Erin Kelly [00:00:01]:
Okay, this question is a really good one, and it's going to be specific to a membership, but it honestly could be applied to anything, whether it's a paid product or a lead magnet. So the question is, I want to grow my membership. What are the best ways to grow it? So in specifically memberships? And I can say this because I've run both paid memberships and I've also, you know, grown a SaaS company, which at the end of the day has a lot of similarities with a membership in that it is a recurring revenue model where people are paying you every month or every year or every quarter, however you have it set up. Right. And I know from talking to people over the years that have launched, like, a dollar nine membership, and they're like, oh, this should be really easy to sell. Like, it's only $9. That's not very much for all of the value that they're getting, and yet they're really struggling to get their audience to convert. It is because it is a recurring revenue model.

Erin Kelly [00:00:59]:
And so as amazing as this is, so that you're not starting from zero every month as a business owner, it is also there's a lot more friction around your buyers because they're like, ah, I don't know, am I going to use this? Like, is it, like, is, is this just going to be, like, more overwhelmed for me? Like, and then I'm going to forget to cancel it? I already have, like, all these other recurring bills. Right. It's that whole, like, recurring aspect of it that can really add a lot of friction and make it less likely that people are going to convert. So in terms of growing your membership, there's a couple of different things that I want you to think about. And I said at the beginning of this, like, that this, a lot of this stuff can apply to any paid product or lead magnet. And I would say that the parts that apply are you need to get more visible. Like, more people need to know that you have this thing and why it would help them. And then you need to have more follow ups.

Erin Kelly [00:01:53]:
But with a recurring revenue model, the other thing that you have to also consider is you need to keep the people who are already in there, right? So that is called retention. So you need to pay attention to your retention and your churn. And churn is people canceling because you want to keep that, like, monthly recurring revenue the same or greater. Right. And so you want to make sure that the people who are in your membership are staying in the membership while you're also adding in new members. So it is an amazing business model and paid offer model, and I highly suggest that you consider it, but it is not the most simple. So in terms of growing your membership, you need to be thinking about getting more visible in front of people who don't know about the thing and don't know you. Right.

Erin Kelly [00:02:40]:
So you need new leads coming in. You also need to be thinking about, okay, in my existing audience, I need to be visible so that people remember that I have this thing, or maybe they were thinking about it, but then they totally forgot to join, or they got overwhelmed with something else and they just need like one more nudge and they will sign up. And then you need to think about the third bracket is I need to make sure that my members are really happy so that they don't cancel. Right. And so there's a lot of things to think about. And I would say for the visibility piece and getting in front of people who don't know you, this is relevant to everyone. What has always worked the best for me is getting in front of other people's audiences. So when I was a service provider, I loved doing guest podcast episodes.

Erin Kelly [00:03:24]:
I had my own podcast where I would have people on, and then they would then share it with their audiences. Right. And, like, this is dated information like, that still does work, but not quite as well as it used to. I was active in other people's Facebook groups. I depended a lot on referrals, but if you're looking to, like, grow a membership, one to one referrals is not quite enough. Like, you need to have more scale. And so I would say, like, getting in front of other people's audiences, doing podcast guest interviews, doing summits or bundles can potentially, can potentially be good. Right? Like Facebook ads, obviously.

Erin Kelly [00:04:02]:
Like, I've never done them, really. Some people swear by them. You're gonna have to find the thing that works really well for you. But that is like, that is a puzzle that you have to solve, is how am I gonna consistently get in front of new people? Because my membership depends on new leads coming in so that I can sell them my membership. And then the second bracket is I need to be in front of my current audience so that I am converting more of my current audience as well. So if you have a really, really small email list and a bunch of people converted at first, this might be, you know, like, you can table this just for a hot minute and focus more on the growth. But if you have, like, let's say 500 people, and there's only like ten people in your membership, there's definitely more people on your email list that are going to be interested in joining your membership if you get in front of them in the right way and present your membership in the right way. So I would definitely recommend thinking through a very targeted like sales sequence for your email list and be thinking about like why the membership? Why the membership right now? How is it going to help them? Why should they? And when I think about like why should they join right now? Yes, you can do price increases, but if they haven't really come, if they're not really convinced that this is something that they want to pay on a monthly basis for, you need to couple that price change with that value.

Erin Kelly [00:05:31]:
The value in the context of like why, why is this going to be the thing that really helps them? Like how is it solving something that they're really struggling with right now? And it doesn't have to be like a super, super pushy like bro tastic sales sequence. It could totally be packaged as a like nurture sequence of like a week of daily emails around these five different problems. And this is what I recommend doing. And then, you know, in, throughout the email and at the bottom of the email you can say this is the kind of thing that we're working on in the membership. Or I have like a really great video on this in my membership. Or like if you, I'm going to be guiding people in our next, like, you have calls for your membership, like I'm going to be answering questions on this in my membership. Right. So you're like, they're value based sales emails, but they're, it's not just an afterthought.

