Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote and grow your membership, hands down.
Free content like blogs, podcasts, and videos will help you increase traffic, grow your audience, generate leads, and directly drive membership sales.
More importantly, it enables you to demonstrate your expertise and build trust with your audience.
And that is essential to attracting members who will stick around long term.
Consistently putting out quality free content is a must – but you can take things further and elevate your content marketing strategy to be even more effective for growing your membership.
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Some of the key principles and cornerstones of running a fruitful and brilliant membership are true regardless of whether you’re just starting your membership journey or looking back on your humble beginnings with fondness.
If you’re starting out, these tips could save you a lot of time, stress, and confusion.
And if you’re an established “membershipper”, these tips could be a perfect prompt for you to reinvigorate your membership or solve an issue you’ve been struggling with lately.
Let’s look at the eight essential things you should know before starting a membership…
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Over the years we’ve worked with thousands of memberships of all shapes and sizes; and for all their variety and the niches they occupy, the majority of those memberships have something in common:
They’re based on expertise – they’re founded by an expert in a specialist field, and their currency is their expertise and knowledge.
And they face a catch-22.
You need to demonstrate and prove your expertise in order to persuade people to join your membership.
And the best way to do that is through content marketing.
But giving away your best ideas for free means nobody will want or need to join – right?
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Running a membership site is exciting, rewarding, and… a lot of work.
Sometimes it can be mentally taxing – so when it comes to thinking up fresh ideas for new membership content or features, it’s not uncommon to find that the well has run a little dry…
We all need a helping hand with getting those creative juices flowing every now and again!
That’s why I’ve brought together 5 of the best ways to generate ideas and inspiration for your membership site.
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If you’re trying to level up or learn something, the first person you’ll look for is the person at the top of their game – the big name, the leading voice, in a given subject area.
As a membership site owner, your focus should be on becoming that person!
But simply knowing your stuff isn’t enough.
It’s all well and good having knowledge and expertise, but people need to know about it!
You need to make sure that you’re taking steps to position yourself as the go-to person in your industry.
So… how do you do it?
Here are my top 10 ways to market yourself and your membership site so that you become known as the go-to person in your industry
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You don’t need me to tell you that the world is currently in crisis and that countries are starting to take measures we’ve never seen before.
As more and more people are forced to social distance or self-isolate, and the economy starts to feel the repercussions, it’s natural to feel anxious and uncertain about what this means for you, your loved ones, and your business.
But what are the rules on this? Should you still be marketing your membership when the world is in crisis? Is it insensitive to worry about higher churn at a time like this? How can you better help your members at this time?
These are just a few of the questions we’ve been answering inside our own membership site, Membership Academy, over this past week. And I want to share some of our answers with you here too.
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As membership site owner, the ability to protect your premium content is at the heart of how your business functions.
And when that protection is threatened you, naturally, start to panic.
So it stands to reason that you’d want to take action to prevent “hit and run” members who sign up, download everything you have to offer, and then cancel straight away.
However before you batten down the hatches, make sure you listen to our advice on how best to handle this sort of situation…
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The most successful memberships are those that cater to a specific niche.
Having a niche makes your offering more targeted, which increases the likelihood of someone identifying with the problem your membership solves.
If you want to stand out from the crowd, you can’t just blend in with the crowd. You need to have a specialty.
But how do you figure out your niche?
And what happens once you’ve become successful in a specific area?
Should you stay put, or expand your reach?
Let’s dive in…
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We’re constantly banging the drum on how important it is to have an established audience BEFORE you build and launch a membership.
However for some people the temptation to rush headfirst into their membership is just too strong.
Truth is that if you haven’t built an audience that you can mobilize and monetize, you’re going to find it an uphill struggle trying to get your membership off the ground.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. In this podcast, I share 5 options you have if you’re wanting to build a membership before building your audience.
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Usually when I interview somebody about marketing memberships, I’ve already got a solid level of understanding on the topic… Not this time.
Pinterest is one of those platforms that I know about, sometimes use, and post to without much of a strategy. I know it’s not good practice but, look, I never claimed to be perfect!
When I had the chance to speak to leading Pinterest marketing expert Cara Chace, I felt like I was back at school. I was taking notes so fast I thought the paper was going to catch fire!
The potential for memberships on Pinterest is astonishing – and it’s probably got the best performance for organic content out of any platform.
If you want to know how Pinterest can help you reach more people and get more members, you need to hear Cara’s advice…
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It’s a question that every prospective online membership owner will face: should you hire someone to build your membership website, or try building it yourself?
Or is there a middle ground? Do some of it yourself and then get some professional help on the more technical elements?
As someone who previously ran a web design agency, I have my own opinions on this – however it’s been a number of years since we worked directly with clients, so I reached out to Martin and Lyndsay from Jammy Digital for their thoughts on the matter.
You might be surprised by our perspective…
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Wishlist Member is arguably the granddaddy of WordPress membership plugins, being one of the first available and, for a long time, the go-to membership plugin recommendation.
However in an ever-evolving marketplace of membership plugins that has seen some exciting additions in recent years, does it still measure up?
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Do you know how to use Facebook ads to grow your membership?
Even if your answer is yes, I bet Gavin Bell can help you do it even better!
If you’ve ever wondered how to get started with Facebook ads, or if you’re using them but want to improve their performance, Gavin is THE person to listen to.
As an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, and Facebook ads specialist, what Gavin doesn’t know about advertising isn’t worth knowing!
In fact not only did we turn to Gavin on numerous occasions for a bunch of our high profile clients – but we also worked with him on our own Facebook advertising strategy too.
I recently had the pleasure of picking his brains for this week’s episode of The Membership Guys Podcast.
He didn’t just share one or two pearls of wisdom; he shared an ocean’s worth…
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Build it and they will come.
While that approach may have worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams; it most certainly does not apply to launching a successful membership website.
Time and time again we see cases where people are so entrenched in the process of building their membership site that they haven’t even begun to think about how to get it off the ground.
A good membership site launch plan needs to increase awareness, raise interest and build demand.
By doing this you put yourself in the best possible position to succeed when you open the doors.
The following 5 strategies are straightforward but effective, and can easily be combined with your existing launch plans to make sure your membership site gets off to a good start…
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Launching a membership site is an exciting but nerve wracking time.
You’ve probably put your blood, sweat and tears into creating this site, no doubt losing some sleep along the way.
But when the time comes to actually open the doors, we can often find ourselves hesitating.
What if it all goes wrong?
Running a beta test can be a great way of assuaging this fear, as well as ensuring that you launch the best possible version of your membership.
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Should you allow competitors to join your membership?
When many people answer this question in their minds, it’s a resounding NO.
And usually, fear is at the heart of it.
Fear they will steal your content…
Fear they will steal your secret sauce…
Fear they will poach your members…
And, yes, these are all valid reasons. These situations do happen to people and it has happened to us many times.
But, hang on… that’s not a reason to hit the panic button if you spot a competitor sniffing around your membership!
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