In fact, there are websites dedicated to passions of all types, filled with communities of like-minded individuals who connect in forums. These websites, often referred to as membership sites, come in all shapes and sizes, and there’s seemingly one for every topic (scuba diving, guitar lessons, yoga, card magic and even crystal healing certification courses — the list goes on).

Anyone with passion and expertise on a topic can start a membership site. All it takes is a little planning. The best part is, membership sites can be run from anywhere and, once they’re up and running successfully, they require minimal upkeep.

Membership sites work around your schedule

Many business owners are tethered to a static location and confined to certain hours of the day, but not those with membership sites — that’s the magic of them. They create automated passive income streams that don’t require you to be physically present to make money. You don’t have to work for your business anymore; you can have your business work for you.

Running a membership site allows you to expand your customer base. Your one-to-one service can transform into a one-to-many. As Mike Morrison, co-founder of The Membership Guys said, “Spend an hour with a client, you get paid once, and that time is gone; spend that hour creating material for your membership, and you’ve added permanent value to an asset that you’ll continue getting paid for over and over again.” 

Bianca Gignac of Gigi Guides remarked on the convenience of membership sites, “I processed $51,000 in sales the other day, and I was actually at the park with my kid.”

What to ask before you get started planning your membership site 

Don’t whip out the piña colada and hammock just yet. While it’s tempting to jump into creating a membership site, taking time to work out the specifics is crucial to avoid complications down the road. Planning and building processes for membership sites will take time and work but will ensure that you’re creating something people want to join.  

After the membership site has launched, you’ll need to market it and have a plan for retaining your members. Researching your niche audience and determining the right content are also crucial to the success of your membership venture.

Part of building a successful membership program involves asking the tough questions about your product and your market, strategizing about your site content and how you want to deliver it, and determining the right membership levels and pricing.

You can start the membership site planning process by asking questions such as:

• What type of membership site should I have? (e.g., online community, training site, etc.)
• What exactly should I offer on my membership site?
• How should I structure my membership program?
• How should I deliver my content to members?
• How can I separate myself from the competitors?
• What kind of pricing strategy should I have?

Start earning money for your unique skills

If you’re currently running a business, you’re already halfway there in planning your membership site. Adding a subscription component to your business will be the tipping point for your company by allowing you to:

• Share your knowledge one-to-many instead of one-to-one so you can reach a broader audience 
• Charge a monthly or annual fee for your exclusive membership so you can have a passive, recurring stream of revenue
• Create a sense of belonging and community for your customers so you can keep your members engaged 
• Give your members the ability to consume your content on their own time without you having to work around the clock
• Help more clients achieve their goals so you can create a loyal customer base for your brand   
• Automate your business so your members can benefit from your expertise anytime and anywhere

This is just the beginning. If you’ve got a passion or an area of expertise you’d like to create a community around, check out Ontraport’s Membership Site Planning Worksheet. It’s a great resource for working through your questions and fine-tuning your membership site plan.

The post Turn Passion Into Profit: Launch a Membership Site appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

Due to the nature of your business, you likely work with clients one-on-one, which means the number of people you can support is limited by the eight-hour work day. Though you want to serve more clients, your resources are already spread thin trying to maintain the relationships you have with your existing customers.

But what if you could package your advice — which you’re likely often repeating for each client anyway — into online videos or courses and share them with a broader audience? That’s the power of membership sites. These types of sites are ideal for one-to-one service businesses: You’ve already got the expertise and knowledge and have proven there’s a demand for it. Now it’s just a matter of scaling.

You can expand your customer reach while also creating personal customer experiences

You may be thinking that going online will diminish your best quality: your ability to personally help and connect with each client. And the idea of building a membership site sounds daunting, not to mention the time and effort involved in maintaining it.

These concerns are enough to keep many entrepreneurs from taking the leap and launching their first membership site. In fact, these concerns are the most frequently mentioned topics in membership site “how to” articles, such as this one by Memberful.

With modern platforms and plugins built specifically to support business owners in launching membership sites, setting up and running your site doesn’t need to be so technologically overwhelming. Thanks to that same technology, you can serve more clients and deliver your products via your membership site in a way that still feels like a one-on-one interaction.

In fact, according to the Scale With a Membership Site guide, “With membership sites, your members still feel like they are getting one-to-one treatment and are part of a special, supportive community.”

It’s all about how you deliver

There are several types of membership sites and techniques for delivering content so that you can best communicate your information while maintaining a personal connection.

For example, some sites involve community forums where your clients can ask each other questions and discuss important topics. Some sites are focused around training and education, where members progress through courses. Others serve as repositories of information that members can view and consume on their own time.

You can tailor your content to reach different audiences or serve different pain points. You can also use a variety of mediums — such as videos, podcasts or interactive webinars — that allow you to show your personality and connect with clients on a human level even without being in the same room.  

Membership sites are not meant to detract from your connection with clients but rather enable connections with even more clients. Once you set up your site, it’s important to continue to update content and engage with members to keep them active. Contrary to popular belief, membership sites aren’t exactly “set it and forget it.” You’ll earn recurring, mostly passive revenue, but you’ll also need to continue serving clients in individual ways. 

Membership sites actually work, especially for service businesses

Trading your time for money working one-on-one with clients often leads to burnout and challenges reaching a sustainable income. Membership sites have proven to be an effective way to eliminate those issues for personal service providers.

Donna Moritz of Socially Sorted said, “I was able to double my revenue, as well as flip from consulting income to almost 90% leveraged income from affiliate and program sales … that was my biggest ‘aha’ about the power of online courses.”

Socially Sorted isn’t the only business that has successfully grown by incorporating a membership site. Book More Brides also used a membership site to boost its annual customer base by almost 2,000%.

In addition to the ability to serve more clients worldwide with your knowledge and service, membership sites allow you to:

• Build a community that makes your clients feel a sense of belonging and support so that they stick around long-term
• Serve more customers without being limited by your busy schedule
• Give your clients meaningful value by helping them achieve their goals, thereby earning loyal customers
• Track your customers’ experiences to better understand their needs so you know exactly where to spend your time and marketing budget
• Bundle your knowledge into consumable pieces of content so you can scale the number of customers you can reach 
• Charge a monthly or annual fee for your exclusive membership so you can start earning recurring revenue

Determining the type of site, creating your content, and choosing a site platform are the first steps in launching a membership site. If you’re looking for step-by-step instructions and details about each of those important tasks, check out the Scale With a Membership Site guide.

