Keeping Your Memberium Site Members Around Indefinitely – Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, I shared idea number one for keeping your members around indefinitely.  Click here to take a look at that one.

Idea #2 - Building an Online Community

I was a part of a mastermind group several years back and what kept me in the program as long as I did was the tribe or community.  I paid good money three straight years for that program.  What kept me there the final years was the relationships I had established with the other members.

Why was that so important?  The experts taught me a lot I needed for building my business.  They provided periodic calls every month.  I discussed that in Idea #1 of this series.   As I learned more and more in years one and two of the program, I needed less of the official learning that was provided by the program.  It seemed that was aimed at people as they joined the program.

My learning then switched and came from my interaction with others in the program.  We had established an interest in each other's businesses.  We really cared for each other because we shared in each other's struggles.  We share in each other's victories.  We cared for each other and for the business running the program in meant lower churn.

Communities can be built several ways.  A popular was is by creating a private Facebook group.  This is by far the easiest way technically and one that members find easiest and most naturally to use.  If your members aren't Facebook users (and that pool is getting smaller and smaller), this may be their motivator to get back into their account.  For those are are users, it's a natural extension to how they interact with others online.

The downside of Facebook is you don't have as much control over what happens technically.  Facebook owns what content you publish.  What you have is a feed of information that you can control by adding sticky posts that stay at the top.

A second option would be to consider building a community into your membership site.  There are some really good themes like BuddyBoss that provide features like this.  You can have full social media like features that are easy to use for your members and now you have 100% full control over everything..

The downside of building your own community is you have to get your members to use it.  It will require another place for them to login.  People are bombarded with so many places to go on the web and you are asking them to add one more to that.  If you do have the clout with your members and you make it an innate part of your program, this is an option to consider and one that we have seen work really well.

Idea #3 - Offering Discounted Services

One idea we've seen work effectively for keeping members in your program is to offer a members only discount.  You offer your programs at a street price and you offer a discounted price only available to members in your program.  The thinking behind these programs is similar to what Amazon Prime or Costco do.  They offer free shipping or ability to shop in their store, respectively, for a fee you pay upfront.

What we've seen our customers to is offer a shopping cart full of items their members can purchase.  There is the street price which is clearly stated.  Then they have a member price which is listed right next to the street price.  Every time a member buys, they see the benefits of staying in your program. Because they are a member, they are saving X amount.  It has the "Membership has it's priviledges" sound to it.

Implementing this using Memberium and Infusionsoft's e-commerce features is pretty straight-forward.  This discounting mechanisms are all there so you can make these offers to your member and you make sure those that are NOT members cannot get the discount.

And added benefit is that those that are not yet members, see the savings they could be getting if they were a member.  It becomes a built it incentive to upgrade to your members to get the better pricing.

In our next series article, we'll be covering two additional ideas you can consider to keep your members excited, engaged and wanting more from you.