The Membership Guys Podcast - Practical Advice For Membership Website Owners

To the uninitiated, money-back guarantees can feel a bit like those scenes in cartoons when someone puts a freshly baked pie on an open windowsill. Someone is bound to come along and grab a slice – it’s just too tempting. But in all our years of running our membership site and helping others run their own, we’ve learned that money-back guarantees are not an easy option for people to exploit. In fact, they can be an essential part of persuading people to join who end up becoming long-term members. In this episode of the podcast, I do a bit of money-back myth-busting and explain the ins and outs of why you should embrace offering a money-back guarantee (with a few caveats…)  Essential Learning Points: What money-back guarantees are and why they are actually an important part of your marketing Answering some of the most frequently asked questions about money-back guarantees The fatal flaw in one of the most common objections to money-back guarantees Important Links & Mentions: https://www.themembershipg

Offering a membership trial can help you take people from sitting on the fence to joining your membership, by giving them a risk-free test-drive of your membership. But it isn’t as simple as adding a new option to your sales page, creating a great membership trial system is a fine art that will take some time and consideration to get right. This episode of The Membership Guys will fast-track you to becoming the Michelangelo of membership trials, sharing advanced tips and tricks to create high-converting trial sequences that will help you grow your membership with less stress and better results. Essential Learning Points: The key things everyone offering a trial for their membership NEEDS to make sure they’re doing Why charging a nominal fee is often better than making your trial completely free What to do about the people who don’t actually make use of their trial Specific tactics for taking your trial to the next level and improving conversions Important Links & Mentions: https://www.themembershipguys.co

So many membership owners live in fear of their members cancelling. It kind of makes sense, because the goal of a membership site is to retain its members for as long as possible and so when someone leaves - whatever the reason - it's hard not to see that as a negative. However when a member cancels, it doesn't have to be the end of the road. In this podcast I talk about why cancellations don't mean it's all over, and how implementing a 'win-back' strategy is essential for getting lapsed and cancelled members to return. In this episode you'll learn: Some of the main reasons why your members leave (and why cancellations aren't always a bad thing!) How to create effective win-back campaigns to tempt your cancelled members Dos and don'ts of planning win-back campaigns that work A walkthrough example of email sequences and promotions that will get your cancelled members to return

A membership launch isn't as "do or die" as with other types of products such as online courses, software or services. But getting your launch right is important for giving you the initial influx of members that will help you to build momentum within your membership site. In this episode I talk about how to ensure your launch is successful. In this episode you'll learn: Ways to build excitement and anticipation for your membership launch How launching a membership differs to other types of online products The key strategy that will make your membership launch successful Planning your launch offers and promotions

The right idea can make or break a membership website. Far too often, people steamroll ahead into worrying about which membership plugin they're going to use or how much content they need without actually doing the research necessary to make sure you're on the right track. But how do you know if your idea is a winner? In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I take you step by step through the process of choosing, research and validating your membership idea. In this episode you'll learn: Why it's important to research and validate your membership idea 5 questions to ask yourself to determine whether your idea is a good one The biggest mistakes people make in their research, and how to avoid them Specific steps you can take to validate that people would be willing to pay for your membership

Amazon have just announced the launch of a new digital subscription marketplace called "Subscribe With Amazon". This will enable people to tap into their sales tools and, of course, their huge audience in order to sell digital products for a recurring fee such as - you guessed it - membership websites. Make no mistake, this is a potential game-changer for the membership space. In this "hot off the presses" episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I explain exactly what this means, how it works and what you need to do to capitalize on this opportunity. In this episode: What exactly "Subscribe With Amazon" is and how it works Why membership site owners need to be excited about this new development Technical and logistical considerations for adding your membership to the Amazon marketplace Restrictions and financial implications of joining "Subscribe With Amazon"

In many ways, launching a new membership website is one of the biggest marketing opportunities you'll experience as a membership owner. So it makes sense why some people may advocate for constantly closing and re-opening your membership in order to recapture that opportunity over and over again. But it's not quite as simple as that. In this episode, I cut through the hype and talk about why I strongly dislike "closed door" marketing tactics and why it might not be the best thing for your membership strategy.

Running a membership site is the best job in the world… but it’s still a job. Some days you wake up and just aren’t feeling it. Your motivation is AWOL and you’ve not got a colleague to complain to, a different project to focus on, or anywhere to turn. Well, that was until we recorded this episode of the podcast. Because we have felt that lack of motivation and almost every membership site owner we have worked with has felt the same. You are not the only person who feels this way and there are some tried and tested ways to get over your slump and stay motivated. We’ve shared our favorites in this episode. Essential Learning Points: Why membership site owners are especially likely to have moments of demotivation 5 great ideas for rekindling your motivation and getting back on the horse One of our secrets for staying positive that we have practiced since starting Membership Academy Important Links & Mentions: https://www.themembershipguys.com/problem-members/ (How to Deal with Problem Members Inside Your Co

Like it or not, your members won’t stick around forever, losing members is just part and parcel of operating a membership site. However there’s plenty that you can do to make sure that you’re not losing members for the wrong reasons. In this episode, I discuss the most common reasons people typically leave membership sites, and provide tips for improving your retention strategy to prevent them.

