Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison

Choosing the right membership plugin is a task that’s easier said than done.

The fact that it can be a bit of a nightmare switching plugins after your membership has opened its doors is something which makes your decision even more important.

There is no “one size fits all” best membership plugin for every situation, and so the process of deciding which to go with involves identifying your specific needs and then narrowing down the options; however making the final choice often requires you to dive deeper.

To help you be sure you’re making the right choice, here are 8 questions you should ask before you purchase your membership plugin.

Email automation can massively power up the marketing and operation of your membership site; enabling you to trigger various different actions and email sequences according to how your audience and your members behave.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I identify the 4 essential email automations that every membership website should have in place.

Live content is a great way of delivering ongoing value to your membership without the level of upfront work and other hassles that typically go into producing courses, tutorials or other types of “pre-made” content.

However including this type of content in your membership does add a new wrinkle to worry about – member attendance.

If the turnout for your live membership calls is low, this can directly affect the quality of what you’re producing; not to mention being demoralizing to you and possibly even be discouraging for other members who may interpret poor attendance as a sign of a disengaged community.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I share 9 ways that you can increase live call attendance

People join your membership because they have a goal they want to achieve; an outcome they want to realise – and it’s your content that’s going to get them there.

But with so many plates to spin running a membership website, it’s easy to settle for “good enough” when it comes to creating that content.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I discuss why it’s important to focus on improving your content, and give you some examples and steps to start this process within your own membership.

In the early days of running your membership, you’ll find yourself preoccupied with the day to day, short-term stuff.

How many new members did we get this week?

Have we had any cancellations?

Do I have enough time to get this new piece of content out to members?

However once things have settled and stabilised then it’s time to think bigger in terms of how you’re going to scale and grow your membership over the long term.

When that time inevitably arrives, there are 6 key areas you’ll need to focus on. Listen to this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast to discover what they are...

When it comes to offering trials of your membership site or online product, opinions tend to be divided between those who consider it a smart strategy and those who believe you shouldn’t give anything away, no matter what.

We’re big fans of utilising trial periods as part of your pricing strategy; however we recognise that they’re not something which will necessarily be right for everyone.

If you’re still on the fence, this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast provides some food for thought to help you determine whether to implement trials into your own strategy.

Most membership sites include some form of premium content locked away behind a paywall.

But locking your membership content down is a double-edged sword.

You could have the most incredible content in the world, but if the only people who know about it are your paying members then you’re missing on an opportunity to get so much more bang for your buck.

So before you hit ‘publish’ on your next piece of membership content, try implementing the 7 tactics from this episode.

Your sales funnel is a key part of attracting new members to your community; and so it's no surprise that some membership owners have a constant itch to tweak and tinker with every little detail.

Knowing when to adjust your sales funnel is an imprecise art, but people often fall foul to making changes too often.

In this episode, I discuss how often you should be adjusting your sales funnel, how you can avoid the constant urge to make changes, and why making constant tweaks can actually hurt your business.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why you should adjust your sales funnel once a quarter (at most)
• Why data, not desire, should lead your decision-making if you do make adjustments
• How overanalyzing paralyzes the effectiveness of your sales funnel

Important Links & Mentions:

• Membership Academy
• How to Generate New Ideas for Membership Content
• Tools for Creating Your Membership Sales Funnel
• Guide to Choosing a Membership Plugin
• 5 Things That Have Moved the Needle For Us (And a Few That Didn’t)
• 4 Must-Have Email Automation Sequences For Your Membership Site

Key Quotes:

“You should be stepping away and letting your automations do their thing.”

“Unless you’re getting masses of traffic, testing and tweaking the real small stuff is pointless.”

“It’s very possible to over-engineer, overthink, and self-sabotage by constantly chasing that mythical perfect sales funnel or constantly messing around with all the pieces of the puzzle.”

One of the strongest ways you can grow your membership at speed is to start a joint venture promotion.

First of all, you may be asking what exactly a joint venture promotion is… Put simply, it’s working with someone who has a sizeable audience who you want to speak to in exchange for commission or some other value exchange.

Now that we’ve got that cleared up – do you want to know how you can use joint venture promotions to boost your membership sign-up rates?

Well, that’ll take a while to write out. Why not listen to this episode to find out instead?

Essential Learning Points:

• The different ways you can grow your membership numbers
• Why contributing guest content to partners’ sites is a great starting point
• How to step up your joint venture promotions with affiliate programs
• Why the cost of affiliate programs is worth it for the value they provide
• How to perfect your joint venture promotion strategy and where to go for more information

Important Links & Mentions:

• Membership Academy
• Lead Generation Essentials for Membership Site Owners
• Promoting Your Membership Site with an Affiliate Program
• How Much Should I Charge For My Membership Website?
• Utilizing Guest Experts for your Membership Content

Key Quotes:

“You have to think about whether you want to offer a one-off commission or commission on the recurring element of the payment. This depends on how much you’re charging and your profit margin.”

“You will not be able to reach the number of people a joint venture partner can get you if you instead choose to spend their commission fees on standard marketing.”

“Make sure that any leads opting-in to your email list from your co-promotion have a short funnel before they can be turned into sales… Your joint venture partner isn’t going to want to wait 60 or 90 days!”

Content marketing is the most valuable strategy a membership site owner can deploy. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again and again and again!

But having a blog or a podcast isn’t enough – not for the most successful membership sites, at least. To really ramp up your content marketing to the top tier, there are certain approaches you might want to consider that will help you create a killer content marketing strategy.

In this episode, you can discover six of the ways you can give your content marketing strategy an extra boost and start recruiting more members with the power of free content.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why content marketing is so effective for promoting your membership site
• Six genius ways to create a killer content marketing strategy
• Where you can go to talk to other membership site owners to perfect your marketing

Important Links & Mentions:

• Creating Compelling Courses with Janelle Allen
• How to Tap Into Your Existing Members to Create Social Proof
• Should Membership Trial Periods be Free or Paid?
• Membership Mastermind Facebook group
• Membership Academy

Key Quotes:

“If you can prove to people that you can solve their small problems, they’re going to trust you to solve their larger problems.”

“Your community is such a powerful aspect of your membership, so why not shine a spotlight on those people?”

“Make people aware of the divide between free and paid content and value in the latter.”