The difference between a standard subscription service and a truly successful membership?
An unforgettable membership experience where your members feel like they’re a valued part of a like minded community.
Imagine you’ve joined a local film club. They’ve got a stellar line up of some of your favorite films, and exclusive access to new releases. Not only that, but the showings are hosted in a one-of-a-kind independent cinema where you get discounts on all concessions.
So far, a pretty unique experience, right?
But the best part – the part that really makes you want to return week after week – is the chance to meet up with other film enthusiasts, form connections, and cast your vote on what you’d like to see next.
Compared to the regular movie-going experience, you’re getting a next-level membership experience built around the feeling of being a part of something where your contribution matters.
So how do you recreate that feeling online?
We spoke to Katie Steckly from the Creator Club and some of our internal Uscreen experts to find out. Read on to find out what they have to say.
Why the membership experience is so important to the success of your business
Member experience is a crucial part of building a sustainable business with room for growth. It’s about nurturing those lovely people who actively want to be part of your exclusive community, so much so that they’re not just paying to be there, but investing their time and energy into it. After all, it’s the reason people join a membership in the first place.
The better the member experience, the more likely they are to keep renewing their membership, engaging with what you have to offer, and tell their friends about it.
Imagine, for example, that you went to the effort of joining a bookclub, but when you turned up… nobody else was there?
Or, worse, you were surrounded by members who didn’t interact with each other, and didn’t offer a chance to build any connection with you?
Sure, you could still read the book on your own. But, that’s not really the point of joining something like a membership.
Luckily, there are lots of ways you can make sure you cater for your members interests and keep them engaged with your content and each other. First, let’s dive into the benefits of providing a positive member experience.
The 5 top benefits of providing a great membership experience for your community
1. Improve your member retention rate
A positive member experience gives your members more reason to stick around. And retaining members for the long haul is better for business. Did you know that it costs 5x more to gain a new customer than it does to keep an existing one?
Focusing your attention on member satisfaction means you’re investing in the longer term success of your business, cutting down the time and cost spent on continually attracting potential members.
A great example of this is Jay Clouse’s The Lab which has a cap at 200 members. He explains that a larger number of people changes the experience for members. Keeping the community small means that he can make his members a priority and focus on membership engagement, making them feel valued as part of this exclusive community.
This frees up time to focus on creating new content and event ideas for your membership calendar to foster a vibrant, active community with your members.
2. Generate social proof
A great member experience also makes happy members more likely to share their experiences with others and leave positive testimonials. These are valuable tools you can use for new member acquisition, generating social proof that you make the member experience matter, that it lives up to the promise.
If we take a look at some of the testimonials showcased on Jay Clouse’s website, it tells a range of stories about each member’s experience:
From here we can see a range of benefits that these members have gained from being part of The Lab, from a sense of community and connection with others, to Jay’s influential role and the financial gain experienced after joining. Which is compelling stuff for anyone considering joining; as these are real tangible results of the member experience.
3. Drive stable revenue
Membership retention is another important factor in bringing in reliable recurring revenue.
Making the experience count as soon as each customer receives that first welcome message gives you the best possible chance to increase their lifetime value. The more loyal members you have going through the renewal process, the more sustainable your business becomes as you’re not relying on chasing new members and subscribers.
It’s these loyal members that inspire word-of-mouth marketing and positive testimonials, which come as a result of a great membership experience. That retention is what drives the social proof you need to attract new sign ups, generating stable revenue on two levels: through membership renewals and enticing new members to join.
M/Body is a great example of this. Marnie transformed her original brick-and-mortar studio into an online fitness platform, which now has a thriving online community of 1,200 loyal members and generates $40k in monthly revenue.
📖Read the full story to find out how she did it.
4. Strengthen your brand
Prioritizing member experience is also an important part of helping to strengthen your brand. Developing a strong connection with your members and prioritizing member engagement with you, your content and with each other, creates a thriving community that makes the difference between a simple subscription model and a fully fledged membership.
For example, something like your Netflix subscription is purely transactional. You pay a monthly fee to access their library of content on demand and can cancel anytime. But done well, a community membership delivers much more, as it fosters a deeper connection where members aren’t just passively consuming content, but actively engaging with it to make a positive difference in their lives.
This in turn, creates a stronger brand identity that’s driven by the people and their member experience. For example, check out some of the testimonials for Find What Feels Good on their membership website:
5. Creator satisfaction
It’s not all about numbers and financial success (although, these things are ideal obviously!). Think about the reason you started this membership in the first place; the passion that drives you to keep going.
