6 Best Practices in Membership Retention |
Anyone who has set up a membership-based business, and they'll be able to tell you that getting more members can be something that they consider... A lot! It can be intimidating to deal with getting individuals to come in and spend their hard-earned money every month, and actually commit themselves to learning and developing.
Do you know what can be soul-destroying? Doing the hard work required to create your community, cultivating leads, and increasing worth, only to sign up those members, and then watching them go just a few minutes later.
The community doesn't need to be such a thing! There is a way to build an organization that continually offers rewards to its members to ensure that they stay for the in the long run. In this article, we'll talk about various best methods to retain members that you could implement this week.
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In this article
1. The truth about the retention of membership
2.6 membership retention best practices
2.1. Clarify your ideal member first
2.2. Created on the correct platform
2.3. Create connections between members
2.6. Request feedback
Truth about membership retention
The truth that you MUST be aware of prior to discussing how to keep your membership in good shape is that certain turnovers are an inevitable thing. Be prepared for when individuals leave your community and definitely don't take it personally. There are going to be some people who decide to leave. Perhaps they're not prepared to take on the challenge you're offering. Perhaps it's not the right fit for them right now. It's possible they're not financially able. And yes, maybe they have found a better way to do their work.
It's really hard as an artist to not be a victim. It's tough to not get a sense of the disappointment that comes from the members who leave. But ultimately, turnover does not have to be all just about the person who is leaving. It's a lot about them. There will be people in any community who get to the point that they are able to say, "This is not for me at this moment." That's okay.
Actually, some change can be a positive aspect. If you want your group to have a clear direction, and you'll need to pick the perfect person (which we'll talk about further down). If you have a bunch of people who don't want the services you offer and do not participate, it could be extremely demotivating. The best thing to do is let these people simply move elsewhere.
Therefore, the objective of retention of members is likely not to reduce your churn (that's the fancy term for turnover among members) down to 0. However, if your business's success is dependent on monthly revenue recurring and member retention is a priority, increasing it will lower your churn and boost your profits.
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6 membership retention best practices
Find out your ideal member first
One of the best strategies for retaining members can begin even before you've had any community members. (If there are already members, you may still do this exercise! )
If you have a razor-sharp picture of who you want to see to be in your community and communicate this vision well, the right people will be drawn to join the community in the first place. It can be a huge help to creating high membership retention.
We teach a process in our school that we refer to as Community Design(tm). Part of your design process is to conduct interviews with 15 people who are interested in joining your community in order to discover the reasons they are struggling and what benefits they would gain from being in an online community. Even if you have already established your community, it's not past time to conduct the interviews, and gain more information about who your ideal member is.
When you've finished this work, you can convert it to what we call a big reason statement.
Although most of the strategies for retention of your members here focus on what happens AFTER you get your members making this decision up front will pay dividends.
Build on the right platform
There are a ton of options in software to build your own membership group and it's a little intimidating to choose. The right choice is a crucial aspect of keeping members. A good software for community management can be your partner to serve your members. It can make the process easier for you, and it allows you to achieve it on a larger scale and, most is that your customers will take part in it!
Too many community builders have stitched together five pieces of obscure technology to try and blend a course on their website with the Group on Facebook along with other social media networks.
We must stop this. Choose community software you are able to master, and that's capable of letting you do anything you could ever wish to do for your members.
We love great online communities, and we directed our passion towards creating the platform. From live streaming and apps for all devices to brilliant courses to branded subgroups, it has everything you require to keep your members engaged and ultimately retain your members!
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Make connections between members
One of the lessons that we've learned through thousands of online communities is that members might sign up to attend courses or to master something, but they almost remain for the long haul because of the relationships. If your community is the place that people go to for friendships and connections, where they are unable to go for a whole week without stopping by and seeing people, and when they interact regularly with fellow members and have an established formula for maintaining members over time.
If you're not able to fake this but you can make the conditions necessary to make it happen! Create lots of chances for your members to connect with each other. It can be accomplished through informal drop-in sessions, groups coaching, breakout spaces or even content like "member spotlights. "
The more you are able to make your community and its friendships one that people cannot live without and the greater chance you'll see your retention go up and the churn decrease.
Offer a membership pause
Have you ever thought about an extended vacation and then have you asked your gym if they can put your membership on hold? They're happy to allow this. Since they are aware that when you decide to cancel your membership, it will be way harder to get the same customer.
Offering a deliberate membership pause is a fantastic option for those who have to be out of the community for a period of time but would ultimately like to remain for a long time. There are plenty of possible reasons people might need to step back from their membership, everything from major life changes to needing to focus on an endeavor in the interim, providing the option of a membership hold will allow them to stay in touch without paying.
And it's so much better to inquire "Would you like to put your membership in hold?" than to say, "Ok, bye. "
Create membership tiers
The creation of different membership packages or membership tiers could help in keeping your customers loyal and make it among the top well-known membership retention best practices. This is because it means that the members are able to opt for more or less, depending upon their own personal preferences. If you're offering a comprehensive plan that has daily coaching as well as a class, and someone decides it's too much It's better to have a different membership tier they can drop down instead of being able to cancel their membership.
Request feedback
And last but not least last but certainly not least, figure out ways to continually seek feedback from your customers. It could be as simple as:
- 1:1 interviews
- Questionnaires or surveys
- Polls (the feature is built into each Mighty Network! )
- Exit interviews (offer something worthwhile to people leaving in exchange for their candid sincerity)
Feedback is extremely valuable in helping you to establish the things that are working and not.
Recommendation: Consider comments and ideas with a grain salt. It's totally normal to hear things such as "We ought to create a class or group to do X" or "I'd love to see more Y." You should filter your criticism using the lens of your community Design(tm) work and determine if this is actually advice you want to be following.
Conclusion
If you put these membership retention tips into practice and implement them, you'll be in a great position to not only attract members but also keep members! And once your community becomes an essential element of the lives of your members, they will stick around for an extended period of time.
If you haven't yet launched your own community or you're in search of an alternative location for it to go, make sure to take a look at our platform! It's the perfect place to build an engaging online community that can stand the test of time. You can try it free for 14 days. No credit card required.