Memberships come in all shapes and sizes but the majority that we work with follow content and community models.
Couple this with the fact that content marketing is, in our opinion, the most effective marketing strategy for memberships, and you find yourself in a tricky situation.
If it’s all content, where do you draw the line between free (used as part of your marketing strategy) and paid (kept inside your membership)?
Deciding which pieces of your content should be free and which should be paid means making difficult decisions – some of which might feel arbitrary – but there are five questions you can ask yourself to bring some sense to the situation…
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The typical membership site owner creates a LOT of content.
Not just for their paying members, but as part of their marketing strategy too.
It’s a lot of work – so anything you can do to increase the impact and the reach of the content you create is a big win.
Content repurposing can help you squeeze every drop of value from your courses, tutorials, blogs, videos and podcasts; and in today’s episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I’m joined by the queen of content repurposing – Amy Woods from Content10x – to discuss ways that you can repurpose your membership content.
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Wow, time flies when you’re rocking the membership world!
In what has become an annual tradition – we’re celebrating the 3rd anniversary of Membership Academy with a very special episode looking back at the past 12 months of our business.
And of course I’m joined once again by the other (and arguably better) half of The Membership Guys, the one and only Callie Willows, to discuss year three of running the Academy.
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As your membership grows, so too does the likelihood that you’ll encounter negative feedback from your members.
You can’t please everyone, it’s a fools errand to even try. But what do you do if one of your members says something you don’t like about your membership?
How you react to and process negative feedback can have real implications on the way you run your membership.
In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I share my advice on handling negativity the right way, and give my tips for turning it around and using this sort of feedback for the betterment of your business.
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We’re HUGE fans of podcasting…
Not only are we avid listeners, but we also host our own show, which for us has been a catalyst to our success.
In truth, having a podcast comes with a wide range of benefits that go way beyond building brand authority or connecting with your audience…
Which are two pretty awesome benefits in their own right if you ask us?!
But when utilised correctly, a podcast can become a powerful marketing tool in your membership marketing arsenal.
Whether you’re just looking for ways to make your show a little more strategic…
Or trying to figure out your content strategy…
There are many ways you can use your podcast to promote your membership…
And here are six of the best…
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“The average length of time someone will stay subscribed to your membership is just 3 months.”
You’ve heard that before, right?
Well here’s the truth – that 3 month average subscription length? It’s nonsense. Utter nonsense.
In today’s episode I look at where the whole 3 month myth came from and why it’s persisted – but more importantly I talk about what the actual average subscription length for membership sites is.
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On June 20th, Facebook officially announced that they are trialling the option for Group admins to charge a recurring subscription fee to their members.
This is definitely a huge move, and one that capitalises on the fact that there are already many membership owners using Facebook Groups “unofficially” for their paid community.
So what does this mean for the membership industry?
Should we all pack up our things and move our memberships over to Facebook?
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Jared Falk from Musora and Drumeo joins Callie on the last episode of Season 2 of Behind the Membership.
Jared has not one, but four membership sites, all in different music niches. And with over 10,000 active members in his original membership site, Drumeo, and having served over 200,000 customers so far in his business, he’s achieved a lot by anyone’s standards.
In this episode Jared is discussing world domination when it comes to membership sites, including how he is replicating his successful drum membership site into other markets, and how he’s grown his business to a team of 35, with most working on location in his offices in Canada.
And he reveals why he’s always trying new things when it comes to marketing and retention and how what works for one site doesn’t necessarily work for another.
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When we talk about membership sites, typically it’s in the context of being the main part of the membership owner’s business.
However that’s not the only way to do it.
In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I dig into 4 of the main ways you could create a membership site that’s secondary and supplementary to the real focus of your business.
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In this episode of Behind the Membership, Callie is talking with Kim Jimenez from The Business Lounge, a membership site for online business owners.
Kim has had her membership for nearly two years now, and in this episode she discusses how she didn’t initially want to create a membership site, what changed that opinion, and how starting one has actually transformed her business and life.
Kim also talks about how she is using YouTube, webinars, and trials to attract new members, and why she has both a Facebook group and an onsite forum for her membership community, and how she balances the two.
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This is the ultimate “how long is a piece of string” question.
There’s no exact science or specific formula that will accurately predict how many people are likely to join your membership.
However when setting goals for the launch of a new membership site, or even the growth of an existing one, it’s useful to know whether your aspirations are realistic or just pure delusion!
In this episode, I attempt to answer this unanswerable question, and give my “rule of thumb” guidance for predicting how many people you can realistically expect to join your membership.
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In this episode of Behind the Membership Callie is talking with Nigel Moore all about his membership site, The Tech Tribe.
Nigel offers all members a personal coaching call when they join, has a private coaching section in his community and creates most of his content based on member questions and needs. As a result he’s really tuned into what his members, and his potential members, are looking for and what will help them to get results.
Here Nigel also talks about getting a member a day without marketing, and what happens when he actually turns his marketing funnel on. As well as the challenge of content creation, doing things that don’t necessarily scale, introducing a higher membership tier into the mix, and more.
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In today’s online world you’re increasingly competing with a lot of noise and distraction when it comes to your members time and attention.
How do you stand out?
What can you do to deliver a member experience that will make logging into your membership and spending time in your community preferable to watching hilarious cat videos on YouTube or chatting with friends on Facebook?
Andrew and Pete are two of the most creative content marketers in the world. And that creativity carries over to their own membership community too.
In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, we look at what they’re doing to craft a truly unique and remarkable member experience, and they share their tips on how you can think outside the lines and start being more creative with your membership.
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In today’s episode of Behind the Membership Callie talks with Terra Dawn from Uncork Your Dork and the Wham! Bam! Business Plan!
Terra’s had her membership for over a year now and in this episode they’re talking about why she initially moved from Teachable to WordPress and why she’s recently moved her community from an onsite forum to Mighty Networks, and the effect that this has had on both her engagement and her retention.
Terra also discusses how she uses challenges and summits to market and grow her membership site, how the membership has changed her business focus and what she’s doing next to grow the membership even further
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So your membership is ticking along nicely, you’re bringing in new members at a steady rate (and they’re sticking around too), you’ve got your systems and processes nailed and everything is running like clockwork.
What next?
There are a few different paths you can take for growing and scaling your membership business; but in this episode I want to talk about my favourite approach, one that’s perfectly suited to the membership model.
And that is creating an ‘ecosystem’ of products and services with your membership smack-bang at the heart of everything.
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In this episode of Behind the Membership Callie talks with Mark Warner about his membership site for teachers, Teaching Packs.
Mark has a very different model to most membership site owners, offering only a very low cost non-recurring annual membership. So we’re talking about why Mark made that decision, and how it’s enabled him to attract 15,000 teachers to his membership over the last five years, as well as completely transform his own life in the process.
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