Avoid) When Someone Cancels Their Membership
• Membership Academy
• Membership Mastermind from The Membership Guys

Key Quotes:

“People may leave your membership site for a variety of reasons and many of those reasons will have nothing to do with them being unhappy with your membership.”

“You need to give people enough time to realize what they’re missing, to get past the issue that may have caused them to leave in the first place.”

 “As part of your win-back campaign, you should be asking outright – what would it take for you to return?”

 “At Membership Academy, we find that about 25% of members who leave come back.”

Your blog and your website host all of the content used in your marketing – so how do you join the dots between your blog and your membership?

There are plenty of ways membership site owners can do this, but many don’t because they’ve heard bad advice from marketing ‘gurus’ or they’re worried about sounding salesy.

The good news is there are direct and indirect ways of linking from your blog to your membership – and all of them are good, easy ideas to implement!

So, listen in to this episode to learn why it’s so important to build that path from your blog to your membership and how you can do it – with examples from ourselves and our members at Membership Academy.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why it’s so essential that you use your blog as a promotional channel for your membership
• Direct and indirect approaches you can use to drive traffic your membership from your blog
• Why you need to discount one particular piece of advice that some internet marketers swear by

Important Links & Mentions:

• How To Use Content Marketing To Sell Your Online Membership
• Membership Academy
• How to Decide Which Content Should Be Free vs Paid
• How to Generate Email Leads for Your Membership Site
• Facebook Remarketing Strategies for Membership Websites 

Key Quotes:

“Your blog is a primary place to promote your membership.”

 “Often all someone needs to be ready to buy is awareness that you have a solution to their problem.”

“We get so many people clicking through from the CTA on our thank you page and we have so many members inside our community whose sales significantly increased once they added that CTA to their thank you pages as well.”

“You need to make sure, if you’re getting people subscribing to your email list, that you have an initial series of emails that sells your membership.”

Despite my protests over the years, I’m ready to admit that there are a few instances where it is a good idea to use a closed door membership model.

Some of them are very niche, some of them require a few “ifs” and asterisks, but they are entirely valid and are all better suited to a closed door model.

This episode is well worth checking out if you’re just starting out or if you’re trying new things with your membership. It could make a foundational difference to the way you run your membership!

Essential Learning Points:

• What the difference is between closed door and evergreen membership models
• The six situations that suit a closed door membership model best
• The one universal truth that applies to every membership model

Important Links & Mentions:

• 5 Reasons Why I Dislike the Closed Door Membership Launch Strategy
• Why You Should Run a Beta Test for Your Membership Site
• Creating an MVP to Test and Validate Your Membership Idea
• Lean Live Launch strategy
• Promoting Your Membership Site with an Affiliate Program

Key Quotes:

 “If your model uses cohorts – a set intake of students and schedule – then the closed door model is essential.”

 “If you’ve been running your membership for a year or two and you know that there is a clearly-defined off-season period – where demand subsides and sales drop – then you might be better served by taking sales and marketing out of the equation for that period.”

“Whether you choose an evergreen model or the closed door approach, keep in mind that you still need to show up for your existing members.”

In this episode of the Membership Geeks Podcast, I discuss the common mistakes made with the closed door membership model, and why it may not be the one-size-fits-all solution it's often made out to be.

From neglecting existing members to the dangers of overhyping, we explore the potential pitfalls of this fringe membership strategy.

In this episode:

- Why is focusing solely on launch promotions a mistake when using the closed door membership model?

- What are the common mistakes and misconceptions around implementing a closed door membership model?

- Key differences between closed-door and open-door membership models, and how might they impact member retention and community energy

- What are the drawbacks and dangers of employing scarcity in marketing, especially within a closed door membership model?

We really appreciate you choosing to listen to us and for supporting the podcast.

We would be eternally grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show. They're extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and we read each and every one personally!

Finally, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to make sure that you never miss an episode.

Community is often the heart of membership sites but working out the best way to introduce it to your membership isn’t as easy it might seem.

Often, we see debates around how to host membership communities that end up focusing on quantity of engagement, rather than quality.

Quantity isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not always what you’re actually aiming for.

If you want to find the signal in the noise and determine the right community model for your membership site, you’re going to need to dig a little deeper into your purpose, your membership structure, and the goals your audience have.

This episode of The Membership Guys podcast will help you do that digging!

Essential Learning Points:

• What the Signal vs Noise ratio is in communities and why understanding the differentiation is important
• Why understanding your membership and its purpose is key to deciding the role your community should play
• What we have learned (and are still learning) about our own experiments with forums and Facebook groups

Important Links & Mentions:

• Should I use a Forum or Facebook Group for my community?
• Do You REALLY Need to Add a Community to Your Membership?
• How to Add an Online Forum to your Membership Website
• Membership Mastermind from The Membership Guys

Key Quotes:

“It is crucial to understand that activity and engagement are not the same thing.”

“The importance of your signal to noise ratio will depend on how important community is to your membership.”

“We’ve clearly defined the role of the forum and the Facebook group, and how the two connect. Because of that, we’re not experiencing any problems.”

 “The type of role that your community plays is entirely up to you and it’s going to be dependent on what you know will work best for your audience.”

Member retention is critical to the long-term success of your membership website.

It costs 7-10 times more on average to win a new member than it does to hold on to an existing one; and if you’re losing more members than you bring in then your business won’t last long!

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, we’re giving you 21 quick tips for improvements you can make to your membership strategy in order to improve your member retention.

Every industry, topic and niche has its fair share of jargon.

And memberships are no different.

There’s already so much to juggle as a membership site owner, so the last thing you want to have to worry about is needing to wrap your head around all of the lingo!

So to make it easier for you, we’ve rounded up the 9 key terms and phrases you need to know if you run a membership.