This year we embark on our biggest and most daunting challenge to date – running our very own live conference: Retain 2019
It’s something we’ve wanted to do for years, and we’re beyond excited to bring together hundreds of membership site owners from around the world for 2 days of amazing speakers and high-level networking.
But the journey has not all been smooth sailing…
In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I take you behind the scenes of the story so far, revealing our thought process, strategy and sharing the highs and lows of orchestrating this kind of event.
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Your membership sales page is perhaps the single most important piece of the puzzle for attracting member signups.
Whether it’s a cold lead or someone who has been following you for years – it’s your sales page that needs to seal the deal and help them to make the final decision to join your membership.
So it’s crucial that you get it right!
In this episode I walk through the key elements that every membership sales page should have in order to maximise new member sales.
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Most online memberships involve content.
A lot of content.
Not only are you creating content for your membership, but often you’re blogging, podcasting or creating videos as part of your marketing strategy too. It can be a lot to handle!
That’s why it’s crucial to have a solid plan for your content production, so you know well in advance what you need to create in order to schedule accordingly and avoid constantly doing everything at the last minute.
In this episode I’m joined by Janet Murray to discuss how to plan an entire year’s worth of content, and the tips and tools you need to help you stay on track.
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Considering starting a membership website in 2019?
Perhaps you should be…
In this episode I look at 6 types of people who are especially well suited to starting a membership site, and discuss some of the various strategies they could consider.
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And so another year draws to a close…
How was 2018 for you and your membership?
Rather than lament the passage of time, once again we’re wrapping up the year by taking a look back at the most loved episodes of The Membership Guys Podcast, counting down the top 10 most downloaded episodes of the past 12 months.
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Lead generation is a critical part of the sales process for membership owners.
For most membership businesses, this means getting people to subscribe to your email marketing list, where you can engage with them further on a more direct basis and guide them towards joining your membership site.
In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I talk about how to convert website visitors into email leads, and give my top tips for increasing both the quantity and the quality of the leads that you generate.
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It’s easy to get carried away when creating a membership website.
We often turn to other memberships for inspiration, and as a result end up with a wishlist of shiny bells and whistles that we absolutely MUST have for our own website.
And the end result of cramming all of those features into your membership is a convoluted frankenstein’s monster of a website that’s a pain to manage and an even bigger nightmare for members to use.
It’s not just the tech side of things that people tend to over-complicate; we see the same thing happening with marketing, sales and overall business strategy too.
In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I warn against adding too much complexity to your membership business and discuss the benefits of embracing simplicity.
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Membership websites have a whole mess of moving parts – plugins, themes, integrations, payment processors – they all add up to make memberships one of the most complicated types of sites that you can build.
And even if you have help getting everything up and running, chances are there’ll be numerous times you’ll need a bit of tech support in the day to day running of your membership.
But finding reliable help with the technical side of building and maintaining a membership can be a crap-shoot.
In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I run through some of the most viable options for finding tech support that you can rely on for different stages of your membership.
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The “one to many” aspect of a membership site is what makes it such an attractive business model.
The ability to leverage your time, skills, experience and expertise in order to serve hundreds or even thousands, without having to deal with issues of increased expensive, strained resources or limited capacity that can come when trying to grow other types of businesses make memberships one of the most scalable models there is.
However sometimes in order to get to the next level, you need to do a few things that don’t scale too well…
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You’re running a successful membership business…
Members are consistently coming in, they’re consuming your content, taking part in your community…
And most importantly, they’re starting to see results.
Sounds great doesn’t it?
For some people this is the goal…
All they want is to hit a certain point in their business, and once that happens, they’re happy to steadily grow it on a monthly or yearly basis…
Beyond that, they don’t particularly aspire for anything more…
And that’s perfectly fine…
But for others this is just the beginning…
They want to take things to the next level, beyond increasing subscriptions and revenue…
If the latter sounds like you, then you should read on to find out how to make this happen.
Here are five ideas to take a successful membership to the next level…
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Do you have any bad habits that could be hurting your membership?
What we see time and time again is that membership owners get through that initial slog…
They’ve got everything set up and running, they’re in a nice rhythm…
And then the bad habits can start to creep in…
We all have them…
And they can have a big impact on the long-term success of your business if they’re not recognized and managed.
One of the best things about running a membership is that because you’re building it based on recurring income from potentially thousands of members…
There’s plenty of cliff to walk back on if you’re getting close to the edge…
Now that’s a fantastic thing…
But the flip side is that sometimes you don’t notice problems in your membership until you’ve fallen off the edge of said cliff…
So how do you avoid this?
Don’t worry, we’ve got your back…
Here are 11 common bad habits that could be hurting your membership site…
And what to do if you’re falling foul of one or more of them…
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Cancellations are every membership site owner’s least favorite part of the member lifecycle…
But the truth is they’re unavoidable…
We all experience them…
And while we may not have 100% control over a member’s decision to stay or leave, we’re not completely helpless in the matter…
There are a handful of tactics you can implement in an attempt to pre-empt and (hopefully) prevent member cancellations…
Now I know what you’re thinking…
Will doing these things keep your members signed up indefinitely?
No probably not…
But a mere 1% improvement in member churn could have a significant financial impact on your business…
And that’s a positive for anyone…
So let’s delve into those tactics and explain how they can help you retain some members…
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Are you worried about the rate at which members are leaving your membership?
When you receive cancellations from those who’ve only been in your community for a few months, it can feel disheartening…
And sometimes you’re left scratching your head asking yourself…
“What’s the point of running a membership if my members only stay for a few months”…
This thought process may have even led you to consider giving up your membership all together and exploring other business models…
Like selling online courses…
Or going back to one-on-one client work…
If this is something you’re going through right now then I have some news for you…
Cancellations are a natural part of the member life cycle…
And something we all experience…
The fact that people sign up to your membership and don’t stay for life doesn’t make the membership model a bad one…
So if you’re currently finding yourself questioning the validity of your membership…
Or the model as a whole because of churn…
Here are some thoughts that may help you see cancellations from a new perspective…
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With so many moving parts involved in building and running a membership site, the costs can quickly add up.
And while constantly trying to penny-pinch and always going with the cheap option isn’t the best approach, it’s also prudent to ensure you’re not unnecessarily wasting money.
In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I share 9 ways to cut your day to day costs when running a membership business.
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Have you thought about getting guest experts involved in your membership site?
Inviting other people to create content and contribute to your membership can expand the amount of information and expertise you’re able to offer.
Yes, your audience wants access to you and your knowledge on the topic of interest, but they can also benefit from hearing other people’s experiences and niche expertise.
This provides a far richer learning experience and a larger number of resources for your membership audience.
If you attract well-known authorities, you can gain credibility by association.
Being able to use these prominent faces as a stamp of approval can promote loyalty within your membership and attract new people to your stuff.
Not only do guest experts bring great value, they can also lighten your workload.
If you’re running a number of live workshops, your guests can takeover and provide the slides and research.
Having regular guests in your membership can really decrease the amount of content production you do personally.
When you’re the single source of content, your members can get demanding.
Move away from this and the dynamic of your membership might change in a positive way.
How do you go about bringing guest experts into your membership site?
Here are a few of our top tips.
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At some point in your membership, you may decide that you want to increase your price.
You’ll often find that something so simple can actually end up being big ol’ can of worms.
So how do you approach it?
We have tips for increasing your prices and the strategy to use that will make doing so far easier…
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