The post Serve More Clients With a Membership Site appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

You’re continually working on attracting new members, keeping your online community happy, and preventing at-risk members from abandoning. All of these responsibilities might feel overwhelming, particularly if you’re doing everything yourself. You’ve heard stories of the best membership site owners taking three-month vacations while profiting from their site’s recurring revenue stream, but you haven’t yet reached a point where you can do this yourself.

To lock in that kind of recurring revenue, you need to keep your members engaged and subscribed, but retaining members is a common challenge. In fact, over 80% of customers cancel their membership site subscription within the first two years. There’s a reason why membership churn rates are so high.

Consumers’ expectations are rising

In order to keep your members subscribed, they need to enjoy the experience of using your membership site. A messy, unattractive interface that’s cumbersome to interact with will deter people from engaging and lead to cancellations.

Consumers are quicker to judge than ever. In fact, 75% of users judge a website’s credibility based on its overall aesthetic. According to Lyfe Marketing, “One of the biggest problems in digital marketing today is that small business owners don’t realize how important their website design actually is. The appearance and functionality of your site can make or break your business.”

And looks aren’t the only obstacle. Many users leave because of technical problems due to poor membership website development — particularly if members experience issues on the first day of their membership. In many cases, members would rather cancel their account than try to stick with it and figure it out on their own.

Your challenge is to create a site that’s easy for members to figure out — and enjoy using. 

Think like a user as you build your own subscription website

Investing time into creating a seamless membership site user experience is the best way to ensure your subscribers are able to navigate your site effortlessly. As Usability.gov puts it, user experience (UX), “focuses on having a deep understanding of users, what they need, what they value, their abilities, and also their limitations.” UX is all about creating a site in which the user doesn’t have to think about how to use it — it’s designed in an intuitive, easy-to-understand way. A seamless user experience will guide subscribers through your membership site without them even knowing they’re being guided.

With the right design elements and membership website development, members will be engaged, happy and easily able to navigate your site without any frustration.

Some businesses have remarked on the massive impact even a small change in user experience can provide. ESPN.com’s revenue jumped 35% after they received feedback from their community and incorporated suggestions into their homepage design. A study by Forrester even showed that a more user-friendly experience could raise a website’s conversion by up to 400%.

Start investing in your membership site user experience

Ultimately, focusing on user experience is mutually beneficial — making it a no-brainer. An investment in your membership site UX is an investment in your business. Studies have shown that by 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator.

When you create a membership website with user experience in mind, you’ll:

• Earn more new members as more visitors will see your site as credible
• Spend less time with customer service requests as members can easily navigate the site on their own
• Have fewer membership cancellations as members will be able to quickly orient themselves
• Start seeing a higher recurring income as more members stick around longer
• Get higher user engagement than ever by following subscription based website design best practices.
• Have a membership site that sells itself because existing members can’t wait to bring their friends aboard

When you’re ready to start focusing on providing an excellent user experience for your members, check out Membership Site User Experience.

The post How to Create a Membership Website Customers are Excited to Use appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

While you could choose virtually any format for sharing your expertise with members, pairing your company with a content delivery system that highlights your unique offerings can put you at an advantage over the competition.

To ensure you’re set up for success, we’ve made a list of the five main content delivery methods you should know about:

1. Fixed term 

With a fixed term membership site, all subscribers get access to a bank of content for the specified period of their membership. This model is highly profitable and requires minimal maintenance because users are not expecting you to add extra media or tools over time. Once their access expires, you can get creative with strategies to encourage them to renew their subscription, such as offering a discount.

Offering a fixed term membership plan is especially useful for running an online training program. According to Smart Blogger, this model works because it creates a sense of urgency to encourage members to complete the course. It also allows you to offer a continuity program to any members who haven’t finished the course and want to retain access, which means easy recurring revenue for you.

Example of a fixed term membership site

Food Blogger Pro is a fixed term membership program where users pay a set monthly fee for unlimited access to training videos, a private community forum, discounts, live calls, and more.

When to use it

Fixed term sites are great for businesses that don’t want to be constantly producing, editing and updating content.

Essentially, if you want truly passive income, this site is for you. Of all the content delivery types, it requires the least amount of upkeep, and you only have to add more content if you want to. Because members aren’t paying monthly membership fees indefinitely, they aren’t expecting you to drip content over time.

When not to use it

If you’re continually creating and adding new content to your site, you might be giving away too much for too little with this delivery type. Why? Members who have already paid a flat fee to access your bank of content are still receiving value from you every time you release something new — and you’re not profiting from it.

2. Tiered

This is the standard “pay more, get more” model where members get access to different levels of content based on the access tier they purchased. For example, if you offer Silver, Gold and Platinum packages, the more precious medals come with more information and at a higher price.

A tiered program benefits your members with ranging levels of skill or commitment because it personalizes their needs and experiences. For example, you might determine that members subscribing to your most basic tier are looking for video tutorials, but the people willing to pay for the more premium packages are interested in more hands-on interactions with you.

Example of a tiered membership site

ModaBox New York is a fashion subscription program that offers three tiers of personalized clothing boxes: SELECTbox (the smallest), PREMIERbox and LUXEbox.

When to use it

If your site’s content naturally lends itself to a “good, better, best” model, a tiered program is right for you. For example, if you run a membership site specializing in hair tutorials, the “good” level might offer the basic video training courses, the “better” level might offer access to a weekly live webinar in addition to the video course, and the “best” may give members a free pass to your annual in-person hair styling skills training.

When not to use it

If the value of your product doesn’t necessarily increase as the price increases, this isn’t the model for you. Especially for newer membership sites, there may not yet be enough content to establish a hierarchy. This could be something you add on later, once your site is a bit more complete.

3. Vertical

In vertical membership sites, members can purchase access to unique content and  exclusive areas of your site. For example, a fitness training site might offer a separate vertical package for members who are interested in yoga workouts vs. pilates. This allows members to control the content and be certain it’s relevant to them.

Example of a vertical membership site

OPEX Fitness offers access to seven verticals focusing on different areas of fitness coaching.

When to use it

If your content is categorized, setting up verticals would be a good option for you. Do you offer financial advice to college students, working professionals and retirees? Creating a vertical for each group would be of benefit to you and to the members so that you can be sure all subscribers get the experience they’re looking for.

When not to use it

If your content can’t easily be broken down into more than one category, verticals would be hard to establish for your site and may not be the right delivery type for you.

4. Sequential/drip

Sequential, or drip delivery, consists of lessons and course materials that are released to members on a fixed schedule. There are a few ways you can do this: either all users receive the same information on day one, week three, month four, etc., no matter when they sign up (sequential), or you release brand new, never-before seen content at a set day/time each week or month (drip).

