Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison

Are you celebrating the milestones in your membership business?If not, you should be!Whether it's an anniversary or hitting an important goal, it's worth making an effort to mark those significant achievements.In this episode, I share my top tips for celebrating your membership milestones in style...

Turning your membership idea into a reality can take a lot of time and, often, a lot of money.As such you might be trying to find a way to raise funds earlier in the process.Some membership owners do this with a pre-sale.A pre-sale works like this: you have a great idea for a membership, so you test its viability by taking it to your audience to see if they are willing to invest in your concept (even though it doesn't exist yet!).If they are, then you can generate seed money to help finance the development of your membership.However, before pre-selling your membership idea, it's important to know the pros and cons...Essential Learning Points:How a pre-sale works, and how it relates to terms like "seed launch" or "founder launch"What the three main benefits to a promoting a pre-sale areThree big drawbacks to a pre-sale that you need to considerOur preferred alternative launch strategy with better chances of successImportant Links & Mentions:Pros and Cons of Offering Lifetime MembershipsCreating an MVP to Test and Validate Your Membership IdeaThe Lean Live Launch StrategyThe Membership Guys Facebook GroupMembership Academy Key Quotes:“The vast majority of ideas don't go any further than just thoughts in a brain or scribbles on a page. This kind of pre-sell, having money change hands, makes you more committed.”“If you don't get a good response to a seed launch, that doesn't tell you anything. That isn't a sign that your membership is not going to be successful.”

Customer service is at the heart of the member experience.No matter how great your membership site is, you’re going to have members contacting you for additional support at some point.Providing your members with good customer service is an easy way to elevate their experience of your site, and similarly a bad customer service experience will quickly turn their opinion of your membership sour.In this episode, I break down the 4 step approach to master your customer service strategy, as well as specific tactics for streamlining customer service as your membership scales.

As a membership site owner it’s easy to tie yourself in knots trying to come up with the best ways to get your members to engage with your site, your content, and your community.From fancy progress tracking to complex loyalty schemes; laborious member outreach programs through to advanced gamification systems.However it can be easy to forget that often some of the less glamorous methods of engagement are the most effective.So in today's episode I’m going to take a look at one of my favourite tactics for member communication, engagement and retention – the humble “member roundup email”.

When people think about launching a membership, they think about the day that they finally open their doors for the very first time and welcome their first crop of new members.It's a big deal!However that grand opening isn't the only opportunity you have to launch...There are different launch types for each stage of your business, depending on how far along you are in the membership site creation process, or what you might need your members to do to help get your product ready for market.Listen in for a full breakdown of the 6 different launch strategies you can use at various stages of your membership journey... Essential Learning Points:Validating your membership idea by running a pilot programThe difference between launch strategy for open memberships vs closed doorHow to generate seed money to help you develop your membership ideaThe best way to reduce the stress of a big launch and ease yourself into the membership modelImportant Links & Mentions: The 6 Different Types of Membership Launch When the closed door membership makes senseJeff Walker's book, LaunchCreating an MVP for your membershipThe lean live launch strategyMembership AcademyThe Membership Guys Facebook Group Key Quotes:“Your big launch event will usually be a week or two, where you're doing lots of promotional marketing activity to get as many eyeballs as possible on your launch – in the hopes that you'll get that influx of initial members.”  “The beta launch can be extremely useful for helping you to ensure that you are in absolute top shape, or as close as you can get to top shape, before you open the doors to your membership. And, it has the great side effect of also ensuring that you already have people there in your community.”“If you know you need a little bit of a softer entry into the world of running an online membership, then a soft launch can work for you.”

Have you launched your membership and then found yourself regretting your choice of technology that runs your website? Or maybe you haven't yet launched but you live in fear of that turning out to be your reality.“What if I make the wrong choice and then in 6 months’ time I discover I’m stuck with it?”Because of this we see a lot of people have a lot of anxiety about deciding on which platform or plugin is right for them. In this episode I reveal everything you need to know about switching your membership platform.Essential Learning Points:The questions you need to ask yourself before deciding to switch platformsWhy data migration is the most crucial aspect of switchingHow to communicate this big change to your membersWhat you need your members to do, and how to get itThe reality of what switching platforms can cost youImportant Links & Mentions:Guide To Choosing A Membership Plugin Key Quotes:“This isn't something you do on a whim, or because a new tool sounds cool and has got a lot of buzz. This isn’t a small decision...”When communicating, make sure you address the question that's going to be in their minds. “What's in it for me?” Focus your message on how the new system is going to benefit them.“At all times in all memberships there will be a percentage of the member base who are only there because of inertia. The only reason they’re still members is because they keep forgetting to cancel their subscription.”“Don’t start switching over, then run a couple of tests and regret the change you’ve made. Test first and test thoroughly, before you do anything else.”

