If you have a membership as one of your offers in your product suite, you know selling an ongoing membership is so different from selling a group program, course or 1:1.
With memberships, we need a constant flow of people coming in and as few people as possible dropping out. This week on the Scaling to Freedom Podcast, I share the strategies we see work the best in the agency for our clients with memberships. I talk about how we keep these memberships flowing with new members.
A must-listen if you have a membership!
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Elevate your membership business by applying reliable sales and retention strategies.
- Harness the power of quarterly live events to stimulate membership growth and engagement.
- Implement evergreen event advertising to optimize lead generation and list building.
- Enhance membership value by providing standalone content with captivating themed marketing approaches.
- Boost retention rates using market research, tiered offers, and customer loyalty schemes.
Podcast Transcript
Christina: (00:01)
You are listening to the Scaling of Freedom podcast, and if you are an online coach or course creator, you are in the right place. I’m your host, Christina Bernhard. I’m an ads agency owner that gets an inside look every day on what’s working and what doesn’t. In the online coaching space, I’m here to share with you what we see works in our agency as well as what we see happening and changing in the industry. Stay tuned to up-level your coaching business to have the freedom you want. Let’s get started.
Christina: (00:31)
Welcome to episode 174. This week we are talking about membership. So for a lot of my clients and people that I’ve seen in the coaching space, having a membership often makes sense. So whether you have, I mean, you might only have a membership and that is your main offer, um, or you have a course or some sort of program that turns into a membership offer in your product suite. Um, this is a different kind. It requires a different kind of selling. And so I wanna talk about how to get consistent sales coming in, um, different strategies that you can use to grow the membership. Um, also a newer strategy that I’ve seen in the past year or so, uh, really take off and I’ve actually seen this work the best for memberships in the agency, um, and also what to promote and win. And then I also wanna talk about retention a little bit because retention is going to be huge in your ability to actually scale your member, your membership and make it grow.
Christina: (01:33)
So the first thing, let’s talk about how to get those consistent sales coming in, because this is often the biggest question and the bi biggest problem is how do I consistently get it to grow and get more and more people coming in? So there are different ways that you can do this. And you know, one of the obvious things that we do is we, you know, run ads. Um, but another thing that you can do, because with the membership, if it’s open all of the time in your, you know, it’s more of an evergreen, um, membership, then one thing that you can do is have quarterly live events. So almost all of my clients that have memberships do at least a quarterly live event. So this is a way to incorporate live launching into your strategy, even though it’s open all the time, but you still want to have some sort of, you know, hype event.
Christina: (02:25)
Some sort of like influx of people. So you can do webinars, um, every quarter or you can just do them for twice a year. Um, one thing that really does help whenever you’re doing this is you can try different topics. If you wanna do this on a consistent basis, trying out different topics and testing which one works best, um, we can actually take that specific topic and that specific webinar and run that evergreen as well. If there’s one that you know, really, really takes off or really converts at a high level, that is the beauty of, you know, consistently doing different events. And if you want to change the topic, um, that’s a huge benefit of doing that because sometimes you find that one topic that just resonates and that event just converts really well. We can try that in an evergreen setting, um, by running ads to it and see how that does on an ongoing basis.
Christina: (03:20)
It often works really, really well. Um, but it does take, you know, testing out those different topics, um, and spending the time to, uh, have different kinds of events, uh, g going forward. So what this does whenever you have a quarterly live event is it creates hype around your membership. So that’s one thing that you know, when the doors are always open and it’s just kind of always up, that is one challenge that you have. You know, finding ways to create hype around it, get people excited, um, and give people some sort of urgency, um, to get in. Uh, and then so these definitely create that hype. Uh, it also gives you data. So back to what I was saying, you know, trying out the different topics, um, figuring out different conversions, things like that. Um, it’s gonna give you more data. Also, whenever you are doing these live events and you have an influx of leads into that live event, you also have more people going in through an email sequence as well.
Christina: (04:16)
That’s gonna give you more data on what kind of emails, get people to click through the sales page, um, and also what people are engaging with and responding to. Another thing that does is it builds your email list, um, even more if you’re running ads, obviously, but if you are promoting a live event and you have people maybe on your social media that is not yet on your email list, this is also a way to migrate them onto your email list. Um, and if you’re running ads, obviously that’s gonna grow your email list as well because you’re sending it to cold audiences. Another thing that it does that I think is probably one of the best benefits is that it gives you practice on webinars and selling and pitching. Um, and I always mention this, but whenever I say webinar, I’m using it as an internal term.