Example of a sequential/drip membership site

Ontraport client, Basic Bananas, has a subscription video course “How to Brand Like a Boss.” The three-part series is meant to be viewed in order.

When to use it

Drip membership sites are best if you produce new, relevant content all the time. If your business is focused around time-relevant information, such as stock market advice, or involves daily or weekly news updates, drip membership will suit you well.

Sequential content release is best for educational or coaching content that should be consumed sequentially over time, such as lessons on how to play an instrument or self-help guidance. The idea is that each new lesson builds on the last, so completing them in order helps members get more out of the site.

When not to use it

If you don’t have time-sensitive content or educational content that should be delivered sequentially, this is likely not the ideal format for you. In sequential/drip sites, members are expecting frequent exciting new content, so it’s important that you’re planning to regularly update and add content.

5.  Combo

With a combination membership site, you can mix and match just about any of the types listed above. For example, if you’re a makeup artist who does weekly live webinars, you already drip content but, for your new members to see old webinar recordings from months before they joined, you may offer them the option to select a tiered or fixed term membership. This now makes your membership a combination site.

Example of a combination membership site

Udacity offers vertical subscriptions for vocational courses in various fields such as programming, data science, digital marketing and more. Once members select their vertical and field, they’re put on a sequential program.

When to use it

When you have an abundance of content or products that can be split up or sold in a variety of ways, you might consider a combination style site. For example, if you’re a life coach, you may have so much content that you’re able to split it into verticals — perhaps one for overcoming relationship struggles, one for overcoming anxiety, and one for building self-confidence — but you’re constantly adding to that list, so you drip content to your members as well to keep them engaged.

This site style may also help differentiate your brand from others in the market. Are all the other memberships for your niche fixed term, where they subscribe to the same bank of content for the entirety of their membership? Give yourself an edge by introducing new content each week or month or allowing users to progressively unlock content as they interact more with your site.

When not to use it

Don’t try too much too soon, especially if you’re just starting out. Trying to do it all could be messy and confusing for both you and your members.

The post How Should You Deliver Your Membership Site Content? appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

As someone who is generally pretty happy with simple things, my hour in this lounge felt wonderfully luxurious. I was traveling with a friend who had a Chase credit card that gave him free access to VIP lounges. By the end of this experience, and after drilling him with endless questions on his other perks, I had my mind set on signing up for this card.

Honestly, it’s not cheap but, weirdly enough, I’m excited to get it. To me, the perks far outway the annual cost. I love to travel, and this membership program was made for travelers. It makes sense for my lifestyle, and I will gladly pay a little more for it to join the family — colorful chairs and bottomless pastries, here I come!

Membership sites, if done correctly, can have an equal effect on people eager to pay more for better benefits. If you have quality content and an interesting angle, members will gladly pay for access to your site. I’m not saying it’s a guaranteed victory though — membership sites can be difficult to run successfully. What makes people willing to pay a cover charge at a club? And what makes people want to come back? You could have a band inside, or an event, or serve the stiffest drinks in town and, while on paper it seems like a steal, there’s still a risk you’ll be hosting an empty room.

What makes a membership site successful, and how do you know if a membership site is right for you? In order to really understand them, we’re going to cover the basics of membership sites, touch on the four primary site models, and see if any of them are appropriate for your business.

Membership sites 101

A membership site is a gated website protected by a username and password that allows people to join in order to gain access to exclusive “members only” content, features, benefits or community.

Membership sites vary in cost — some are free while some require payment for levels of access — and are extremely flexible in terms of setup. Primarily, they allow you — the owner — to share your digital content as you see fit, all in one place.

They’re scalable, completely automated, build community and customer experience, and ultimately help your members gain trust in your brand.

With all of the pros, there are also cons. Membership sites take a long time to set up. Some setups can be more complicated than others, and all of them will require ongoing maintenance. You’ll need to have or develop a multidimensional skill set and, in addition to putting aside time to build your site, you have to set aside time for content upkeep and customer service.

There’s one final thing to keep in mind when creating your membership site. You must choose the right model for your business. There are many different types of membership sites, and it can definitely get a little overwhelming. To save you some time, I’ve narrowed the models down to the four I think are the most effective: the immediate access model, drip feed, tiered membership and community forums.

Immediate access model

We all know Lynda.com (which is now called LinkedIn Learning). One of the most incredible educational resources around, the platform is effective for its simple setup and extensive benefits. Once new members have created an account, all they have to do is log in and they are instantly given access to all of the site’s content.

This is a prime example of an effective immediate access model membership site. Generally, an immediate access model grants its members access to everything instantly once they join. With varying implementable payment and curriculum structures available, membership content can be made accessible via a monthly subscription or per training course.

The immediate access model allows you to organize your content in a lot of different ways. A common trend for organization in this version is either by an overarching subject bucket (think educational courses) or by date (similar to blogs or online magazines). There is very little hand-holding in this model; it lets your members browse at their leisure and decide what to do with the information they receive.

A couple of common questions arise with this membership site model: How do you keep your members coming back? With everything already at their fingertips, what keeps members from downloading everything and then canceling their subscription?

The answer: Keep it fresh! It’s a good idea to create monthly bonuses to reward loyalty. Release new content at intervals (think blog, podcast, or vlog). Sending out surveys and asking for feedback is another good way to keep your members engaged. See what your clients want and try to deliver.  Additionally, every new post provides a new opportunity for an upsell, keeping your membership site constantly profitable.

Is an immediate access model good for you?

Depending on your client base and your business type, immediate access models can be good or bad. Personally, I love this model. I enjoy being able to flip through articles at my own pace without anyone or anything bothering me. However, others may find this model overwhelming and confusing.

Researching your demographic can help you decide whether this model is right for you. If you don’t have much content, or have a great deal of information catered to a very specific niche, this is probably not the best for you. Generally, this model is great for any of the following:

Partner center

A common go-to resource for a select group of people, a partner center provides access to promotional tools. It allows you to upload sensitive pieces of content one time, all in one place, and it gives you full control of who is able to see it.

Lead generation

Catered information provided to a specific interest or targeted demographic, lead generation has extremely broad potential. Ranging from blogs, podcasts or even online magazines, nothing is kept from the user once they sign up and log in. Additionally, new content is provided at set intervals and generally written by different experts.

Educational courses

A common immediate access model is creating an educational platform with organized learning objectives and takeaway actions. These platforms are extremely thorough, covering a wide range of niches. There are no set requirements, and a member can poke around with no obligations.

