Membership Evolution: Strategies to Stay Ahead in Community Building
Membership Evolution: Strategies
to Stay Ahead in Community Building
Membership Evolution: Strategies to Stay Ahead in Community Building
As fall approaches, the launch season has begun. Many business owners launch fall coaching programs, new digital courses, and opportunities to join a membership or subscription service.
While I love to go leaf peeping (photographing fall foliage) this time of year, many of the photos I’ve created over the years have brought me joy, but not all have brought revenue. I’m not alone in wanting to monetize my work somehow.
Recently, I spoke with poets, dog lovers, and caregivers who all want to share their unique talents, crafts, skills, or experiences with others inside an online community. Each person I’ve spoken with lately has wanted to launch a membership.
Still, when I asked about other ways of bringing their audience together, they were surprised to hear a few of my suggestions. While memberships might be great for large organizations with a team, that’s different from one individual launching an evergreen course with a community component.
Membership Evolution: Strategies
to Stay Ahead in Community Building
Creator communities need the
support of a team to overcome challenges.
According to a new report, the average amount people spend on subscriptions is $273, including cell phone plans, Wi-Fi, streaming services, and online courses. In addition to online content creators, influencers, and marketers, education is the primary driver of membership sites. According to stats from the report, 55 percent of community professionals need help keeping their members engaged.
The truth is that social media algorithms use your content to push advertisements to your audience. YouTubers, podcasters, and creatives in many other fields across the globe decided to go directly to their audience. Some even started connecting with their subscribers and building relationships with them.
A YouTube Influencer needs to have an audience of 10K followers to launch a membership for a low monthly pricing structure.
A niche content creator is an industry expert with a specific skill or talent that is unique and needed within that industry.
A community creator is looking for an opportunity to bring clients, maybe friends or followers, into an online community membership to earn recurring revenue.
These are just a few examples of how creators make money online. It is hard to determine what is right for you because of many options and distractions.
Any business owner knows the key to entrepreneurship is diversifying their income and getting their audience to support them directly with member-supported community apps like Mighty Networks, Circle, Discord, Patreon, Podfan, and Buy Me a Cup of Coffee.
A membership or subscription community depends on that individual saying yes repeatedly in the buying process. The challenge is that you’ll spend much time ensuring you understand where each member is in the journey and how to keep them interested month after month.
Characteristics of memberships:
An online membership that requires members to pay at the door means you must have already won them over and have their trust. Memberships come with a sense of belonging, and people must feel that sense of belonging when they arrive at your website, or they must already know a few members or are unlikely to join.
An example of an annual membership is the Chamber of Commerce; if you are a member, you are invited to events to support your local community.
Monthly memberships, offered by a host, require members to pay monthly dues to access content, member directories, private chats, resources, and more, depending on the terms and conditions of that membership.
As you can see, there is so much to consider when launching an online community, and knowing how to raise money or get investors is critical to a thriving community and business.
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Membership Evolution: Strategies
to Stay Ahead in Community Building
Alternatives to the membership challenge
There are a few ways that I inform clients about when I’m discussing the structure for their next launch. Some people focus on membership, and then we discover during a strategy session that they want to avoid leading a membership but want to have small cohorts, offer a group coaching program, or create a mastermind group.
Here are a few alternatives to an ongoing membership program:
A Coaching Program
A coaching cohort is team-facilitated by the members sharing their personal experiences, resources, and feedback during virtual sessions.
The point is that members learn together, not simply going to office hours to ask the leader questions.
Typically, someone hosts coaching call sessions so the students can drop in to receive support when they need it.
If you have a coaching practice and want to offer a group session along with a course, it is an option that works well for various coaches.
A Mastermind group
The group I led for community builders used a mastermind group structure. It offered a virtual call each week to workshop community-building challenges. In addition, we kept each other accountable for making progress on our community concept, structure, and strategy. We stuck together for six months to offer encouragement and support.
This group later developed into a more formal mastermind cohort. This structure included weekly coaching sessions and chances for members to present their community launch or relaunch plans, which we called “growth seats.” The growth seat allowed them to gain valuable feedback about pricing, structure, features, and benefits.
Over three months, we focused on different aspects of community building, including concept, strategy, structure, design, and development.
A Challenge
The basis of a challenge is that it allows members to take action and compete against each other in a game that sometimes—but not always—has a winner.
A few clients I’ve worked with have decided to host challenges in their communities at different times. Sometimes, a challenge can reinvigorate passive members; other times, it can help a new community get off the ground.
If you have a structure, strategy, or program that has been successful, send me an email at Deb @ FindCalmHere.com if you’d like to share it with me and share your journey on the Community Strategy Podcast.
Book Updates
As of this week, the Creator to Community Builder: Find Calm While Building an Online Community is in the hands of the designer. Within the next two weeks I expect to have a final version ready for advanced readers.
You can join an exclusive community if you want a free digital copy of the book. You will benefit from the resources, tips, and wisdom of fellow community builders shared inside this community. In addition, you will find calm and feel a sense of connection and being understood. as well as share resources, give advice, or provide.
Click here to sign up for the advanced reader cohort.
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This guidebook contains three pillars for exploring you. In each section, we will dive into methods, strategies, and ideas to help you gain clarity on who you are, what you are great at, and how we can leverage this knowledge to build a business.
Membership Evolution: Strategies to Stay Ahead in Community Building
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