Bucking the trend: 5 Ways to Break From The Membership Norm

There’s a single, absolute truth of memberships, and indeed business in general: there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach.

What works like gangbusters for one membership, can end up completely flopping for another.

So in this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast I wanted to talk about doing things differently – things that go against the grain, break the norms and in some cases contradict what is typically considered best practice in the membership space…

Experimenting Your Way to Success with Holly Gillen

Holly Gillen from Business Cinema Academy and Holly G Studios is joining Callie on this episode of Behind the Membership.

Holly has been running her membership alongside her video production business for 15 months now, after trying lots of other business models previously. Holly shares a lot of great tips for us in this interview, including how she uses challenges to attract new members, her experience with using Kajabi for her membership site, and how important it is to only attract members when they’re ready for your membership.

Must-Listen Podcast Episodes For Launching Your Membership Website

As a membership site owner, your first big test comes with launching your site.

This is the culmination of all of your planning, hard work and preparation; and a great launch can give you the momentum that will carry your membership forward towards long term success.

To help you get off to the best possible start, we’ve rounded up 10 of the most essential episodes of The Membership Guys Podcast for anyone planning their membership launch.

Building a “Non Guru” Membership with Christopher Sutton

Christopher Sutton from Musical U joins Callie on episode 6 of Behind the Membership.

Christopher has run his business for 8 years now, with his membership site being the predominant offering since 2015.  Christopher places a lot of emphasis on user experience and gamification in the membership and unlike many membership site owners, Christopher is also not the figurehead or guru of the membership, in fact most of the content is created by other people.

4 Ways to Ensure That Your Members Will Stick Around

Keeping your members engaged and happy is key to maximizing your member lifecycle and, as a result, ensuring the success of your membership site.

When members aren’t engaged, that’s when they’ll start to question whether it’s worth sticking with your site and whether they’re getting what they’re paying for.

Fortunately there are a variety of things that you can do in order to encourage your members to stick around…

Attracting the Right Kind of Members with Julie Christie

Julie Christie from Togs in Business joins Callie on this week’s episode of Behind the Membership.

Julie’s membership is less than a year old, and Julie shares some great insights into the first 6 months of her membership and how important narrowing down her ideal member has been and why her focus is on quality of members rather than quantity.

Using Video To Add A Personal Touch To Your Membership Site

With a membership site, you’re usually relying on volume in order to scale. And the more members you have, the less able you may feel to actually connect and engage with all of them.

The truth is, there may often be a large percentage of your members that you don’t really know, and that’s okay. But more so than ever, a little extra personal touch can go a long way.

In this article we’re looking at one way to add that personal touch to your membership site, making your members feel welcome and valued, and increasing the likelihood that they will engage with you and your community, and remain members for longer.

Making the Leap from Products to Membership with John Tuggle

John Tuggle from Learning Guitar Now joins Callie on this weeks episode of Behind the Membership.

Learning Guitar Now has been around for over 10 years, starting out selling books, DVDs and standalone courses before adding a membership offering into the mix. John’s membership now accounts for around 75% of his monthly income, with one-off product sales making up the rest and he has a lot of great experience to share with us!

Insights & Reflections on Year 2 of the Membership Academy

Just like that, another year is over. As we reach the 2nd anniversary of Membership Academy, we have some insights and lessons to share from the past 12 months.

In what is sure to become a tradition, I’m joined on this very special episode of the podcast by the real brains behind The Membership Guys, the one and only Callie Willows, to discuss year two of running the Academy.

Restrict Content Pro Review

Restrict Content Pro is a light weight, well developed option that is easy to setup and ideal for simple, single level memberships. 

It’s extensions also make it an excellent choice for magazine style memberships, group memberships and as a base for custom development.

Thinking Outside the Membership Box with Avalon Yarnes from Avalon Cakes School

In this episode of Behind the Membership Callie talks with Avalon Yarnes from Avalon Cakes School. What makes Avalon and her membership so different is just how creative she is, in both her marketing and her retention tactics.

Here we talk leaving her job to start the membership, thinking outside the box to create a great retention hook and gamify her site, creative marketing, the challenge of trying to do all the things, and much more!

Pivoting A Membership with Colin Gray from The Podcast Host Academy

Colin Gray from The Podcast Host Academy is joining Callie on this episode of Behind the Membership. Colin actually had a false start with his membership site, something many of us fear, but is now starting to thrive after pivoting his approach and brand.

Here we talk creating ongoing value, the flow between free and paid content, the part live support plays in his membership, how he went from a member a week to a member a day, why he’s not sure about having a community and where to look for marketing and retention inspiration.

Idea to Launch in 2 weeks with Stacey Harris from Hit the Mic Backstage

In the first episode of Behind the Membership, Callie is joined by Stacey Harris from Hit the Mic Backstage.

Stacey has been running her membership for 2 years now and we discuss the running of her site, including how she managed to launch in just 2 weeks, the sales funnel she uses to attract new members and how a $1 trial has effected sales, how her membership has evolved over the last 2 years and her challenges and highlights.

The Most Effective Tools For Reducing Your Membership Churn

Retention is king when it comes to membership sites. After all, for recurring revenue to be impactful, it needs to actually recur!

We’ve talked several times on the blog and podcast before about ways to increase retention, and it’s definitely a topic that we could easily spend hours on!

But it’s one thing to talk about improving retention and another thing to actually implement, so in this article we’re taking a look not at why retention is important, but at some tools you can use to up your retention game and reduce your membership churn (and no, you don’t need to be using all of them!)

Grant Baldwin on Growing Your Membership with Public Speaking

One of the most effective ways to position yourself as an authority in your industry is through public speaking, and done right it can be a great way to grow your membership business.

However for many the idea of standing up and speaking in front of a room full of strangers is the stuff that nightmares are made of!

And even if you’re comfortable with public speaking, then there’s the question of how you actually get booked, how do you make sure your presentation is good and – importantly – how do you make it a worthwhile activity for you and your business.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, we speak to Grant Baldwin from The Speaker Lab about how to get started with public speaking and use it as a platform to grow your business.

It’s Time for a Reality Check about Membership Site Tech

With our community of thousands of membership owners, we see the same patterns emerging when it comes to wrestling with membership site tech.

People starting their site build and then 6 months later they’re still stuck, spinning their wheels, trying to get everything perfect and making no progress!

Often they’ll blame this on the technology being too tough, but more often than not it’s because of their own unrealistic expectations.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I give a kick up the backside to anyone stuck with the tech side of building their membership site.