Getting someone to join your membership site is great, but it’s just the beginning. Before you have time to celebrate, you really need to figure out how you are going to get that member to stay month after month, year after year. Hanging on to your paying members is crucial to the long term success of your membership site; so you need to make sure that you have a strategy for keeping members engaged. In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I dig into how to craft your member experience in order to develop the habits and interaction that will keep members engaged and subscribed for longer.

Great memberships are never truly finished. That’s actually one of the best things about the membership site model. If you are writing a book, creating a course, programming your piece of software; then there’s a lot of pressure to have a polished completed end product. But with a membership site, some of that pressure is off because people understand that they are boarding a moving train. That when they join a membership, it’s going to change, it’s going to evolve and that as members they could be a part of shaping it's future. In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I look further into why embracing change is key to the long term success of your membership site, and give examples of how adapting over time has played a role in the progress of 6 and 7 figure memberships.

Member retention is key to the long term success of a membership website; however if you offer both monthly and annual billing people often end up so focused on keeping monthly subscribers that they take annual renewals for granted. Or worse - they assume people joining on annual plans aren't likely to stick around beyond their first year, so they don't even try to retain them. In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast we're focusing on how to handle annual renewals in order to increase the chance of members sticking around for years to come.

As founder of the Female Entrepreneur Association, Carrie Green credits investment in personal development and conditioning herself for success as the keys to having the right mindset to grow her membership to over 4,000 members. In this interview, we discuss how FEA came to be and the challenges Carrie faced along the way; and we also dig deeper into the strategies Carrie uses to keep members happy and continue growing her membership.

Gamification is a technique that has gained huge popularity in enhancing user experiences and the effectiveness of e-learning within online courses and membership websites. And as lifelong videogame geeks, it's right up our street! In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I hand over the reins to Callie, who talks more about what exactly gamification is and how you can use it in your membership site to increase member engagement. In this episode, I discuss: An introduction to what gamification actually is and how it works in the real world The importance of taking measures to ensure people actually consume your content and participate Ways to use game theory to encourage behaviours that will ensure members stick around long term

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. In this episode, I discuss: The questions you need to ask yourself before dealing a 'problem' member How to implement a two-tier "strike" based approach to dealing with issues When it's the right time to kick out difficult members The process and steps to take when removing someone from your membership

When inspiration strikes and you come up with an idea for a membership website or some other product or service that you're convinced is a winner, all too often it's easy to get carried away in trying to make it a reality without every stopping to really examine whether your idea is actually as solid as you're convinced it is. Before you invest countless hours and immeasurable quantities of blood, sweat and tears into your new project, it's highly worth taking the time to validate your big idea. Here are my top tips for doing just that...

Are you worried that your membership website kind of sucks? Hopefully not. I'm sure you’ve got plenty of happy members who are giving you great feedback and showing you that your hard work is actually making a positive change in their world. But there are unfortunately a lot of membership sites out there that do - to be frank - completely suck. So if you're someone who is running one of those websites, then in this episode I'm going to share some of the reasons why your membership sucks. In this episode, I discuss: Six reasons why your membership website sucks How to turn things around and make your membership great again Core principles you need to remember if you want your membership site to be successful. Mistakes that even well-meaning membership owners typically make

Is the fact that someone continues subscribing to your membership really a sign of loyalty? So much of our time as membership site owners is spent trying to attract new members, and worrying about those who cancel, that it's easy to take for granted the ones who continue paying us month after month. We tend to assume that those members are happy, content and loyal; but quite often that couldn't be further from the truth. In this slightly different episode of The Membership Guys Podcast I riff a little on the subject of member loyalty and how it's not as straightforward as you might think. In this episode, I discuss: A story illustrating the nuances of member loyalty Why it's not important to make assumptions about our paying members Understanding the difference between inertia and loyalty How to determine whether a member is actually engaged with your site

Membership owners have a lot on their plates in the day to day running of their website. There's more than enough to think about without piling onto your worries by concerning yourself with situations and things you perceive as problems, that you either have no control over or that you really shouldn't be occupying your time with. In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I look at the 6 most common culprits when it comes to things which membership owners let trouble them, keep them up at night and weigh on their mind; and I'm going to share why they're really not a big deal and how to put them out of your thoughts. In this episode, I discuss: The negative mindsets that membership site owners need to change What "huge problems" are truly irrelevant and what you need to STOP focusing on Why trying to follow what your competitors are doing is one of the dumbest things you could do What should you focus on in your membership rather than worrying about this sort of stuff?

There's no "one-size-fits-all" approach to marketing a membership website. However there are a number of tactics and strategies that are proven to work well, or that take advantage of some of the unique elements that come with running a membership website. In the concluding episode of a two-part podcast series, I discuss a variety of different marketing tips that you can use for your own membership in order to increase sales and have a steady stream of new members joining your site. In this episode, I discuss: How to approach affiliate and influencer promotions to increase membership sales The importance of segmentation when it comes to making your marketing efforts more targeted and, as a result, more effective The part that our podcast plays in growing the Member Site Academy, and the approach you could model How a simple contest could accelerate your lead generation and membership sales