Erin Kelly [00:06:28]:
Like it is definitely crafted to get people to join your membership. So you could totally do something like that. You could do that every single month, to be honest. Especially if it's like very value based like that. And just remember, you have to, can't just be like, hey, join my membership for this. Like you can get it for only x amount because the, the fact that it is a recurring payment makes it way higher friction. So it's not like someone buying a $9 product one off. There is a higher amount of friction as if it was a much higher, higher dollar amount.

Erin Kelly [00:07:00]:
And so it really, the sales messaging and believe me, I know this from like running a SaaS company getting to people to sign up for a tool. Like it's a lot of work in comparison to the amount that they actually pay, but the benefit is that they're paying over time as long as you keep them. So that's that segues into the third thing, which is you need to make sure that your existing member, that your existing members are happy and that they're not going to churn. And so that's why I actually like the value based kind of launch sequence that you're doing. That I recommended for getting your existing audience who aren't members to become members is that you can kind of couple that with making sure that your members are happy by surfacing content that they already have access to, but they might not have realized it or they might have forgotten or they might need to revisit it. Right. And so you're actually nurturing both people at the same time. And this is where conditional content in your emails is really powerful.

Erin Kelly [00:07:57]:
And that's something that I've talked about, talked about already. You have access to it. Let me, let me just segue into the same sort of thing here. So you have access to that in the up your email game action lab, which is an all access person you have access to. And I think it's MvLearn co game. And I also have a teaser module link for the, actually you don't need the teaser module. Like, I have it as a teaser module because I talk about conditional content so much. But there's one of the podcast episodes in that action lab is specific to conditional content, but it's the idea of being able to show different things in your emails to different people.

Erin Kelly [00:08:34]:
And so you could have these like value based emails that you're sending your email list, like, hey, we're going to do five days covering these topics, or to achieve this goal and make it super, super focused. I always end up going too big and overwhelming people. So like just think like small, small problem, but like big, but like a win. And you can have conditional content where it's like if they have the tag that they're in my membership, show them you already have access. Like to this video where we talk about, you know, where I, where I dig into this even more, or like I walk you through, or like, here's my tool, toolkit that you already have access to and have the link to your membership, to that content inside of your membership. And then for people, a block of content for people who aren't members of your membership, you could say, hey, this is something that I have a toolkit for, or that I have a deep dive video for or whatever inside of my membership. And you can join here for x amount and that's where you get, you know, you can get into trials and all kinds of good stuff like that, or like bonuses that are only disappearing bonuses. Like you only get this bonus if you sign up before x date and then it's gone, right? Like it won't, it won't be something that you can get in the future for the membership.

Erin Kelly [00:09:41]:
So many different ways to do it, so many different strategies. But I definitely recommend coupling that, like converting your existing audience and retaining your current members. Keeping that strategy the same to make your workload smaller has worked really, really well for me. And you know, with member Vault, it's like, this is why we have like $70,000 worth of MRR, which I know is like small fries compared to like big Sass tools. But we are playing a smaller game and so that's actually really, really good for the size of SaaS that we are. And so that is, that's definitely recommendation. And then just think about like how am I getting it in front of new people who don't know who I am and don't know about my membership? Because that is important too, to make sure that you constantly have like an influx of, or at least periodically have an influx of new leads who don't know you. And I also have an episode in the up your email game Action lab about what to do if you're participating in a summit or a bundle.

Erin Kelly [00:10:42]:
Because I think based on my polling, this is a place where people like you do all the work to participate in a summit or bundle, but then you're like putting them into your normal onboarding or you're just like your regular emails and you're missing out on a big opportunity to convert them to the thing that you want them to convert to. So that's a really great episode for you to listen to if you are participating in bundles or summits as a way of growing your email list. But yeah, it is a slow and steady constant evolution thing. Look at the numbers, make sure you're paying attention to your retention with a membership. And if you are just wondering like what's the best way to grow my sales of a one off paid offer, you got to get more in front of more people and you got to repeat it to your existing audience. You have to remind people that you have this thing. And if you can bring some energy around it, either with a disappearing bonus or a discount or something of that sort, you will have more conversions.

Lesson Activity

I mentioned the Up Your Email Game Action Lab in this episode, specifically the conditional content episode. You can listen to that here: https://www.mvlearn.co/game

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This is one episode from the private podcast for the All Access membership — where there is also a private podcast feed so you can listen on-the-go!

Normally my private podcast episodes are only available for All Access members. 🤷‍♀️ But for our Recurring Revenue week, I’m unlocking my newest episodes for everyone. 

All about recurring revenue. All available with time stamped transcripts. 🎉

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