Drip feed 

If you’ve got a narrower demographic or a product that works better following a structured schedule of sharing information, consider the drip feed model. A drip feed delivers specialized content on a specific, niche interest. This model really works best for educational content presented either as modular or fixed time feeds.

Modular feeds

This version is the typical interpretation of a drip feed model. Content is pre-created and set up in sequential order — training of a large, overarching subject is divided into smaller sections that members can navigate through. Upon completion of one course, they unlock another.

No matter what time users join, they will eventually get the same content delivered once they fulfill the requirements set. The important part about modular courses is that they are not time-critical. 

If the modular feed seems to be the best fit for your membership site, remember to update your content or training at least once a year.

Fixed time feeds

Unlike modular feeds, fixed time feeds are extremely time-sensitive. Utilizing the idea of scarcity, they require all of the members to start at the same time, and access to information ends after a certain schedule of events pass.

Fixed time feeds work really well with live webinars and chat rooms. Say you have a four-week course running four times a year. Aligning these with a live interaction is a great way to review content with your members and keep them on track. Additionally, schedules are flexible to the owner and, once the fixed time ends, a window is provided to introduce another product.

Is a drip feed model good for you?

As a business owner or entrepreneur, it’s more than likely you’re already an expert in a specific field. If you already have educational content written, or a course already planned, it might be time to dive into a drip feed membership site.

Go with a drip feed model if you have any of the following:

Training courses

Training on specific subjects is the most common use of a drip feed model. Depending on the format of information (either modular or fixed time), users are able to move through all of the content provided they finish the designated requirements.

Digital products

Delivering digital products, including videos, webinars and PDFs, can be a great incentive to your users. These products often follow the idea of accomplishing a specific goal, such as staying fit with proper meal plans or workout videos. Releasing them slowly will help keep your users’ attention.

Tiered membership

Picture this membership site model as a multi-level building. New users are put in an elevator with a doorman who gestures at them for a tip. One woman gives him $5. The doorman takes her to level three. Another man gives him $20. The doorman takes him to level 15 and even shines his shoes on the way up.

Depending on the entry payment, your members will have access to different levels of information. As the owner, you get to decide what the levels are and the access needed to see them. Typically your users can also upgrade for additional services between levels. Simple enough, right?

Keep in mind, access to different levels doesn’t have to be based on actual currency. It could be information-based or time-based. You could have a gamification point system set up in your business or create different tiers depending on the number of referrals your members have. The point is, you decide the type of payment.

A tiered membership site definitely has its perks and complications. If done thoughtfully, you are creating a quality, multi-level, informative membership program that is easy to navigate and upgrade within. If done imprecisely, you could easily miss out on upsell opportunities, create confusion on the tiers, and have a large number of unhappy members, especially if your higher levels aren’t worth the additional spending needed to get there.

So how do you guarantee a happy client base? Plan, plan, plan. Survey, survey, survey. This model definitely requires quite a bit of pre-planning. Get feedback as frequently as you can (without being annoying, of course). A brief satisfaction survey popup here or there goes a long way.

Is a tiered membership model good for you?

I know what you’re thinking — what an awesome opportunity for upsells and product delivery! And you’re right. The tiered membership model is perfect for any business that follows some sort of “leveling up” foundation. Some basic ones are:

Event membership sites

If you are hosting an event with different ticket levels (think general admission vs. VIP), creating a membership site for your event could be a great bonus to your attendees. Not only are you creating a way for your attendees to communicate with each other and build hype, you can also send out bonus content to your higher-level ticket holders and upsell to your base entry admissions.

Rewards/loyalty programs

Is there a better way to gamify your business than by creating a loyalty program? Yes! Create a membership site for your loyalty program! Members can log in to check their progress on current rewards and see what they have earned in the past. They can also access additional benefits the farther they progress.

Service delivery

Ranging from an actual service to digital products, this is similar to the drip feed version except for one small detail — services are provided depending on the level of access, instead of following a schedule of time or events.

Community forums 

A directory or community forum model is a great way for your members to interact with each other with minimal direction from you, the owner. Your users can post questions, listings, cool facts, fun tips, and help each other in one unified space.

The idea of letting your community speak with each other and share their experiences is a pretty familiar concept. The best example of this success? Social media. If your business already has a solid foundation with a good number of followers, this could be the easiest membership site for you to create.

Keep in mind, while this is probably the most hands-off model, some monitoring is still required. If you’ve ever scrolled through the comments of a YouTube video, you’ve likely seen quite a handful of angry trolls or false promotional comments. Monitoring the comments and listings on this type of model will keep people from spreading false information and, by keeping track of repeat offenders, you can actually filter through your list and make sure you only allow quality users access to your membership site.

Plus, participating in your community forum is a great way to show your members you’re engaged and available to them.

Is a community forum model good for you?

Do you have a large, active following? Are you comfortable online and vocal about your thoughts? If the answer to these questions is no, a community forum model is probably not the best fit for you. A successful membership site following this model is relatively flexible in its layout but ultimately falls under two categories.

Directories and listings

The end result of this category is an exchange of goods. Members can post things to resell or trade. Communication primarily happens through private messages, and some sort of payment platform should exist.

Learning center

The end result of this category is an exchange of knowledge. Posts revolve around questions and tips, and members primarily communicate through public feeds. The ability for any member to view the posts means that everyone can benefit from the answer.

Ready, set, go

Hopefully, now that you know more about membership sites, you’re excited and ready to create your own. Remember, as an entrepreneur and subject-matter expert, you’re already halfway there.

The post Membership Site Fundamentals appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

Whether you’re just getting started with a membership site or have been running one for a while, it can be difficult to figure out what elements you need on each page.

You want to provide valuable content to your members and give them what they’re looking for, but it’s challenging to know exactly what they want and need. You may be finding members slipping away because they’re not engaged with your content.

This is likely the exact opposite of the reason you started a membership site in the first place. You want to provide useful members-only content to your audience on an ongoing basis, not only to support them but also to bring in your own recurring revenue stream.

Membership site retention is a common challenge

In a survey by Marketing General Incorporated, more than 35% of respondents said that communicating their membership site’s value and benefits is their greatest challenge. When members are missing the point of your membership site, they’re unlikely to stick around for more.

With over a fourth of membership sites reporting a decrease in subscribers in 2019, there’s no doubt that it’s time for change.

Know what to put on each page and why it’s there

Instead of playing guessing games or using a long, painful process of trial and error to find the right formula for a profitable membership site, the solution is to use proven standards and tactics for every element of your membership site. By following well-established best practices page-by-page, you’ll get on the fast track to the recurring revenue you hoped for.

