3 Ways to Attract More Long-term Members
Memberships are a long-term strategy. It’s less about high volumes and more about those who stay as the lifeblood of your business. Long-term members are the best part of a recurring revenue strategy.
Grandiose promises and marketing tricks won’t work with memberships. Members will not stick around for long. It requires a different approach if you want them to keep paying month after month.
Let’s discuss three strategies you can use to attract these coveted long-term members.
Find the right members
Making sure your members are the right fit is more important than you think. People don’t like giving their hard-earned money to a business that doesn’t help them achieve their goals. And unhappy customers can do damage (or at least take up a lot of your time and effort) if they want to.
Of course, you can only do so much about members who don’t take the time to inform themselves. But ensuring you have the right people signing up – the people who will be engaged – is a start.
Primarily, finding the right members comes down to marketing and your messaging. Here are a few tips you can use in your marketing efforts:
- Understand your existing member base. Who’s regularly engaging with your member community and committed to your content? What traffic sources are bringing those members in? What are their user behaviors and demographics? Use all of this information to fine-tune your marketing.
- Make sure your sales page is accurate. Keep your pricing clear and transparent. Make certain promotional offers are clearly defined. People want to know what they’re getting for their money and how much they’ll be spending, so the less ambiguity, the better.
- Ask new members to take a survey. A survey lets you discover member goals, interests, lifestyles, learning styles, content preferences, referral sources, and more. You can use this information to refine your marketing strategies further.
Embrace content marketing
Publishing quality free content is one of the best ways to bring potential members to your website. But good content does more than generate traffic. It’ll educate your audience and help them deepen their connection and feeling of belonging.
Building a foundation of content allows you to speak to different segments of your audience. This can lead a variety of folks to your membership as a solution to their needs. For example, suppose your membership site is focused on fitness courses. In that case, you might create free content that attracts new people to fitness, giving them the momentum they need to get started and ultimately sign up for your courses.
Create member pathways
Long-term member value is derived from the lifetime journey of your members. It’s the path a member takes to reach a goal, unlock a reward, or otherwise exhaust the benefits of your membership. Guide members by creating tailored and specific member pathways to help members stay engaged and committed.
Identify the different segments of members who benefit from certain content. Where are they starting? At what point in their journey do they need your content most? How can you show up and give them exactly what they need at the right time?
Once you have a handle on this pathway, you can more easily craft a member journey that speaks to those who are more likely to jump aboard your membership train – and stay there.
Take the time to find long-term members
The relationships you build with your members are based on trust. This relationship doesn’t happen overnight. To help this journey, find the right members, produce quality content, and create a tailored pathway.
These tips, combined with a membership site built on WordPress using a membership plugin, are a smart start to a path toward success.