Christina: (05:02)
So I’m referring to, um, boot camps, masterclass, live training, like whatever you want to call them, uh, workshops, you know, whatever. Um, it gives you practice on being able to like facilitate those and be able to sell at the end of them. And that is huge. That is one skill that would be really, really good to get good at. So the more that you do, the better you’re gonna get at that. So that’s the first thing is those quarterly live events, this is very, very effective. Um, again, most of my clients, if not all, do some sort of live event, either at least a minimum twice a year, but often quarterly. The second thing that we do often, or well we always do, but not everyone who has a membership does it, um, is adds to an evergreen event or a training. So you can use the recording of your best performing live event.
Christina: (05:56)
Like I said, if you are practicing out different topics and things like that, you’re gonna eventually hit the nail on the head and one on one of them. And so you can use that as your evergreen, um, training that you’re always promoting. And you can also promote multiple simultaneously and see how they do on the top of funnel and like on the ads on the front end, on the ads as well. Um, so whichever one has the lowest cost per lead, if they convert, um, really well, then you’re going to just use, you know, promote that one that has the lowest cost per lead. Um, if it converts, now you have to put these numbers into a spreadsheet by the way, and actually calculate, because sometimes if one converts higher, um, and that cost per lead is higher, it can actually even out or even outperform.
Christina: (06:42)
So cost per lead, I have a whole podcast on the cost per lead. It’s not everything, it’s just one metric. So I just wanna point that out, um, so you can, you know, promote the one that works the best. Um, another thing about doing this is you are going to be consistently list building, which is always a great idea. Um, and then also you have a, an evergreen lead generation strategy. So you always have that steady flow of new leads coming in, and this also gives you volume to be able to optimize your funnel. So having something that ongoing basis where you have a steady drip of leads, you’re having a steady drip of people going into your email sequences so you can actually optimize all the time rather than just, you know, during specific live launches. So, um, that’s really, really helpful to be able to get to the point where you have that ATM status where you’re just putting money in and getting money out, um, which you will get there.
Christina: (07:41)
Um, it just takes that optimization, it takes the time that it takes. So that’s the second thing is the ads to the evergreen event training. Um, and then the third thing, which is this is actually a newer strategy, um, that I’ve seen over, well, I guess the past couple years, but it really take off the past year I’ve seen it the most. Um, so I guess it’s not really a new strategy, but it has been trending, I think, on the backend of, um, selling memberships. And that is offering standalone content within the membership as its own offer, um, and then giving people the option to either buy that or purchase that one standalone piece of content within the membership, or go ahead and just join the membership and get that along with all of the other benefits of the membership. So this is really, really effective.
Christina: (08:34)
Um, and I’ve seen multiple clients have a lot of success with this, and I’ve also just seen bigger people in the space doing this. Uh, and it’s, I I can see why, because it really does work really well on getting people to just join the membership because it kind of makes it a no-brainer. So within your membership, you probably have content that like value-wise can do really, really well as a standalone offer, and you can charge so much more for it as a standalone offer. So having that and you have that, the price point is actually higher than the membership itself or it’s comparable, but the membership is OB obviously has way more content. Um, and so it just makes it a no-brainer for people to sign up for the membership. And if you have really good retention once you get people in there, um, having them stay will be really easy for you if you, if that retention is really high.
Christina: (09:30)
And that is one way to start, um, gathering those loyal members inside of your membership. So that’s just a way to get them in, uh, and it actually legitimately is more valuable for them. So it’s a win for everyone. So this is a really great strategy to use and I highly recommend trying this strategy out. So you have to make sure that the content that you pull out of the membership, it does make sense as a standalone offer. So it has a, its standalone product on its own, um, and have the sales page, uh, ex or offer both. So it would have its own sales page. You wouldn’t do this on the actual membership sales page, you would have its own. The fourth thing is this is only, like, this only makes sense if you actually have themes within your membership. So if every month you have a different topic, so this is a common thing for a lot of memberships is that you have these rotating topics and themes.