Do you know the difference between good marketing advice and bad marketing advice?The marketing industry is full of information. Some can help you build meaningful customer relationships and effectively generate sales. But some is based on misinformation, pressure tactics, and “shortcuts” that could lead to slower audience growth or even a damaged reputation.I find it so infuriating that people are being pressured and pushed around by membership marketing myths that they believe are the industry standard. In this episode, I get on my soapbox to bust the most common marketing myths and help steer you away from the nonsense.Essential Learning Points:Why pressurizing leads can drive them to buy elsewhereHow to prevent your customers getting buyer’s remorseWhy a good product isn’t enough to generate salesThe number of followers you really needImportant Links & Mentions:Open Every Day by Ross O'Lochlainn1,000 True Fans by Kevin KellyOur free Membership Mastermind Facebook GroupMembership AcademyKey Quotes:“Successful marketing is all about getting the right message, to the right person, at the right time.”“Some people are just not ready to buy when you’re ready to sell. Your business and how you market it is actually more about being there when someone is ready to buy, rather than trying to force the sale too quickly.”“If you’re not able to connect the dots and to compel people to put their hand in their pocket and pay you for the solution to their problem then it doesn’t matter how great your membership is, it doesn’t matter how great your product is. “Build it and they will come” is not a valid strategy.”

How much should you charge for your membership site? And, what should your pricing strategy look like?Well, the answers to both of those questions depend on your membership. However, there are some advanced pricing tactics that successful membership sites use when it comes to determining their prices.As I’m sure you’re aware, getting the price of your membership right is so important. But it’s often more than that, you also need to make sure that you use effective pricing strategies to convince people to join your membership. In this episode, I reveal my top and most advanced tips and tactics to help you with your membership pricing strategy!Essential Learning Points:The differences between B2C and B2B pricingWhy you need to consider the numbers within your priceHow to create compelling discountsThree ways to leverage price anchoring for your membershipImportant Links & Mentions:ResponseSuiteMembership Academy Key Quotes:“The more choices you give, the more you add friction to the buying process, which can lead to decision fatigue.”“With a decoy product, you specifically create an option with the entire purpose of that option being that it makes your main option look better. You actually don't want people to buy this product.”

Is your membership community a ghost town? Are you constantly banging your head against a wall trying to figure out ways to get your members to actually converse with each other? This guide has got the answers.We’ve said it many times before - people come for the content but they stay for the community. However, getting an active, thriving community inside your membership is easier said than done.It’s not a case of just setting up a Facebook group and assuming that all the conversations will start flowing, and connections will happen automatically. You need to put in the work to drive the discussion and the connections within your community. It can take quite a bit of time to get the discussion flowing, particularly in the early days where this can feel like trying to push a boulder up a hill. But these steps will help get it done.Essential Learning Points: Start The Discussion YourselfEncourage “Low-Hanging Fruit” ConversationsDon’t Rush To Answer Every Questions YourselfTag Other Members In DiscussionInclude Your Community As Part Of New Member OnboardingImportant Links & Mentions:The Membership Academy - https://www.membershipacademy.com/The Membership Guys Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/MembershipGuys/groups Key Quotes:“You’re going to have to be the one who drives the conversation. It’s not going to be a case of creating a forum or a Slack channel, giving people the link and seeing the engagements and discussions just happen.”“If you’re getting to every question first and answering straight away, you’re shutting down discussions before they get a chance to start. So, it can be worth strategically stalling.”“Embrace the role of not just the expert who answers questions, but as the community leader. Embrace being the person who creates connections between your members and facilitates the best path of learning.”“The best way to encourage people to be active in your community is to get them in there early and ensure your community is an integral part of the member experience.”

Wow... 5 years of Membership Academy!And what a rollercoaster ride our fifth year has been.Listen in as Callie and I recap the highs and lows of the past 12 months of Membership Academy, and look ahead to what's in store in the next year and beyond.In this episode, Callie and I discuss:The real impact that running our first conference had on our membership businessHow we navigated personal illness and a global pandemicChanges we've made to our content strategy, and the results we're seeing so farThe big step up we're taking in the coming yearDig further into our journey so far...Inside the launch of the Membership AcademyLooking Back at the First 12 Months of the Membership AcademyInsights & Reflections on Year 2 of the Membership AcademyLooking Back at Year 3 of the Membership AcademyCelebrating the 4th Anniversary of Membership AcademyAs always, we want to thank each and every one of your for your support over the past 5 years - whether you're a podcast listener, Facebook group member, blog reader or one of our highly treasured Academy members (or indeed, all of the above) - we just want to take this opportunity to thank you, sincerely, for being with us on our journey.