Each page on your site has a specific purpose. Understanding that and planning in advance helps relieve the overwhelm of building your site.  

For example, ask yourself what elements you should you put on your:

• Membership registration page: Where non-members input their information in exchange for a membership
• Membership login page: The first thing members see when they arrive on your membership site
• Member homepage: The members’ ultimate hub, where they’ll find all the content or resources they’ve subscribed to
• Account info page: Where all the members’ information will be stored so they can easily reference it and/or make necessary changes
• Miscellaneous pages: Such as FAQs, member benefits, contact info and more

All of these pages play important roles in guiding your members through the site and showing them the value of being a member — leading to better retention and fewer cancellations. If the content on each page supports that page’s clear purpose, your members will know where to go for what they need without hassle. Likewise, if your member homepage and the content pages follow through on the expectations you set, your members will be satisfied with their experience.

The benefits of planning membership site content page-by-page

When you start outlining the different pages of your membership site content and the elements that should go on each page, you can:

• Discover what’s unique about your site so you can start marketing in a way that sets you apart from your competition
• Create a credible registration page that convinces more visitors to become members
• Understand why you need certain features of your membership site so you can stop second-guessing yourself 
• Refer back to your content plan when you’re ready to make changes so there’s less mental fog
• Clearly see where there are gaps in your site so you can be sure you’re delivering to your clients the most value for their paid subscription
• Determine what your membership site actually needs (and what it doesn’t) so you can get control of your budget and resources 

If you’re launching a membership site and you’re unsure what content belongs on each page, check out Membership Sites Page-by-page to start planning.

The post Eliminate the Guesswork in Building Your Membership Site and Get on the Fast Track to Recurring Revenue appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

Here are some of the creative ways six Ontraport users are optimizing their membership sites:

Membership Sites: Gigi Guides

Bianca Gignac

Gigi Guides is a site that provides members with curated local expertise to make traveling in Italy a unique cultural experience.

Because people often travel with a companion, Bianca and her team wanted to make sure her clients could share access to Gigi Guides with a friend. The team was able to use Ontraport to create two records with one purchase. Once the membership is purchased, the friends receive a follow-up series of emails, beginning with an email informing them that their friend bought them a gift. “We’ve never seen anyone else do this with a member site, and we had to invent the process,” Bianca said. Ontraport’s API capabilities are what gave them the ability to create such a unique automation process for their business. 

Bianca also sends automated pre-trip emails through Ontraport, triggered at the appropriate time based on the date of the upcoming trip. For example, if a member has an upcoming trip to Rome, she’ll send out an email reminder two weeks in advance to make restaurant reservations and an email one week in advance with packing tips. Using Ontraport, Bianca and her team are able to deliver the right messages at the right time to ensure her clients have a positive experience traveling with Gigi Guides, increasing the likelihood they will recommend her guides to a friend. 

“Push the boundaries of what the technology can do,” Bianca advises. “Ontraport is the engine inside your Lamborghini, but your company needs to constantly innovate inside the technology to elevate customer success.”

Membership Sites: Book More Brides

Jeff and Stephanie Padovani

Book More Brides helps wedding professionals (photographers, DJs, wedding planners, etc.) market and promote themselves to fill up their booking calendar and increase their income.

Jeff and Stephanie use Ontraport to drip release content to keep members heavily engaged over time. They also email weekly “action challenges” and reminders of new content that’s to come.

Using Ontraport to generate referral links and automate their entire referral process, the Padovanis significantly grew their client list. They were also able to hone in on the hottest prospects, based on their actions in their campaign, and target them for special offers using Ontraport’s rules. They could segment leads and set up automated campaigns centered around specific interests.

“It’s super convenient… [because] everything’s all in one place,” they said, “so we don’t need an extra integration.”

Membership Sites: The Restaurant Boss

Ryan Gromfin

The Restaurant Boss provides online resources for restaurant owners to better operate their businesses and train their staff.

One of Ryan’s favorite features “hands down” is the ability to show and hide content while controlling what page visitors are redirected to based on levels or tags. “The icons will be in color if they own the product or black and white if not,” he said. “Ontraport easily allows for this functionality plus the ability to redirect to different pages when clicked.”  

By showing all members everything the site has to offer, even if they haven’t purchased full access, they’re more likely to be enticed to purchase higher levels of membership or other upsell offers.

Ryan also uses an indoctrination campaign wherein blog posts have a lead magnet that requires email opt-in. These leads are then segmented based on the magnet to which they opted in. Each one is sent to a low-cost high-value tripwire.

Membership Site: Owners Academy

Matthew Kostanecki

Owners Academy walks people through the steps needed to build a business they love and is made up of two parts: courses and community.

Matthew attributes the site’s success to the automated campaigns and emails he creates in Ontraport. After members successfully sign up and pay, they’re added to the course email series and get one email a week for each module. These automated email campaigns allow Matthew to continuously deliver valuable content to his members while giving him time to focus on other aspects of his business.    

Members stay engaged with weekly emails encouraging them to post in the “accountability” forum about the one thing they plan on accomplishing. Matthew also sends broadcast emails highlighting interesting success stories shared by other members in the forum. Matthew can provide members with the option to get updates every time something is posted to keep the community closely connected, and it’s all done in Ontraport.

Another favorite feature of his is the ability to create landing pages in Ontraport, which he explains “especially come in handy” when he opens and closes course registrations. The functionality of the landing page builder gives him control to publish and unpublish his pages according to his registration schedule. He also praises the ability to host videos and take payments on any landing page.

When it comes to membership sites, Kostanecki highly recommends all-in-one systems. “As an entrepreneur, you want to limit the complexity of your system as much as possible,” he said. “The less complex, the less likely it is that something will go wrong.”

Membership Sites: Basic Bananas

Christo Hall and Franziska Iseli

Basic Bananas gives business owners expert marketing strategies at their fingertips.

Christo and Franziska welcome new members with an email series. The series includes videos to familiarize new members with the site and show them how to get the most out of their membership. Christo and Franziska use Ontraport’s CRM to pull the client’s information stored in their contact database to ensure each new member receives the appropriate content. In addition, they use the CRM to send a welcome gift box by direct mail to make their members truly feel welcomed by the community. 

The automated list segmentation abilities in Ontraport play a key role in Basic Bananas’ sales and marketing funnels. The team runs lots of events, so they built a campaign within Ontraport to engage their traffic, register people (including collecting payment) and send automated reminders leading up to the events. 

