Louise Brogan from Social Bee Academy joins Callie for this episode of Behind the Membership. Louise has run the Social Bee Academy for around 18 months now and shares what’s been working for her when it comes to attracting new members, including how connecting one to one with people via in person workshops as well as online via Facebook and LinkedIn messenger have been great ways to grow her site.
Louise also talks about the challenges and highlights of her membership journey so far, including why she has moved from a closed model to always being open, and how seeing the results from her members makes everything worthwhile. And you’ll also hear why Louise plans to focus even more on her membership this year and really make the membership a priority in her business!
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When it comes to running a membership, most people focus their attention on the content, community, or managing the business itself.
It makes sense, of course…
After all, that’s what people sign up for…
And that’s how you make money…
The thing is, you can have the best content in the world and a super slick platform to host your community…
But if your member experience isn’t up to scratch then people just aren’t going to engage.
They’ll stop logging in, consuming your content and participating in your community…
Which ultimately means they’ll be less likely to stick around long term…
And that’s the last thing you want to happen…
So, what can you do to ensure you’re delivering a fantastic member experience?
What it comes down to is making your members feel extra special and valued…
Here are six simple ways to do that…
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In this Behind the Membership episode Callie talks with Mike Collins from The Green Room who, over the five years and thousands of members that they’ve had, have crafted an amazing community of people, connected by their Irish ancestry, all over the world.
Listen in to hear all about the special touches The Green Room provides to really make their members feel connected and part of something, including how Mike manages to travel around the world creating living history for his members. And of course you’ll hear about some of their challenges along the way too, like finding the right team members and learning how to attract members on a consistent basis.
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As we get ready for Season 3 of the Behind the Membership podcast we thought a great way to prepare for another awesome season would be to take a look back at some of the biggest lessons and key takeaways that emerged from Season 2.
Long time listeners will know that our guests come from a very wide range of different niches and styles of memberships. Some have been up and running for just a few months, others have been around for years. We cover a lot of territory!
However there are several underlying threads throughout the stories of all of our guests that I want to share with you here…
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Attracting the right people to your membership is essential for the growth of your business.
Not all members are created equal – the best ones will consume your content, positively engage with your community and actually use what they’re paying for.
These are the members who will stick around for the long term.
But how do you tailor your marketing to ensure you’re attracting more of the right type of member?
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One great thing about memberships is that they’re abstract…
You can think up a whole bunch of content, features, courses and so on….
But, it’s this same attribute that makes memberships so great that also makes them challenging to market…
Because if you hone in on one or two things that your membership offers, you could ultimately end up selling yourself short.
On the other hand, listing every single thing can be a bit of overkill.
The fact that a membership can contain all sorts of different, awesome content is great for how much value your members get…
But it’s terrible for enabling you to adequately communicate that value in a way that’s not just going to bore people to death…
So what’s the solution?
The ‘Splinter’ strategy.
Read on to find out how this strategy works for memberships and different ways you can start testing it within your own business….
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It’s easy to get carried away in those early days of planning and building a membership site.
So many people get overexcited by their idea and a little too swept up in the process that they skip the first few fundamental steps.
Most importantly: idea validation and research.
And then when they launch their membership and it doesn’t quite go to plan, they’re left scratching their heads wondering where it all went wrong.
In this episode, I highlight the 7 most important things that you need to validate BEFORE moving forward with your membership idea.
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We’re celebrating a huge milestone for The Membership Guys Podcast as we hit our 200th episode!
To mark the occasion, we thought we’d do something a little special…
So both Callie and I opened the floor up to you, and invited our members and wider audience to ask us absolutely anything you wanted – about anything!
We’ve picked the best questions and answered them together in this special 200th episode. Enjoy!
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Membership websites are a value exchange.
As long as you keep delivering value to your members – in the form of content, resources and ongoing investment in your product – they’ll keep giving value to you in the form of their continued subscription payments.
So what content can you actually include in your membership in order to ensure you keep up your side of the bargain?
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When publishing content online – whether freely or inside a membership – there’s always the chance that someone will copy or steal your hard work.
In truth the only way to guarantee that this won’t happen is to not publish anything online.
However this doesn’t mean you should just roll over if it happens to you.
In this episode I give my top tips for dealing with people stealing and copying your content, with specific examples of the process we use in our own business.
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Thinking about reducing the price of your membership?
Right now, you may be wondering…
‘Why in the world would I ever want to reduce the price of my membership?’
Surely that’s the opposite of what I should be doing?
The short answer is yes…
Ideally, the price of your membership should be going upwards…
To correlate with the value of it increasing over time…
Especially when you’ve probably invested a lot of time, energy and resources into making it more valuable and result-oriented…
But the reality is sometimes very different…
There are some legit reasons why you may need to lower the price of your membership…
And this is something we’re going to explore…
Lowering the price of your membership WITHOUT causing issues for your existing member base…
Because that’s the last thing you want to do!
So if you’re seriously considering lowering your price, then read on to find out how you should approach it…
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Whether you’re teaching a specialist subject, or want to support others who share your interests; it’s now easier than ever to reach a global audience and get paid for sharing your time, skills, experience and expertise.
Two of the best models for doing so are online courses and paid membership websites.
However with those terms often used loosely and interchangeably, it can be tricky figuring out which is best for you.
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We can spend months creating content, writing workbooks, pulling our hair out, and spending a small fortune on promoting a new membership site and then when we finally launch it… nobody joins.
We all dread this as membership owners; and when it happens, the panic sets in and we start scrambling to rearrange the website, add testimonials, and change prices.
This is all completely irrelevant stuff and won’t turn things around.
So what should you do if your membership launch fails?
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One of the best things about running a membership website is that we can market and position it in a way that we attract the sort of members that we most want to work with.
However no matter hard you try to get only the “right type” of people in your membership, you will inevitably experience problem members.
Sometimes it will be a personality clash, where certain members just rub you up the wrong way; however there will be instances where you need to deal with potentially toxic elements among your member base. So how do you deal with them?
I address that question and more on the latest episode of The Membership Guys Podcast.
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Creating content can be one of the most time consuming parts of running a paid membership website.
If you’re billing people on a recurring basis, you need to deliver value on a recurring basis; and often delivering that value involves some form of content.
In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I discuss how to approach content strategy for your membership, and the steps to take in order to ensure your production process is streamlined so you’re not constantly grinding to put out new content.
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Less than a month ago, Callie bought a book.
Unbeknownst to her, that simple act would be the start of the single worst buyer experience she’s ever encountered, as she found herself subscribed to a membership she never signed up for, with no clear way out.
In the interests of seeing how far the rabbit hole of terrible business practices went, she decided to see it through…
Join us on this rather unusual episode of The Membership Guys Podcast as we take a step by step tour through how NOT to run a membership (or any other business, for that matter!)
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