Christina: (10:25)
So if you have monthly themes or quarterly themes, um, one thing that you can do is change all of your marketing to be focused on that specific theme. And this is a way that you can actually get people, um, to be interested if they resonate with that specific theme, they might join because of that theme. And then realize that, um, you have all of these other, you know, uh, related, other themes that you teach on, and it makes sense for them to also stay in the membership. So the call to action is to still just join the membership because this is what you’re gonna be talking about, um, and going over, uh, this particular month or quarter. So being public about the themes and not just promoting the themes to the members that are already in the membership. Um, this can just give more people or people more opportunities to relate to your membership and just want to be involved.
Christina: (11:18)
So that is the fourth thing. And, um, now as the fifth thing I wanna talk about, uh, focusing on retention. So this is huge because obviously if you have this big hole in the bottom of your membership where you are getting more and more people in, I mean, it is really important to find which strategy works best for you to get more people in, but it’s gonna be really hard to scale and grow the membership if your retention is really low. So this is huge. Um, and so you want to make sure that something is in place to get data when people leave on why they left. So you want to be getting that feedback regularly. Um, if they are, um, if they’re able to like just cancel without you and there’s like a button or something that they can click, if there’s a way that whenever it pops up, they can give some feedback, um, that would be really great if they do have to contact you or contact you or a support team, um, just having, making sure that it’s in place that they’re asked why they’re leaving, so that you can get that feedback regularly.
Christina: (12:19)
Another thing that is really good to do is get on market research calls often, and you can also, um, do this in exchange for a free month on ways to just make it better. So you just want to get on those calls and figure out things to do to make the membership more attractive, more valuable, just ways to make it better, right? Um, and I think doing it in exchange for a free month can be a really simple way to get a lot of feedback. Um, especially if people are willing to get on calls because you can ask them follow up questions, um, and get, really get into, uh, get in depth on what they’re wanting or what they’re needing, what’s gonna be most valuable for them. Um, and there are lots of other strategies too for retention. Um, like you can offer different tiers.
Christina: (13:04)
Um, you can, uh, provide bonuses for people who are loyal members. So after they have been in for a certain amount of time, they get like something else, they get an extra call or something that’s more high touch. Um, those can be really great ways to, um, have retention as well. There are, there’s lots of content out there on retention and ways, like different strategies that you can use. So highly recommend you look at that. But definitely at minimum, like make sure you are watching your, your numbers and making sure that you know your retention, um, your retention numbers and so that you can, whenever you are filling this, you know, that um, it makes sense, right? So people aren’t gonna be, you’re not gonna have that hole in the bottom and people aren’t gonna be just flowing out as quickly as you’re getting them in there.
Christina: (13:52)
So those are the main strategies that, um, we see in the agency that work really well. So we have those quarterly live events, creating that hype, having just that influx of people coming in. Um, this is going to be huge, uh, especially with something that’s evergreen. Um, you can also, by the way, if you have a course like that’s evergreen, this, that’s a, we see those same strategies, uh, working for that as well. Um, and then also ads to an evergreen event training. Usually at minimum, this is what we’re doing. If they’re in our agency, obviously they’re running ads, so this is what we’re doing. Um, but not every membership runs ads, but I would say probably Mo, if they’re a huge, um, membership, they definitely probably run outs. Um, and then, uh, offering that standalone content with the, within the membership, offering it as its own offer, but also giving them the option to just join the membership, which makes it a no-brainer.
Christina: (14:49)
Um, and then also if you do have, have themes, make sure you’re not quite about what that theme is and really promoting that theme. And when I say that, also I’m gonna add in ads. We promote it through ads as well. Um, and then the last thing is just really focusing on retention. Making sure that retention is staying high and getting on market research calls and getting lots of feedback from people so that you can get that retention high, but also do things to make the membership more valuable so you can get more people in. So that is what I have for you this week if you have a membership. I hope that you found this helpful. Um, again, we have clients that have such successful memberships, sometimes with, depending on what you’re teaching, it just makes a lot of sense to have a membership model and they can be really, really successful, especially because they are a reoccurring revenue.
Christina: (15:39)
And so being able to stack those, um, can really get you to those revenue goals if you have those, um, high revenue goals. So hope you found this helpful, and I will see you guys next. Thank you for listening to the Scaling to Freedom podcast. If you are a seven figure coach, looking for ads management with an agency that partners with you to get your work out into the world and amplify your impact, see if we are a good fit by applying for a spot in our agency@christinabernhard.com slash apply. Find the link in our show notes.