Ontraport ensures Christo and Franziska don’t miss a beat, whether it’s in nurturing their clients or in orchestrating their events. “We have around 40 workshops running in 13 different cities every month. Ontraport ensures everyone gets the correct reminder, info they need, and follow-ups,” Christo said. “This would be impossible for a team member to manage — and it’s all automated. Our new members are added to their correct group without any human intervention.”

Membership Sites: The Chartist

Nick and Trish Radge

The Chartist simplifies the trading and investment process for busy people by providing strategies for the Australian and US stock markets, trading education, and an active community forum for members.

Nick and Trish use Ontraport for nearly every aspect of their membership site. They offer their clients a two-week trial and use an onboarding campaign to send out reminders to trial participants when the end of the trial is near. Because of the up-and-down nature of the stock market, Nick and Trish make sure to update their site every day with their recommended trading strategies based on that day’s market. Ontraport allows them to keep their members up-to-date by sending out email reminders to let the community know to log in and view the daily trade recommendations. By using Ontraport to implement this strategy, Nick and Trish were able to improve their members’ experience to improve customer retention.

Trish and Nick use Ontraport for their PR efforts as well. They use Ontraport Pages to capture leads who listen to Nick’s popular podcast. After providing their email addresses in exchange for an ebook, the listeners are placed on a nurturing campaign. “He did one podcast with 45,000 listeners more than 12 months ago. We’re still getting people every day opting in from that,” Trish said.

Their best piece of advice for membership owners? “Keep it simple!…Do one or two things, and do them really well.”

The post A Peek Inside 6 Successful Membership Sites appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

Subscription-based businesses such as membership sites have completely taken off in the last few years, and it’s estimated that subscription commerce retailers have grown by over 890% since 2014. In this saturated market, customers have the option to be extremely picky with the products they subscribe to. As a result, businesses with top-notch customer service, exclusive access, personalized content and convenience will come out on top.

Launching a membership product of that caliber can be difficult without the correct membership platform to help you manage repetitive tasks such as following up with users, granting access to your site, processing orders and publishing content. All these time-consuming tasks can and should be handled automatically by a membership platform. By automating these tasks, you can be assured that your customers are getting what they need when they need it — giving you more time to focus on perfecting your actual product instead of dealing with busywork.

To help you visualize the potential your subscription site has, we’ve outlined the automation features you should be looking for and utilizing in a membership platform.  

Product setup

You put a lot of time and marketing effort into attracting new members so it’s important that, once they’re ready to sign up, you don’t lose them with a complex and non-user-friendly experience. You can use automation features to streamline your registration tasks to make onboarding your new customers flawless and automatic.

Automated subscription payments

When people sign up for your membership site, they’re committing to paying you for the duration of their membership. To avoid any frustration in the recurring billing process, you can use automation to make sure each person is charged on the correct billing date, to send customers an email when their credit card is about to expire so they have an opportunity to adjust it, and to email customers if their card was declined for any reason.

By automating these billing processes using simple rules and settings in your membership platform, you won’t need to manually assess declined payments each month, send emails to the customers, or deal with payment systems.

Login delivery

You can welcome new customers automatically to impress them from the start and get them up and running quickly.

You don’t have to manually grant access to your site or deal with sensitive login information. An integrated membership and marketing automation platform like Ontraport allows you to create unique login credentials for each new customer and automatically email them with that information.

Product upsells

While your customers are in the process of purchasing your subscription package, you can also use automation to offer upsells and cross-sells that increase the total value of the sale.

An upsell is when you offer an upgraded version of a product that someone is either in the process of buying or has already bought. These offers could include access to exclusive pages on your membership site, a higher package level or other auxiliary products.

To get more value from your existing members, you can easily segment them into specific groups so that you can follow up with automated emails that offer content and services unique to their interests.

Customer engagement

Keeping your customers engaged and excited about your subscription product is key — that’s how you keep a steady flow of recurring revenue. Offering a remarkable user experience that extends well beyond their first login is a whole lot easier to maintain if you have automation set up to cater to your customers’ needs at every step.  

Membership level setup

Many membership sites provide resources that help members accomplish a certain goal. A fitness blog, for instance, may offer three membership levels: basic, standard and advanced. Basic members might have access to local networking, a newsletter, event discounts and limited free online training courses. Standard members might have access to all the basic benefits plus one-on-one training with a coach, personalized meal plans, and a broader selection of valuable training courses. Advanced members might get all of the above plus stand-alone products included in their membership.

Setting such a membership hierarchy is quick and easy. Simply designate which content and products are accessible to each membership level, and customers will only see what they’ve paid to see.

Account recovery

When customers lose their password, they want the ability to immediately reset it and get rolling again. To make that happen, your account credential recovery process should be quick and automated.

A membership platform like Ontraport allows you to create a simple password reminder campaign where customers enter their email into an online form and then receive an email with instructions to reset their password. The best part is, you don’t have to deal with emails from frustrated or impatient customers; everything is done through the campaign.

Milestone acknowledgment

Automation allows you to reward your customers and make their experience with your subscription product more engaging.

You can easily track which of your site pages a member has visited, allowing you to monitor their progress. Say your customer finishes one of your online courses. Rather than just sending him or her to the next course, you can gamify the process and acknowledge their accomplishments with personalized (yet automated) emails or SMS text messages.

Customer center

To empower your members to answer their own questions surrounding your product, you can create a customer center using your membership platform. For example, members can log in and view invoices, review their purchase history, update their credit card details, and change their login information. This not only gives your users the flexibility and the resources they want on-demand, but it frees up your customer support team’s time.

The post Subscription Products Done Right appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

By 2015, Lynda.com scaled to accommodate over 3,500 online courses — many of which featured video tutorials. The online tutorial giant has since been sold to LinkedIn for $1.5 billion, proving the effectiveness of the paid membership site model as a platform for online education.

Though Lynda.com has set the bar high, you don’t need to be anywhere near that upper echelon to profit spectacularly from an automated passive income stream through a gated membership site.

A membership site is a website people join to gain access to exclusive “members only” content, features, benefits or community. Protected by a username and password, membership sites allow you, the business owner and content creator, to share or sell your digital content and wares in one place.

Who can benefit from a membership site?

Business consultants, financial advisors, career coaches, music instructors and other professional service-based businesses can transform from one-to-one client services to one-to-many via a membership site. As experts in their particular field, professional service providers can share information through instructional videos, evergreen tutorials, a series of live webinars, podcasts and any other medium. They can also bring together an online community of people with the same interests to connect via forum discussions or online symposiums.

With the right in-demand content, these sites can offer tremendous value to their target audiences thereby making them well worth signing up and/or paying for — and that’s the key to a great membership site. They must offer something of unique, extreme value that cannot be found elsewhere — and they must maintain that exclusivity on an ongoing basis and provide members with utmost care and attention.

