Most so called “membership websites” are no more than a way to milk out customers from their hard earned cash by requiring them to pay month after month for the same content they could have gotten if they bought a digital product - a DVD course, a set of books, etc. The hope most marketers prey on is that users forget their recurring billing payment until it’s too late. While some do, most are extremely sensitive to this fact. Don’t be fooled.
I know this is a gross generalization. If this is not the way you do business, then I beg your forgiveness.
Typical membership websites have an average lifespan of about 3 to 4 months. Members typically drop off after a few months, and the marketer is forced to continue the prospecting/sales cycle.
While everyone knows that it is easier to sell to the same people who’ve opened their wallet than to a stranger…the key is…you need to sell something your users need/want and feel that they are getting value for their continued patronage.
Let’s take a look at another “continuity program” - the multi-level marketing industry. These companies do very well because they often sell a recurring product - such as a vitamin suppliment, or a weight loss product, or skin care products that you would continue to use month after month. If you discontinue the subscription, you will suffer a “pain of disconnect”.
Let’s use another example from the video game industry. The MMOs like World of Warcraft where users pay $15/m for years. In this model, users invest literally thousands of hours into their characters, and develop friends with other people in the world. If they discontinue their membership, they risk losing their friends, as well as the thousands of hours they invested in building their characters.
What can you do in your membership business to introduce “pain of disconnect” to your users?
Being an internet marketer, let’s use teaching internet marketing as an example. In my community website at www.socialsam.net, I have several “pain of disconnects” I have built for my users.
1) Ongoing coaching. I provide my users with high value and practical specific techniques to help them with their business in the form of an e-course. Instead of releasing everything to them on day one, I break them into smaller courses. For example, “SEO strategies”, “how to build a blog that monetizes”, “Using Social Media to grow your business.” I then drip feed these courses to my paying members month after month. In other words, the longer they continue to be paying members of my community, the more content I will release to them to help them become more successful.
2) Build a Community. I have a private social network instead of a membership website. Like Facebook and Linked in, members of my community actually have a profile. Other members can see their profile, strike up conversations with them, find other members within my community based on interests, industry, profession and location. Encourage your users to form mastermind groups, blogging circles, cross link mutual circles (where everyone mutually social bookmark other people in the network).
Learn from World of Warcraft. Heighten the opportunity your users have to invest in your brand. Deepend the relationship they have with you as well as with each other.
Provide weekly live webinars for members of your community. Allow them to ask you questions. INTERACT with your members. Treat them like people.
Within my community at www.socialsam.net, I encourage my users to ask questions to other members of the community.
In my book, “The Social Marketing Manifesto“, I go into greater detail various methods of increasing the pain of disconnect for your members.
You can also check out www.socialSAM.com for a powerful social network/membership software hybrrid platform that is designed to keep your members in your network for longer, and harness the power of social networking to grow your membership base organically.
Sincerely
George Tran
Author of “The Social Marketing Manifesto”
Success Strategies for Small Businesses using Social Media
www.socialmarketingman.com
www.twitter.com/georgetran
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