What happens when the buzz of your initial membership launch dies down?
In many ways, the launch of your membership is some of the easiest marketing you’ll ever do!
Bringing something fresh to the market automatically attracts curiosity and attention…
But how do you make sales once the initial buzz has worn off?
Whether your membership launch finished last week or a couple of years ago…
Here are some ways you can attract new members…
1. Tap into social proof
The first thing to do is to turn to the people who DID join during your initial launch.
Tap into what’s going on inside your membership to get some initial testimonials.
Get people to publicly share details of any quick wins…
Take screenshots of any positive, legitimate comments people are making in your community…
Get videos and quotes!
Maybe encourage members with an affiliate program so they get a little kickback on any referrals they send your way.
Remember, when you started your membership, you didn’t have any members from which to generate social proof.
Once you do – that helps to create FOMO (fear of missing out).
you to your audience
These are the results that people are missing out on by not joining your membership.
And that can be extremely motivating for them to sign up!
There’s also the safety factor too.
Maybe someone was a little hesitant about joining such a new membership…
But once they see that other people are in there and that it’s safe…
That kind of validation which comes from other people could be a huge part in driving the next wave of new members.
2. Ask people why they joined
What was it about your membership that encouraged people to join when it was essentially a bit of a risk?
Someone joining your membership in its first few weeks is taking a risk.
There’s the risk that there’s not enough value, content, or that you’re unknown…
You may be known within your field, but people may not know how good a teacher you’re going to be or how well you’re going to serve them inside your community!
You want to know what it was that made them push through the normal objections that people have to buying something…
This is going to give you an interesting angle on what you can focus on within your marketing to attract new members.
If it turns out that the main reason people joined was because of certain features, then it’s a good indicator that doing more of the same stuff is going to help drive sales!
3. Find out why people didn't join
You also want to find out why people DIDN’T join your membership.
If you’ve been marketing your membership to your email list…
Or had a waitlist of people who initially registered their interest and not everyone on that list joined up…
You want to reach out and find out why – especially if they signed up for a waitlist in advance!
Those people have expressed interest so there’s a reason they haven’t followed through on it.
Now, it’s important to approach them with transparency…
Tell them you want to know what it was that would have made them join your membership – that can help expose gaps in your marketing strategy.
And we can pretty much guarantee there will be some objections you haven’t thought of.
Being able to identify those is going to help you zero in on what you need to focus on and improve.
Plus, it’s also going to give you specific language – the words that people use to describe their buying decision or their decision not to buy…
You should be utilizing that and incorporating it into your sales pages and emails!
You also want to give non-buyers another bite of the apple.
you giving people that second chance
Just because someone didn’t join during the initial launch doesn’t mean they weren’t interested…
It may be that they forgot or that the timing wasn’t right…
Try them again with a new angle.
A few ways you can entice people to join include:
- A discount or trial (especially if you did this during your launch)
- Another type of incentive, such as bonuses
- A/B testing email subject lines and sales pages
4. Remarket to ‘almost' buyers
Have a Facebook and Google Pixel on your website and sales page to track people who visit them.
These people are showing enough interest to check out what’s on offer…
They just haven’t followed through for one reason or another…
Remarket to these guys, especially to those that proceeded to go to checkout, but didn’t complete the transaction.
Abandoned checkouts are a goldmine for salvaging lost sales.
Use Facebook or Google ads as an automatic follow-up on an ongoing basis!
You can have this ticking away in the background…
TRUST us, it’s probably going to be one of the most cost-effective remarketing campaigns you’ll ever do for your membership!
5. Get more specific about your membership
One of the challenges when marketing a membership is that they comprise lots of different things!
During your initial launch, you’re likely to be focusing on your membership as a whole package…
However, that hasn’t been enough to sway some people to join!
So, once your initial launch is over, get more specific about the content and individual features from your membership.
Start zeroing in on one of your courses…
Or group together what your membership offers for people in different segments of your audience…
For example, our Membership Academy has people in varying segments: planning, launching, building, and growing, memberships…
If you have audience segmentation, then maybe one day, you talk about the features of your membership that are tailored towards segment one of your audience…
The next week, your marketing is all about segment two, and so on…
Then, see what sort of stuff resonates the best within different segments of your audience!
6. Plan more event marketing
Your membership launch is an event – it’s a time-specific thing where you’re concentrating on a lot of marketing activity with the aim of getting eyeballs on you!
Now, beyond that launch, your marketing becomes more ongoing…
It becomes more evergreen…
But, bringing event marketing back into the mix later on can boost sales!
So, aim to run several promotional events throughout the year.
when your event starts
These could be sale-based promotions…
They can be things like challenges, web summits, themed months…
They could even be an actual live event!
Now, most of what we’re talking about here applies to an evergreen membership (one that’s open all year round).
Memberships that only open three or four times a year are relying almost fully on event marketing – where the event is a reopening of the doors!
You don’t need to close and reopen your doors to be able to utilize event marketing…
You can simply do promotions!
You can run a big promo around the fact that your price is increasing or that you have a special guest coming into the membership…
Whatever it is, you can run a limited-time promotion to capture new members.
7. Put out organic marketing activity
The most consistent, effective method of marketing for memberships is multi-touch marketing…
By that, we mean putting out a lot of content out into the world aka content marketing.
This includes:
- Blogging
- Podcasting
- Live video
- Recorded video
- Engaging with people in free Facebook groups
- Engaging with people across social media
- Nurturing your email list
More often than not, it takes a lot of interactions to develop a relationship with your audience…
To establish your credibility and build trust so that better-quality members join and stick around!
With a consistent level of slow-burn marketing, you can make sure people understand that you have a membership and why they should join.
And this happens by having a consistent presence in your marketing alongside the big promotions where you’re making a lot of noise!
To conclude…
Attracting new members after your launch is a continuous marketing process that involves promotional activities, remarketing, reaching out to people, and digging into the specifics of your membership.
When you add these things into the mix, we guarantee you’ll start seeing BETTER results!
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