“We put our members first and think in every decision we make — how can we make it a better product?” said Lynda Weinman. “We know our brand really rests on our reputation. And, we’ve protected that and made a good judgement in knowing what to teach and how to teach it to make our membership more valuable than its cost.”

Before investing the time, energy and money to produce a highly valued membership site, it’ll be worthwhile to spend some time researching your market to ensure that once you launch your site, you’re not playing to an empty house; the demand has to be there. From there you’ll be able to tailor your offer and get into the nitty gritty of content creation, organization and delivery.

Determine the Demand Through Research

If you’re contemplating starting a membership site, it’s likely that you’re an expert in your niche or have something unique to offer. If you’ve got people knocking down your door asking for your services, you’re probably on to something, and a membership site could be profitable for you. However, in many cases, it’s unclear whether there’s high enough demand for the knowledge or information you’re seeking to share. Or perhaps the interest is there, but it’s unknown whether your audience would value it enough to subscribe to a membership site long-term.

To get started, assess the market by researching the answers to the following:

• How many people want what you’re offering?
• What are the other successful sites in your industry currently?
• Are there many popular Facebook groups, blogs or conferences on the subject?
• If so, are they close enough for you to attend? If not, is this something you could potentially host yourself?
• Are there many YouTube videos on the subject?
• Does your product or service warrant video tutorials or walkthroughs?
• Do you have the resources to record and edit quality videos?
• Are many people searching for related keywords on Google?

As you research, make a list of all the most popular pages and sites. Note whether there are opportunities to advertise on blogs or partner with other content providers and whether there are Facebook pages with enough followers for you to target.

Compare your offering to other businesses

Next, start to think of the ways you can make your business stand out from your competitors. For example, can you offer free products as a tripwire to get more leads through the door? Can you design your site so it is more user-friendly and intuitive?

What is unique or different about the way you provide your services? If you have current clients, why did they choose you over your current competition? If you don’t know, ask them! This can give you valuable insight into how to position your offer.

Another approach to your research is to determine how people solve the problem you’re aiming to solve. Are there blogs, books, consultants, in-person classes or clubs addressing the problem? Can you offer something better via your membership site?

Create a Compelling Membership Site

Once the research is complete, you can determine what sort of offer will be most compelling to your audience. To do this, imagine yourself in the shoes of your ideal prospects, surveying the landscape of possible solutions to their problem. You may even have been in their shoes once; what is it that you would have loved to have access to, but it didn’t yet exist?

Next, think about what you can offer uniquely in your niche. Get down to the details — what specific information can you provide that your audience needs? For example, if your membership site is focused on running a successful business, perhaps you can provide exact process maps that have proven effective. Ultimately, people want to follow specific steps and tactics from an expert; they want a ready-to-go guide with everything they need.

Once you have an idea of what type of content you’ll offer, consider what you can do or add to take your membership site over the top so that your prospect can’t say no to becoming a member. It could be as simple as adding a 30-minute phone consultation with you or providing free entry to a popular annual live conference in your niche.

This offer will end up dictating your marketing efforts, including the way you position your business, the angles you take with your ads and landing pages, and the audiences you target, so it’s important to spend some time and make it right. Consider testing it with current clients or a small sample audience to see if it would be appealing enough for them.

Decide Your Content Types

The preliminary steps in this process had you thinking broadly about what it is that you’re offering and why people will pay you to access it. This next section will support you in more specifically identifying what knowledge and expertise you have and by which means you’ll go about presenting it.

Content can be interactive, standalone or a combination. Within each, you can and should use a variety of media — text, audio and video — to enhance the users’ enjoyment and comprehension of the material.

Think about your membership site, and consider the best possible delivery method for your specific content and audience. Would it be aided best by more interactive mediums such as podcasts or videos? Or would it be best presented in downloadable PDFs that can be consumed by people on their own time?

Interactive content

Interactive content requires you to engage regularly with your members.

Examples include:  

• Q & A sessions
• Live webinars or videocasts
• Discussion boards and forums
• Quizzes and surveys
• Education or training lessons

Standalone content

Once created, standalone content should require little work on your part, with the exception of keeping it up to date.

Within this category are:

• Downloadable PDFs
• Case studies
• Workbooks
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Audio recording

Choose a Content Delivery Model

To retain members, it’s important to give them a reason to stay long-term. The way you deliver your content determines the frequency of interaction with your members and, therefore, their level of engagement.

Delivery timing

Consider whether your program is better suited to sequential delivery over time, all-at-once delivery, or timely delivery:

Sequential/drip content: This is best for educational or coaching content that should be consumed sequentially over time, such as lessons on how to play an instrument or self-help guidance.

All-at-once content: This is best for content that doesn’t require sequential comprehension, such as healthy food recipes, cooking tips, information on managing a medical issue or any topic where having all information accessible is beneficial.

Timely content: If you’re providing time-relevant updates, such as daily stock tips and info, you’ll use a timely delivery model triggered by your particular updates.

Delivery models

The timing of your delivery also impacts the model of delivery. Consider the following options:

Fixed term: Members get access to certain content for the period of their membership.

Tiered: Members get access to different levels of content based on the access tier they purchased, such as “silver, gold and platinum” or “basic, premium and pro.” This is the standard “pay more, get more” model.

For example, CLEAR is a company that verifies your identity and speeds up the airport security process for travelers. They offer a single-person membership plan or a family plan.

Content vertical: Members get access to content that is unique to each area of your site they have purchased. For example, members can opt for nutrition content vs. exercise content.

Organize Your Membership Site Content

Now that you’ve seen various content types and delivery models, you can begin to map out your specific content. The way you organize your content will make or break your buyers’ experiences. It’s important to invest thought into your site organization and create a clear flow of content for consumption.

Membership Site Mapping

Map out exactly what your site will look like — down to specific content within each page and the navigation throughout. Mapping tools like Mindjet and Lucidchart can be very useful for this.

For sites that offer training or education, start with an outline listing and ordering the key lessons. Fill each lesson with details, including introductions, examples and summaries. Consider adding quizzes, worksheets, checklists or cheat sheets for users to follow throughout or after the lesson.

For example, Codecademy clearly lists the course you are working on and what else you will need to accomplish to complete the membership course.

A membership site calls for a sound foundation. You wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint, and you shouldn’t launch a content-driven site without mapping it out first.

The post How to Determine Your Membership Site Content appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

As with any new purchase, it’s common for members to be excited to join your site and then lose interest or get busy with other things. In fact, over 80% of customers cancel their subscription to a membership site within the first two years. 

