Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison

When you're running an online business like a membership website, the idea of going to live events as a way of growing that business may be counterintuitive when you're spending so much time behind your computer screen.

However for membership site owners; conferences, workshops, mastermind days and other such events hold potentially even greater opportunities than for other kinds of businesses; and in this episode I talk a little more about how you can extract huge value from regularly attending live events.

In this episode, I discuss:

- The main reasons for attending live events that you may not have thought of
- How networking and meeting new people can open doors that will add value to your membership offering
- Why meeting up with your members and peers at events is a game changer
- Creating your own opportunities you simply won't get when you're in front of the screen

When trying to attract new people to your membership site, giving potential members a taste of what's on offer before asking them to part with their cash and invest in your product is a great way of overcoming any doubts they may have about joining.

With this in mind it stands to reason that hosting free webinars can be a fantastic way of winning new members by demonstrating your expertise, proving your credibility and showing why joining your membership is worthwhile.

When it comes to using webinars to sell digital products, there are few people quite as knowledgeable as Amy Porterfield. Webinars are fundamental to Amy's success, and in this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, she shares with us her top tips and insight on how you could use webinars to promote and grow your membership site.

While in a lot of cases people will have joined your membership to get the benefit of your particular expertise; bringing in experts in complimentary topics can add a lot of additional value to your offering.

Not only does inviting guest contributors increase the value and variety you provide to your members; but it's also a smart strategy for minimizing the workload involved in creating all content yourself.

In this episode, I discuss:

• The benefits of inviting other experts to contribute to your membership
• How best to approach your guests and convince them to get involved
• Examples of the types of content you might ask a guest to contribute
• How to make it easier for your potential guest to say "yes"

I regularly talk about how your members will join for the content, but they'll STAY for the community; and that's something we see reflected in every successful membership site we've been part of.

But what options do you actually have for creating your community from a technical standpoint? How do you add an online forum to your membership?

In this episode I talk more about the importance of community, forums in particular, and discuss the various routes you can go down to add one to your website.

In this episode, I discuss:

• How adding a forum gives your passionate members a space to engage with others
• Why community is a vital asset for membership sites
• Examples of Wordpress plugins and stand-alone software you can use to set up your forum
• Why a Facebook group isn't an adequate replacement for building your own community

As membership site owner, the ability to protect our premium content is at the heart of how your business functions.

And when that protection is threatened you, naturally, start to panic.

So it stands to reason that you'd want to take action to prevent "hit and run" members who sign up, download everything you have to offer, and then cancel straight away.

However before you batten down the hatches, make sure you listen to our advice on how to handle this sort of situation...

In this episode, I discuss:

• Preventing the fear of temporary members discouraging you from providing your best experience
• Pros and Cons of limiting your membership-only content as online only
• Examples for how to keep your subscribed members engaged over time
• Why you shouldn't focus your energies on preventing piracy

It's easy to see why the strategy of offering lifetime memberships is a divisive one.

Unquestionably the biggest benefit of the membership model lies in recurring revenue, so the notion of providing unlimited access to your site for a single one-off fee may seem counter-intuitive; however as we discuss in this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast there are definite pros and cons to this strategy...

• Pros and Cons of offering a lifetime membership option
• Examples of the type of sites or situations where a lifetime option could work very well
• Why it's important to define what a lifetime membership actually is
• How to decide on what to charge for lifetime access

Most memberships will consist of two things - premium content (such as courses and tutorials) as well as community.

While the quality and depth of those elements will vary greatly from site to site; it does mean that when your potential member is considering several options for sites to join it can be hard to tell the difference between memberships which appear to essentially be offering the same thing.

This is where going that extra mile to provide added value to members is key to standing out from your competition - and one of our favourite ways of doing this is to offer exclusive member-only perks and offers.

In this episode I discuss this further as well as provide my tips on how to approach vendors to negotiate deals for your membership.

It's easy to assume that mainstream media coverage is the domain of celebrities, huge businesses and crazies claiming to know where the aliens took Elvis.

As such, most membership site owners don't even think about trying to use PR to get their story out there, as they see traditional media as out of their reach.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I'm joined by Janet Murray who not only explains why this isn't the case but also gives advice and tips from her 15+ years in journalism on how you can attract media attention for your membership site.

Many membership sites revolve around their founder or founders positioning themselves as an authority on a given topic or in a specific market; and attracting media coverage can be invaluable to establishing and strengthening that credibility.

Even if you're not running an authority-based membership, chances are you have a story to tell that it would benefit you to share with the world.

This interview is packed with actionable advice and tips that work, from someone who not only has been in the industry for a decade and a half, but also helps countless businesses and individuals to get media attention too.

If your business would benefit in any way from media coverage, then this really is a can't-miss episode.

One of the more challenging changes that comes with moving to the membership model is dealing with the increase in how many people are contacting you and vying for your attention.

Supporting hundreds or thousands of members can certainly take its toll and becoming uncontrollable without procedures and a solid approach for dealing with handling communication.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast I talk about how you can set boundaries and expectations in order to ensure your membership remains manageable.

It should go without saying that if you think a membership isn't going to involve work that you're mistaken - but that doesn't mean that handling member communications has to take over your life!

Having a solid strategy for supporting members and enabling communication is key to the long term success of your membership site. Establishing boundaries enables you to better and more effectively serve your whole membership base, so it's key to put these into place early.

To celebrate the 50th episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, we decided to do something a little different.

Not only did we bring Callie onto the podcast (for only the second time!) but we did so as part of a live Q&A we hosted on Blab.im all about our favourite subject - membership websites!

We had audience questions, a guest appearance, and a pretty epic rant from Mike that you're really going to want to hear (unless you can't handle the occasional curse word.. or twenty!)

• What most appeals to Callie about the membership model
• Can you create a membership if you don't have knowledge, skills or experience?
• Why snake-oil salesman and lazy marketers are doomed to fail
• When it would be the wrong situation to create a membership
• The future of live video and what it could mean for membership owners
• How to organise your activity and plan content
• Which membership plugins are best to use with LMS platforms
• ...and more!