You’re excited to launch your membership and are working through the planning process – validating your idea, researching your audience and the marketplace…
And then you see it.
A huge well-known brand already has a membership – just like yours – and is operating in your target market.
Or maybe you’ve already launched your membership, but are quickly running out of ideas on how to standout from the big names in your space.
Either scenario is a difficult one to manage.
The thought of competing against a major player can be daunting to say the least…
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So we say goodbye to another year – and what a year 2020 was!
It was certainly a busy year for Membership Academy, as world events pushed us to refocus on how best to serve our community – leading to some big changes and additions.
We thought it would be useful to recap all of the new additions and features from Membership Academy during the past 12 months, just in case you missed anything!
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Instagram is by far one of the most popular social media platforms in the world.
Everyone from influencers and small businesses to large corporates are using it daily to promote their brands…
And you can see why with all its nifty features.
But that’s not what Instagram was originally designed for.
Its original purpose as a photo sharing app was for users to post images of food, sunsets and selfies.
That’s why out of all of the social media platforms, Instagram isn’t always the easiest one to use to promote your membership business…
One of the main reasons for this is that it doesn’t allow you to share a link in your posts like you can on other channels such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
So how do you actively promote your membership without the ability to post links?
Use Instagram Stories.
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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.
With only a few days of the year left, 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.
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Running a membership business over the holidays can be a challenge.
It should be a time to take a break, sit back and relax.
But, maybe not everyone in your community celebrates the festive season, so you think you should carry on working throughout…
Or maybe this is your first year managing a membership site and you’re not sure how to navigate working over the festive period.
If either of these sound like you, then you should read on…
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Branding is all about your logo, your website colors, a memorable tagline and your company name… right?
Well, yes and no…
They play their part, but your brand is so much more than that.
It’s what all of these things together represent.
When it comes to your membership, it’s important to develop a brand strategy that reflects your business and conveys it to your audience in a positive way.
This will help you attract new members, retain existing ones and create a loyal fan base.
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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…
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When you first launch a membership it’s quite common to offer your initial members an amazing deal to entice them to join.
But a few years down the line when your membership has evolved, new content and features have been added, and your member base has grown, you might be regret being so generous.
Perhaps you’ve increased the price of your membership for new subscribers and now you’re questioning whether it’s fair your founding members continue to pay so little.
Maybe it’s time to increase the price they’re paying…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
In this article, we look at one of our favourite tactics for member communication, engagement and retention – the humble “member roundup email”.
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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…
In fact there are 6 different types of launches that can come into play at various stages of your membership journey…
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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.
If you’ve gone through the process of researching membership platforms and plugins, you’ll know how stressful it can be.
Once your membership is already up and running, it can be tricky to switch out to a completely different tech solution.
It’s little wonder that people have a lot of anxiety about deciding on which platform or plugin is right for them.
However if you have found yourself in a position where changing your membership platform is a must – here is everything you need to know to make things go smoothly…
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Can you tell the difference between good marketing advice and bad marketing advice?
There’s a lot of info out there about marketing your membership, but in the world of online business unfortunately a lot of it is unhelpful noise at best, and at worst, could be damaging to your reputation.
Many of us have learnt the hard way to stay away from marketers who try and sell you their secret shortcut or silver bullet, however, some of these myths are so common, they’re almost believed to be the industry standard of membership marketing.
So, how do we avoid the nonsense?
I’ve rounded up the six most common membership marketing myths, and how you can avoid them…
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Katie Wardrobe from Midnight Music, a membership specialising in helping music teachers with technology, is the final guest for season four of Behind the Membership.
Midnight Music has been running for 4 years now and while it has always been successful, Katie has managed to nearly double her member base during the current pandemic, even though she has actually been focused on providing more free content and resources for her audience during this time.
In this episode we talk about how Katie has started providing her previous member only webinars for free each month, attracting thousands of attendees each time, her experiments with creating live courses to keep members engaged and boost sales, and why she reduced her price during the pandemic.
We also talk about the increased challenges involved when schools are paying for a teachers membership, how Katie engages her members by answering forum questions via video, hiring a content manager to keep her free content on track and much, much more!
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