Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison

When people want to learn something or make progress, they look for the experts. As a membership site owner, you want to make sure that means they’re looking for you. In the competitive world of online membership sites, being good isn’t enough – you need to be able to prove it and show up as the expert wherever you can. How do you do that? Well, the very first step is to listen to this episode of...

Have you ever dealt with a hit and run member? If you’re not sure what one is – lucky you! These are the members who sign up, download everything, and dash back out the door before your beautifully crafted welcome email has settled in their inbox. Hit and run members abuse your trust and are generally bad apples. They’re rightly a concern for membership providers, but what can you do to stop them?...

Having a niche is good. Scratch that. It’s essential . Finding your niche, owning it, and staying there is one of the surest ways you will find success in running your membership. If you want to niche down and dominate your market, there are three ways to do it – we reveal how in this episode of the podcast from our ‘From the Vault’ series! Essential Learning Points: The advantages of being a spec...

Can you start a membership before you’ve grown your audience? It might sound tricky, but there are some sure-fire ways you can get started. Whether you’re right at the start and haven’t told a single soul about your membership or you’re partway there with a small audience, there are ways you can grow your membership right now and get on the path to having a successful business. Every successful me...

Pinterest, it’s for wedding planning and redecorating inspiration, right? Or is it a platform with over 300 million users that some businesses are generating 200% ROI from? Clearly, it’s time for a rethink on Pinterest! That’s why I asked Cara Chace to join me on this episode of The Membership Guys podcast. Cara is one of the best in the business of Pinterest marketing – and she runs her own membe...

Some memberships need great video content. Others need a complex email campaign. Some need entirely unique elements. All memberships need a website . So how do you go about it? Do you hire in a professional or do you do it yourself? It’s one of the biggest questions you can ask as you launch your membership, so I got together with two of the finest web designers I know to dive into the best approa...

In today’s digital-driven society, it often feels like you can’t go far without bumping into a self-proclaimed social media ‘expert’. So, when you encounter someone who everyone else calls an expert, who speaks with a quiet assuredness and conspicuous lack of arrogance, it’s a refreshing surprise. It’s my absolute pleasure and honor to have Gavin Bell on The Membership Guys podcast. Gavin is an aw...

Build it and they will come. While that approach may have worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams; it most certainly does not apply to launching a successful membership website. Time and time again we see cases where people are so entrenched in the process of building their membership site that they haven’t even begun to think about how to get it off the ground. In this episode I share 5 launc...

Launching a membership site is an exciting but nerve wracking time. You've probably put your blood, sweat and tears into creating this site, no doubt losing some sleep along the way. But when the time comes to actually open the doors, we can often find ourselves hesitating. What if it all goes wrong? Running a beta test can be a great way of assuaging this fear, as well as ensuring that you launch...

We can all be overprotective of our content, especially when it comes to being open and allowing our competitors into our safe and secure membership site. I choose to have an open-minded attitude and assume the best in people. There are ways to make it work and even benefit from opening your doors and letting them in, while staying vigilant. Essential Learning Points: Learn what it is that makes y...

Do you know what people in your audience actually want from your membership? When planning your membership site, it’s easy to fall into the trap of building something that we think would be good, rather than something that’s based on research into what your audience really want (and need). In doing so, you risk spending hours creating content and investing in features, only to be left scratching y...

Your membership might be the best thing since sliced bread, but if you aren’t marketing it correctly, you aren’t going to be getting the sales you deserve. There are some simple steps you can take to get the most out of marketing, reach more people, and turn those on-the-fencers into fully-fledged members. In this episode, we run through 9 marketing tips that will help you go back to basics - and...

So, 2019 is done and dusted. Hopefully it was a successful one for you and your membership. It was certainly a big one for us, with more highlights than you can shake a stick at - many of which you've heard us 'document' right here on The Membership Guys Podcast. And I know this is so cliche... but I swear the older I get, the faster each year seems to pass. I can't quite come to terms with the fa...

Although every membership site is unique, you’ll usually discover that seven types of members keep showing up in every single one of them. While some of these will mimic your ‘ideal member,’ others will test your patience and frustrate you beyond belief. Whatever the case, you’re sure to recognize some (if not all) of these ‘member profiles’ within your membership site! Listen in to discover the s...

Are you thinking about charging a joining fee for your membership? A joining fee is an arbitrary fee that new members pay on top of their first monthly payment. If you ask me, I think that joining fees are unnecessary and there’s often no real justification for it. However, there are situations when a joining fee may be necessary. If you’re considering having a joining fee for your membership, mak...

You know your membership is going through a downturn when you notice a reduction in sales, fewer member signups and a potential slowdown to your overall growth rate. When your membership experiences a downturn, it can be pretty nerve-wrecking as thoughts of its impending doom race through your mind. But, before you jump to conclusions, you need to take some time to analyse the situation and come u...

Is now a good time to have a membership site? On this special episode of the podcast, you’ll get to listen in to the opening keynote from our very first conference ‘Retain Live 2019.’ It was an incredible event with some phenomenal speakers gracing the stage eager to share their expertise and insights with the audience. The first keynote was delivered by myself (Mike Morrison) and Callie Willows,...

Have you lost interest in your membership? When you first launched your membership, you were probably bursting with excitement and enthusiasm. But, over time those positive feelings you associated with your membership faded and now you can’t remember why you ever got into this in the first place, am I right? If you have a lack of interest and enthusiasm for your membership site, it’s time to make...

A waitlist is a dedicated email list that people subscribe to in order to receive updates about a membership that you are going to launch in the future. We are big believers in setting up a waitlist for your membership. But once you have it organized you have to keep everyone engaged until your launch date. In this episode, we share lots of ways you can keep your waitlist interested and engaged wi...

Payment disputes are a reality of running any business, including membership sites. Luckily, they don’t happen often. But when they do, they take valuable time away from your business and revenue generating activities.  Since the beginning of the Membership Guys Academy site, we have had over 6,000 members and only 20 payment disputes.  We have learnt a few things about this issue along...

In our early days of working with memberships, we stumbled across an article that claimed that the average member only stays subscribed for a mere 3 months. You’ve probably heard this yourself. It’s a claim that’s been repeated and republished so much, that it became readily and widely accepted. But it’s nonsense. There’s not a single shred of data or evidence for that ‘3 month’ claim. No source d...

It's coming up to that time of year where promotions and discounts abound. Whether it's Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas or New Year, the sales season is definitely upon us. While these kind of sales are traditionally for physical products, there's no doubt that digital products have jumped onto the bandwagon over the last few years, and you'll see more and more discounts being offered....

Despite what the slickest of snake oil salesmen will try to tell you, there is no secret sauce or golden formula for building a successful membership website. The key to the long term success of your membership site lies beyond marketing tactics, sales spiel and fancy production values; and the memberships which do best are those which - at their heart - understand and embrace a core set of fundam...

The path to membership success is paved with a litany of mistakes. Along the way you’re going to screw up, especially in the early days. It’s all part of the learning curve and it happens to the best of us – yes, even your friendly neighbourhood Membership Guys! However you will come to a point where it feel like you truly have your house in order, you’re now on the right track and those initial s...

There are many reasons people are attracted to the membership model. The most compelling for us is how dramatically different (and better) making recurring income from a membership is compared to servicing clients on a one-on-one basis. This is particularly true if you’re a “one man band”, where you’re solely responsible for the delivery of what you sell, so that might be: Website developers Busin...