Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison

We're constantly banging the drum on how important it is to have an established audience BEFORE you build and launch a membership.

However for some people the temptation to rush headfirst into their membership is just too strong.

Truth is that if you haven't built an audience that you can mobilize and monetize, you're going to find it an uphill struggle trying to get your membership off the ground.

But it's not all doom and gloom. In this podcast, I share 5 options you have if you're wanting to build a membership before building your audience.

• The importance of validating that there actually IS a market for your idea and that you've done your research
• Why it's worth delaying your plans to focus on building an audience first (and what we did to prepare for our own membership launch)
• The 3 different options you have for accelerating your growth
• Alternative products you could create that would make more sense than a full-blown membership at this stage of your business

When we talk about membership sites, typically it's in the context of being the main part of the membership owner's business.

However that's not the only way to do it.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I dig into 4 of the main ways you could create a membership site that's secondary and supplementary to the real focus of your business.

• Why it's okay to not have a membership as the main focal point of your business
• How a free membership site can work like gangbusters for generating qualified sales leads
• Ways to use a membership to take your service business to the next level and crush your competitors
• A simple way to use a membership website in conjunction with selling high-ticket courses and programs.

This is the ultimate “how long is a piece of string” question.

There’s no exact science or specific formula that will accurately predict how many people are likely to join your membership.

However when setting goals for the launch of a new membership site, or even the growth of an original one, it’s useful to know whether your aspirations are realistic or just pure delusion!

In this episode, I attempt to answer this unanswerable question, and give my “rule of thumb” guidance for predicting how many people you can realistically expect to join your membership.

• Why it’s impossible to accurately predict how many membership signups you’ll get
• Identifying your core audience size, and the mistake so many people make with this
• The two most important factors affecting the percentage of your audience who will join

In today's online world you're increasingly competing with a lot of noise and distraction when it comes to your members time and attention.

How do you stand out?

What can you do to deliver a member experience that will make logging into your membership and spending time in your community preferable to watching hilarious cat videos on YouTube or chatting with friends on Facebook?

Andrew and Pete are two of the most creative content marketers in the world. And that creativity carries over to their own membership community too.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, we look at what they're doing to craft a truly unique and remarkable member experience, and they share their tips on how you can think outside the lines and start being more creative with your membership.

• Why you shouldn't just do what everyone else does, and how to truly stand out from your competition.
• The special touches Andrew and Pete add to their member experience that has turned their community into superfans
• What to do if you're convinced your topic is too boring, or you're not sure how to find creative angles in your business
• Andrew and Pete share some random ideas you can try today to put a little more personality into your marketing and your membership

So your membership is ticking along nicely, you're bringing in new members at a steady rate (and they're sticking around too), you've got your systems and processes nailed and everything is running like clockwork.

What next?

There are a few different paths you can take for growing and scaling your membership business; but in this episode I want to talk about my favourite approach, one that's perfectly suited to the membership model.

And that is creating an 'ecosystem' of products and services with your membership smack-bang at the heart of everything.

• Why membership owners should break from the traditional "value ladder" strategy for offering additional products and services
• Your existing member base is the single most qualified segment of your audience for anything else you have to sell
• Why your first priority should be getting new members rather than trying to sell them other stuff
• "The money is in the list?" - nope, the money is in the membership, literally!

Making the move from working one on one with clients, to running a "one to many" subscription business like a membership can be a daunting transition.

It's one Mark Asquith made several years back, when he called time on his successful digital agency to focus entirely on his SAAS company.

And it's a journey we've taken ourselves with The Membership Guys.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, we discuss our respective journeys, and Mark shares an inside look into how he made the transition both from a practical sense as well as a mental one.

It's a must-listen episode for anyone looking to make a similar switch in their business.

• How many entrepreneurs create a "lifestyle prison" by following the wrong advice
• The practicalities of transitioning from agency owner to running a subscription business
• Key mindset changes you need to make in order to successful grow a community
• Why it's okay to keep things simple with your membership and not constantly chase the "next level"

Most memberships in the online space feature some form of video content.

But the question of where to host these videos continues to confuse many membership site owners.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I delve into the 6 main options you have for hosting your membership videos and give my definitive recommendation (as well as what the absolute no-no is when it comes to video hosting)

• Why it's important to use a purpose-built video host rather than simply using a file hosting company
• What are the implications of storing video files on your own website host or server?
• Are those unlisted videos on YouTube really as protected as you thought they were?
• Our number one video hosting recommendation for membership owners.

Refunds suck.

Let's face it - someone asking for their money back is never cause for celebration.

But the fact is that while it might hurt your feelings, hurt your wallet or just flat out annoy the hell out of you when people ask for a refund - having a fair refund policy is ultimately a good thing for you and for your membership.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I explore the best ways to deal with refund requests, and provide my top pointers for what you need to include in your membership's refund policy.

• Why you should have a fair refund policy, even if you have totally legit reasons to not want to give money back
• The problems and pitfalls with trying to fight back against refund requests
• Key conditions to include in your membership's refund policy
• What to do if someone asks you to refund several months of membership payments

Much of the marketing advice you'll come across conditions you seek out a magic bullet that will unlock a tidal wave of leads and sales.

The blueprint for the perfect funnel; the foolproof launch strategy; the latest killer Facebook ads hack.

It's all nonsense.

There is no "easy button" - and the people telling you there is are almost always trying to sell you something (or regurgitating the advice of someone else whose "magic beans" they bought)

Truth is that it's extremely rare to find one big thing that will move the needle in your membership. It's about doing a lot of the little things, and doing them well.

This week, I'm sharing with you 6 very quick, very simple marketing tactics that you can try out with minimal time or effort. Some of these might sound obvious to you, but so often we see people overlooking the no-brainer stuff because they're searching for that magic bullet.

So, forget searching for your 'Golden Goose', listen to the episode and give some of these ideas a try...

• The totally obvious marketing tasks that so many membership owners shy away from
• A simple 5 minute tactic that will start a whole bunch of sales conversations
• Easy ways to whet people's appetite, show them behind the scenes and create FOMO that will compel them to join
• Why a lot of marketing advice out there is nonsense - and the surprising source of over 50% of our own sales that goes against what you may have been told.

A clear understanding of what makes your audience tick is key to ensuring your marketing is on point.

So often people forget this.

They get swept up in the latest quick fix marketing tricks, Facebook ad hacks and flavour-of-the-month sales funnels that they ignore that the foundation of successful marketing is understanding your audience.

Their pains, their problems, their motivations.

This stuff isn’t difficult to zero in on. And in this week’s podcast, I discuss the 3 questions every single membership site owner should be asking, and what to do with the answers to improve both your marketing and your retention strategies.

• Why you need to understand your members motivations in order to refine your marketing communications
• The 3 most important segments of your audience that you need to be speaking to
• Specific examples of how to use member (and non member) feedback in order to change your sales page, email messages and other areas of your marketing strategy
• The keys to preempting and preventing cancellations, and tempting ex-members to return