Because it costs five times less on average to retain and satisfy existing members than it does to acquire new ones, it only makes sense that you focus your efforts on keeping your customers on board for the long haul. We’ve compiled a list of effective retention strategies you can employ to keep users engaged with your site — and with each other — well after they’ve joined.

1. Tease upcoming content in new and unique ways

To build anticipation around your soon-to-be-released content, give members a glimpse of what’s coming by incrementally leaking sneak peeks, also known as cliffhanger content. 

Similar to TV shows that include a preview at the end of each episode to hook you in for next week, your content teases should be attention-grabbing and enticing. A great way to do this is by using a variety of mediums to keep your members on their toes.

For example, if you tease your new content in a weekly or monthly newsletter, mix it up with a written teaser one week, a video another, and an audio clip in the next. Or, if you want to catch subscribers’ attention while they’re already logged in to your site, try including a “coming soon” section on your home page or at the bottom of course modules that show grayed out thumbnail images of the next video.

2. Grant early access

If, like many of us, Amazon is your impulse buy haven, you’ve surely noticed Lightning Deals on featured items peppered throughout the site. These are time-sensitive and sell out quickly. Early access to these deals is one of many reasons it pays to go Prime, Amazon’s exclusive membership. For Amazon Prime customers, a membership guarantees a 30-minute heads-up period in which members get priority access to flash sale items before the general public. 

The same idea can apply to any membership business model — especially those with tiered access levels where you can grant early, exclusive access to the highest levels. This gives subscribers even more incentive to upgrade their membership and makes those customers with access feel like real VIPs.

The exclusive feeling that customers get from early access — to products, services, sales and more — are part of what makes membership sites attractive in the first place, so incorporating them into your site is a real win-win.

3. Offer discounts

Another way to keep your membership site subscribers engaged is to share special discounts and offers from other companies that you partner with, available exclusively for them.

For example, say that you run a membership site for health and wellness business owners that includes boatloads of how-tos on attracting more customers, improving retention and encouraging referrals. What other kinds of information and services would customers in this vertical benefit from? Maybe they also need graphic design services, web hosting or print marketing collateral. To provide more value, you could leverage any connections or partnerships that you have to hook them up with exclusive deals.

If you’re able to set up a number of these special offers for your customers, create a page within your membership site that’s only visible to logged-in subscribers where they can view links to all the exclusive deals available for them.

If your membership site boasts multiple-tiered membership levels, you could also consider offering an upgrade at a discounted rate to mid- and low-tier members. Customers love being rewarded for their loyalty. They pay less and gain more value from a worthy product or service while you’ve effectively locked in new recurring income.

4. Spotlight your members with contests, giveaways and feature stories

Acknowledging your members through contests and giveaways is a surefire way to heighten their sense of belonging. 

Host your giveaways on one of your social media accounts and create certain criteria for entering  to win a prize. For example, for entrants to win, they must both follow your account and have commented on your most recent post. This will create buzz on your social media and collectively bring your community together in the hopes of winning a prize. 

Another way to boost the engagement of your members is to hold contests. Use a photo contest to push the use of your hashtag on social media and generate user-created content for your brand. Feature the winner at the top of your social media, your website, your membership site itself, or the next newsletter to your members. Your winners will be acknowledged and the rest of your community will strive to be featured.

On your site, you can encourage members to excel in your program or courses by selecting a member each month to highlight with a feature story. This feature can be a Q&A on how they succeeded with your courses, a video or photos showing before and after, or even a leaderboard that features your top five most engaged or accomplished subscribers.

5. Implement a user forum

Even though your members signed up for your site to engage with you, they can also get a lot of value by dialoguing with their peers — your other customers. Adding a forum element to your membership site can be incredibly rewarding. Not only do you open the opportunity for your members to bounce ideas off of one another and get their questions answered, you also create a valuable community full of like-minded individuals who already have interests in common.

When adding a forum component to your site, you have a few options. The first option, which is easy and convenient, is to host your forum on a popular social networking site like Facebook. The functionality provided by Facebook’s group feature is very powerful. One of the biggest benefits of hosting your forum on Facebook is that your members can use their existing Facebook login to access the discussion, which means that each time they log in to Facebook they’ll see notifications and threads from your forum in their news feed. A potential drawback to consider is privacy — not everyone will want to use their personal Facebook account to interact with other users.

If you’re looking for a way to have more control over the look and functionality of your forum, you can use a WordPress plugin to create your forum inside your membership site so that users can only see it when they are logged in. This will also allow you to fully customize the style of your forum to make the experience exclusive and unique to your business.

To get your forum off to a great start, you’ll need to stimulate conversation by encouraging your customers to post there. It can be very beneficial to have dedicated threads on a few intriguing topics set up so that new users who log in while your forum is still taking off will have something to respond to. Don’t forget to create rules and guidelines for your online community, and be sure to note any topics that are off-limits or any types of discussions that will not be tolerated.

6. Gamify the membership experience

Using games and game-like elements is a great way to get your members excited about participating in your membership site.

Gamification involves incorporating the elements that make games so fun (points, levels, challenges, competition, etc.) to an underlying customer interaction in order to make the experience more engaging.

Gamifying your membership site incentivizes users to log in more often and spend more time interacting with your content.

For example, Fitbit is a goal-oriented app that offers badges and competition with friends to encourage users to take their fitness to the next level.

7. Quizzes and surveys

There’s a reason sites like Buzzfeed and Zimbio publish endless quizzes — they’re addicting, and they keep readers hooked. Even though your membership site might not be a good fit for “clickbait” style quizzes like “Which Disney princess would be your enemy in real life?,” you can apply the same model to keep your subscribers engaged. Most quiz results sort users into one of several buckets according to personality traits, strengths or preferences, and it can be fun to learn which group they’re a part of.

Quizzes offer an additional benefit: When subscribers get a quiz result that they feel accurately describes them, they feel that you know who they are and what they care about, and you can use their results to tailor the membership experience more towards their tastes and interests.

For example, let’s say you provide marketing and branding strategy to small, local gyms and yoga studios. You could create a quiz all your new members take called “What does your dream studio look like?” Results could include “Trendy, cutting edge health club,” “Laid-back, local studio,” or “Growth-focused fitness facility.” Based on their quiz results, you could suggest content within the site that would be most relevant to them. You can also use this information (which should match up roughly with identifiable segments of your target market) to direct members to upsell and cross-sell products that will benefit them.

The post 7 Ways to Enhance Your Membership Site and Keep Subscribers Engaged appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.