Operating a membership website has certain advantages - in particular, getting paid month after month is nice.
However, one of the biggest challenges that membership website operators struggle with on a daily basis is member attrition. Operating a membership website can be described as liken to retaining water with a sieve. In this article, we discuss various different ways to reduce membership attrition.
Information is Key
The easiest way to find out why your members are leaving is to ask them. While this is easy in principle, in practice, this can be tricky as most membership software does not have any built in “Exit Poll” that polls users to ask them why they leave your membership website.
When choosing a membership software for your membership website, be sure to look for one that has this feature.
The Community Ties
One of the key principles of membership website management is this:
People come for the content, but they stay for the community.
Most membership software technology act as nothing more than a firewall. Those who paid to access can, those who don’t can’t. There’s no community component to their membership website. Having a membership website implies that there are other members….yet few actually take the time to build their community and foster inter-member communication.
Building a community in which other members can communicate with each other, support each other and offer each other builds incredible loyalty and “stickiness” to your brand.
So, to keep people inside your funnel longer, encourage your members to connect with each other. Make sure your membership software has a built in forum. Ideally, have a private social network - like Facebook….so that your members can search for other members in your community, connect with them based on interest, profession, industry, location, etc. Allow them to search for other members inside the community. Allow them to post comments, questions, and allow others to comment.
Encourage your members to contribute content to the community. Appoint volunteer “Community Manager” volunteers from your member pool.
Overwhelmed with Content
Most membership software systems only act as a firewall to the vault. In other words, once someone has authenticated with the guardian system, they are given the keys to the vault. This means your members have access to 50,000 hours of content. Which leads to one of two things - neither serves your business very well.
1) Your user will want to download everything they can and discontinue their membership as soon as possible.
2) They are so overwhelmed with “so much content” they enter a coma and suffer the “intellectual death”. Too much information leads to paralysis..which means they don’t do anything at all.
The best way to prevent this is to have a system that drip feeds your content to your users over time. For example, a sequential autoresponder, or some sort of time release e-course which releases content to your members one module at a time.
Another way to keep your members for longer is to release content based on length of membership. For example, if they stay for 31 days, they can gain access to e-course B, or member area X. If they stay for 60 days, they get access to e-course Y, etc.
This way, you both grow together. You can just offer “virtual coaching” for your members to be part of your community…the longer they stay, the more content/coaching you provide them.
Confusion Leads to Attrition
Another problem with “access to the vault” strategy of content release is that users are so overwhelmed with 50,000 hours of content…that they often get confused. They don’t know where to even begin.
The best way for address this is to provide a thorough introduction to your community website and help your members navigate your site. Have a video. Get them to downnload “Read This First” or a “Getting Started Guide”.
Remember, one of the biggest reasons people leave your site is that they are overwhelmed/lost or confused. Don’t let this happen to your membership website.
In my book, “The Social Marketing Manifesto“, I’ve outlined a number of solid “Cost of Disconnect” strategies that you can also incorporate into your membership website business to further increase membership dependence on your service.
Operating a membership website business is a constant struggle between attrition and new signups. The key to increasing profits is to keep your members inside your community for longer, thus growing your membership base. In the next post, I will show you how to grow your membership website business without advertising.
You might want to check out SocialSAM.com if you are considering a membership software solution. It has all these membership retention tools built right into the application.
Sincerely
George Tran
Author of “The Social Marketing Manifesto”
Success Strategies for Small Businesses using Social Media
www.socialmarketingman.com
www.twitter.com/georgetran
