Members on Your Membership Site Should Be Hyper-Active

Now that you have registered members, the real work begins. Your sales funnel has done its job and convinced members to sign up. The next and most important step is to focus on the membership experience. The success of your offering now depends on:

• keeping these members actively using  your content,
• getting members to do what you want them to do which can include making additional purchases, and
• dazzling your members so they are eager to refer you to their friends.

How do you go about doing that?

You cannot just put your content out there and expect members to run through it beginning to end.   Studies I have read say that low completion rates. somewhere in the 20% and 30% range, are typical.  When people start, they are excited about the thing they just purchased.  A short time later, the excitement naturally disappears. Their initial excitement meets with the work required and progress can easily come to a halt.

Come to grips with this reality fast.   It's the hard truth you have to address.

Let me give you examples from some well designed membership site programs to illustrate approaches used to get business owners to meet their objectives.  I do this to get you thinking about your longer term goals and how you can design your membership site to address them.

Example #1 - "Nathalie Lussier's "Ambition Ally"

In previous articles, I have mentioned Nathalie Lussier's AmbitionAlly membership site.  She offers her 30 Day List Building Challenge as a lead magnet.  I first signed up for it thinking it was a simple lead magnet with information I could use to grow my list and work with my customer to grow theirs.

What I discovered was that their membership site provided me with much more than some list building tips.  Nathalie and her team clearly know their market.  They know people looking to grow their list need much more.  So they have built a membership site for business owners wanting to maximize the results of their online marketing efforts.

Early on after logging in to get my 30 Day List Building Challenge, I discovered an assessment they provide. It recommends the next best program from their library for helping you achieve your goals. I filled it out and was impressed at the recommendation.

That led to my signing up for their free trial.  That led  to me signing up and paying for their monthly program.

The site includes a leader board. The site awards you points for completing lessons and tracking your progress towards you goals. When I discovered the leader board, I discovered I was one of the partners that ranked well on the site.   Apparently I am doing the right stuff according to them.

I haveton of programs like this targeting me given what I do.  I have many providers competing for my business and attention.  This point approach keeps me engaged.  It provide me with feedback on my progress relative to others in the program.  The point system and the lead board isn't that big a deal.  They are very easy to implement.  They are a simple approach that can make a big difference in the success of your membership site.

Example #2 - Infusionsoft "The Greenroom

Infusionsoft hosts The Greenroom.   It's a membership site to keep partners like me informed.  They use it to make their partners more effective and to enlist partners to help promote Infusionsoft better.  I learned about it at a booth they hosted at a partner conference.  I signed up because the lady told me I could somehow use it to guest post on Infusionsoft's blog.   They were looking for good content and that was carrot enough for me to sign up.

The site uses their leader board and point system to motivate partners to do what it is they want us to do.  As I mentioned, I actively look for opportunities to guest post.  They have a blog that targets my ideal audience.    The Greenroom assigned me points for submitting my article for them to consider.  My article got approved so I got additional points.

As I started exploring the site, I noticed some well respected partners ranking well on the leader board.  That encouraged me to investigate this further.  I thought, "How can I get myself ranked on the leader board among those other partners?"

Here are things I can do to get more points:

• The site makes available content showing creative ways to use Infusionsoft to promote your own business.  You get points for reviewing the content and more points for sharing those same articles via social media.  I don't usually publish articles like that on social media, but this motivated me to share what I thought was good, relevant material.
• They point you at sites where you can review and rate Infusionsoft like you would a restaurant on Yelp.  They give points for showing you've submitted a review.
• They give you points for reviewing articles explaining content for upcoming product updates.  It enabled me to see what was coming up.   I wouldn't have otherwise read those release notes.
• During the holidays, they gave you points for sharing your favorite holiday recipe.  It got me interacting with other partners.  It gave me an opportunity connect in non-business ways with people in my network.

Without me knowing it, I signed up for a site that helps them meet their objectives and provides me with valuable perks.  I now make a point of visiting the site once a week to stay connected with their partner program.  I sometimes stay a little longer because I now rank decently on the leader board and look for ways to stay up there.

It's a win-win.

Think about ways you can use leader boards, point systems and other techniques to keep your members connected and actively working through your content.