Terms

"For us, it's a matter of keeping membership at the core of everything we do. You can't just moonlight as a membership; it has been a primary focus" begins Dan Carson, our Head of Product. "If there's a serious intention to pursue membership We believe that this is the most comprehensive set of features. Although we initially used WordPress as our primary entry point to those features, that's no longer the case."

Dan says that we're not going to eliminate any of 's original capabilities, such as integrating into WordPress: "If that's how you want to construct your website for membership, it's as feasible as it was in the past - we're providing a simpler on-ramp."

Streamlining navigation

"There are many users making use of third-party software However, it's not always because they want to. It's because that felt like the only option available," Dan adds. "People maybe have WordPress, but they've just created a basic site or have MailChimp and don't utilize 50% of its functions."

They just need a way to have people sign up and then be able to email them, without the fluff a cloud enterprise version. "Maybe you signed them up for Mailchimp in 2014, and they are still using it as that's where they are. However, are they the primary market to which Mailchimp will be going?"

"We think there are people out there who were if it were easy enough, they would simplify all these different applications into a single location and make it more well-integrated - so long as it still did all the things they needed it to do," Dan says.

Our email tools will have all the features that you need. In addition, he says: "We're not trying to help enterprise marketing teams. We're trying serve the creators who want an affordable and simple way to communicate and publish content to their followers."

We believe that it's less about the products you're selling, and more about what you are doing. If you want customers to join newsletters, we'll help you make it easier and less expensive since you no longer need to purchase other tools.

The decision is based on each individual's use case, of course. Some people want the ability to integrate multiple integrations but others worry that it's expensive and more difficult to manage, especially as an individual company. "Previously we were kind of just developing for one of these groups. Today, we're building both of them," Dan says.

Managing member access to Posts and Pages

For certain types of client using the 2014 version of MailChimp is actually the one you're looking for; it's the version that you've fallen in the love. "If I'm in the market for a straightforward web page, I'll probably prefer not to utilize WordPress. It's true that Squarespace can be overkill as a website that relies on subscriptions. The site isn't tightly integrated with membership at the base," Dan adds. So we thought, 'What could you do if you created an item that was completely created around it?'.

We're the same way about podcasting or online communities too. "We're not going to be building a new version of Libsyn. We'll be building the first version, which is simple to use and does 80percent of the things you need, along with everything else, in one place for the same price," Dan believes.

It appears to be an innate law that the longer software exists and the longer it is in existence, the more it would like to grow. It is always looking to get more complex and bloated.

The addition of new features isn't necessarily bad, but it becomes unfavorable for customers when the person the company is building it to isn't you anymore. "People want applications that can do what they need and isn't trying to be any other than the best that it can be. As with jazz, there are times when you're not playing the notes that you perform!" Dan laughs.

The process of making something easy is quite hard. Dan agrees: "It's about paring down to its essence. One of the easiest things for us to do is add everything to the site and make it an element and then customers could find it in the settings section somewhere." We aren't sure that's the kind of thing our clients are searching for. Instead, we'd like to combine all our experience over a decade of building membership tools, incorporating the feedback from our customers and boil it down into simple tools.

"It's easy to underestimate the value of simple tools. Being easy to use is an essential need that is not being met. The majority of things are much more complicated than they ought to be." Dan adds.

The dashboard is updated.

The most obvious change this quarter is the way we've rearranged the dashboard. Instead of having each option accessible at the top as well as the features separated by feature, we stepped back and said, 'Why not arrange everything around the things you're trying to accomplish during the time or moment?'.

The brand new dashboard

Based on our experiences, as well as talking to people who manage membership-based businesses, you're usually doing something that falls into one of the following four areas: building and designing your site, publishing exclusive content, managing your members, or increasing revenue. Dan says: "Everything you're doing as a membership operator is going be categorized into one of these four buckets. Therefore, we decided that this was an appropriate approach to categorizing the benefits of ."

Website

is for people who want to develop a membership-based website. It was common to utilize WordPress or some other specific to. Now you can use our native website builder. This first section is for creating the website from scratch, customizing how it looks. And setting up your publicly-facing information. "You're creating the place for your audience to go to," adds Dan.

Content

Another task involves publishing information. Modern-day membership businesses typically involves publishing exclusive content for members. This includes emails post, articles, downloads and podcasts. "The other aspect is to create contents or sharing special advantages - it's about generating the 'value' that customers get out of your membership," Dan explains.

Members

The third task is managing the members. "Part of running a successful membership is to have a intimate relationship with your customers - that's part of the reasons why they're backing you," says Dan.

Member management - downloading invoices

"You have to be able to provide the best customer service for these individuals and also understand their past along with solving problems if they aren't functioning in a way that is correct," he adds.

Revenue

"If you're creating a membership site, you're trying to create revenue and there's a million things involved in the process of setting up your website knowing what charges to make, and monitoring the health of your business to see what's working," says Dan. The section on discounting is for retention, and running acquisition campaigns and referral programs.

"We've introduced a variety of functions over time. In the absence of a system for organizing them, it caused it to be difficult to find the right things, especially for people who are new to the site. We wanted to cut down on the learning curve," concludes Dan. This provides a better framework for us going forward in the future as we develop new features, as we'll be able to more easily set things up - which allows users to locate and explore this new feature, and you'll be able to gain value from the features right away.

Website builder

The second big development this quarter focused on the web builder. "We'd started to build these tools earlier in the year and wanted to make sure that we were introducing this new capability, without affecting the existing techniques of using it ," says Dan. "We put ourselves in the shoes of someone coming to specifically seeking to create the membership-based website."

The process of enrolling and joining the service is much quicker and we offer an advanced start place, including default settings, membership plans already created and the structure of your site already designed. What you need to do is set up your Stripe account and launch your website in just a few minutes.

IFtWQKYe3Vls3PTpn6KK The website builder

Now, the editing experience is that of contemporary WYSIWYG (What you see Is What You get) web-based builder that is directly interacting with your membership website. "You are able to type directly on the page, move objects around, conceal and show elements, and you can see what it looks like immediately," says Dan.

Dan explains that this is just the beginning of future website builder developments: "We had to redo the base of everything this manner, and Now we're able to kick off the gas to begin developing the latest features."

We've discussed the idea of blocks. They are basically content modules. We have at present the basic block of content and a title banner that can be text or an image that has a button. Now this framework exists, we're working on a new block types and putting different kinds of content for the page. The user will be able to organize them on the page and you are able to control who sees the content based on which members are paying for.

J4UXZCXXXVRVFxqRpCLFE Building with blocks

Dan adds: "It's everything you need for a complete website for membership. The site is fully linked to subscriptions. Membership is at the core of everything." What you get is a web-building experience that's easier to get started, more intuitive, and is more in tune with the expectations of modern users.

Final: A fresh way to utilize

"We have described it in the past the glue which holds the group to one another," recalls Dan. "But in the event that the machine is essential to your company, having parts glued together does not always seem like something positive. Sometimes you want them to be welded together, like steel - you would like it to be the same piece, not two separate pieces that are glued together" adds Dan. Two pieces were constructed simultaneously the membership element was integral at the start.

If you're a person with an incredibly successful WordPress site or a million members who are on your MailChimp list that you'd like to just create subscriptions, rather than starting all over again, it's feasible. The tool is still available for you to add subscribers, and then piece it together. However, we do not believe that's the only way people want to build any more.

" is for people seeking a platform where their members can come together, and a place for their followers and users. In the present, all you want, in terms of creating a look that reflects your company and putting all of your content all at one location, is what you can create with ," Dan concludes.