Memberium Site Features for Keeping Members Engaged – Part 2

This is a continuation on a Memberium article on keeping members engaged on your membership site.  You can click here to read part 1 of this article.

Idea #2: Give out Badges or Certificates

Programs like this have existed forever.  The Boy Scouts for example have an elaborate badge system. It motivates boys to learn and achieve.  Earning Eagle Scout takes a lot of hard work.  A friend of mine's son got it and it took a lot of work an creativity to achieve that.  People will list Eagle Scout as an item on their resume.  People who are a familiar with it will see it as a "certification" that tells them something about that candicate.

You can so something similar on your Memberium membership site?

I study membership programs of all types because of what I do independent of whether they use Memberium and Infusionsoft to build it.  What I've noticed is a trend towards changing how the content is organized.  The traditional way is to provide an organized library of content to be used to learn and later to use as reference.  It could be that it includes a road map shared with members with instructions on how to make the best use of the content.

What I'm seeing done a lot now is to take the same content and make a certification program out of it.  Traditionally you would organize your content into, let's say, 38 lessons.  You then show a progress bar showing percentage complete.  What is it that motivates me to get lesson 37 and 38 done when I've gotten to 36. Not much.

Let's say that instead you group your 38 lessons into four achievement levels.   Then you name the four levels: Beginner, Wet Around the Ears, Big Guy, Rough Rider.  I'm sure you can come up with names to fit your course ware.  You then communicate with your members using these names encouraging them to achieve and not just consume your material.  This is a big difference and can be a huge motivator.

Now if I'm at lesson 36 with 2 lessons to go, getting to that level with the corresponding status it implies is a big motivator to getting them done.

Then you put some effort into the badges or certificates you issue and you encourage people to put them in their email signature, social media profiles and other marketing material.  The benefit here is you have your members now promoting you as they show off their accomplishment.

Idea #3: Create a Leader Board

Sales organization will establish recognition programs to motivate their sale teams.  You'll hear people say, "I'm made President's Club this year" and they'll put that on their business card.  They'll include that in conversations with clients.  Even if the President's Club doesn't include a trip to some exotic location, you'll see people motivated to achieve it because of what it means in their company.

You can do the same on your membership sites.

You just add a leader board on your member dashboard.  You can keep it simple by pointing out who has spent the most time logged into the site.  You can list people that made the most progress, passed the most tests, etc.   You decide what you want people to achieve and you highlight those members on the leader board.

What's important here is that the member sees how they are doing versus others in the program.  You'd be surprise how positively this can be seen by your members.

Membership site features are there for you to use to keep members engaged.  Focus your energy on this side of your program.   It can make a huge difference in how people learn from your content and you will reap the benefits from members that stay engaged.