This is what connects you with your members on a deeper level. Inspiring member loyalty from that connection gives you that soul-deep sense of achievement and purpose that you’re bringing something valuable to their lives, making members feel like they’re part of something worthwhile.
Dave Henson, the creator behind Your Saltwater Guide did just that when he started sharing his passion and expertise for fishing with others, teaching people how to fish from their own boats and scaling that into a fully-fledged membership.
Their success is reflected in the testimonials from members happily sharing their member experience:
They want to share their success with the other members so that our members know the website works, which is just a big, giant good thing for us, and it works really well.
Captain Dave Hansen, Founder of Your Saltwater Guide
5 strategies for making your membership experience unforgettable
1. Plan out your content and stick to a manageable schedule
A major part of the membership experience is access to your content. While having a regular output of content like on demand videos and members only events is important, protecting yourself from creator burnout is equally as important.
This not only hurts you as a creator, but can be harmful for your membership business if you can’t live up to the expectations and membership benefits that you’ve set in motion.
Having a well thought out plan for what content you’re going to create and when you can realistically deliver it gives you a solid strategy to follow. After all, it’s better to take the time to create content that you’re truly proud of and inspire member satisfaction than to rush things and churn out as many videos, podcasts, blogs and live streams as you can that aren’t as high quality.
It’s like the difference between having dinner at a nice restaurant where all the food is cooked fresh, someone comes to pour you a perfectly chilled glass of wine while you wait, and you’re having your every need catered for; in comparison to grabbing a burger at the nearest fast food drive through. Sure it’s quick and eases your hunger, but it’s hardly an experience that sticks with you, nor is it nourishing.
Katie Steckly, founder of the Creator Club, shares her strategy for engaging with new members about upcoming content:
Each month, we make a post that includes all the details about the new release of exclusive content, and any events happening in the community. With this post, new members can quickly find the information about the newest content – which I think is crucial since many new members might join because of specific, new exclusive content that I’ve promoted across my social channels. This will be the fastest way for them to find it.
Katie Steckly
💡Takeaways
- Create a content plan that’s manageable for you
- Focus on high quality content that is going to be valuable for members
- Promote new content releases so your members can find and engage with it
2. Nail your onboarding process and make sure every member gets a positive welcome
Imagine you’d just signed up to an exciting membership platform that you’re keen to start engaging with but once you’re in, you’re overwhelmed with the volume of videos and community threads available.
One of the things they get wrong is they view retention as a late stage thing. The reduce churn tool is great but it’s a last step. To me, reducing churn starts right at the very beginning as soon as they become a paying member
Daniel Kosmala, Senior Marketing Manager at Uscreen
We spoke to Katie Steckly where she shares how she onboards new members into the Creator Club to make sure they have a positive experience right from the start.
Here’s what she has to say:
“Our strategy for onboarding new members into the Creator Club comes in two parts: one is a playlist in the content library, and the other is pinned posts in the community.
First we have a welcome playlist, which is at the very top of the video library, with a short and concise video answering the main questions our members might have when they join. (As an aside, that’s what I think successful onboarding is all about, anticipating the questions that members might have when they first join and addressing them before they even ask.)
The welcome playlist includes videos like ‘how to navigate the membership’ and ‘how to use the community forum’ and information on how to find the bonus resources that are included in the membership. After watching this playlist (which should only take about 5 minutes) new members should have a clear idea of how they can get value from the membership and where to go to find what they need!”
The second part of the Creator Club’s onboarding process is about the way the community is organized and directs new members to the ‘welcome’ channel:
“This channel has two pinned posts. The first is clearly labeled [READ THIS FIRST] – explaining the community and what each channel’s purpose is. It also has a prompt to introduce yourself! The second pinned post is always our most recent announcement post.”
💡Takeaways
- Have clearly marked welcome videos and posts that are easy to find
- Anticipate their questions and answer them in the welcome resources
- Explain where they can find what they need to get started
3. Build and maintain a community that’s valuable for your members
You’ve planned out a killer content library, and made sure your onboarding is on point, so now let’s focus on your community. How do you keep adding value and maintain great member engagement? Planning ahead is key.
Our internal expert Daniel Kosmala shares his thoughts on how to continue engaging members year after year and build the lifetime value of each customer.
He encourages you to find an annual tradition or challenge that members can take part in, or even something like a meet-up or a trip. Even better, a cause that your group can rally around, like taking part in a marathon to raise money for a specific charity.
One example of this is Yoga With Adrienne’s yoga for 30 days challenge every January. It brings members together to kick start the year by getting on their yoga mats day after day, building a healthy habit while connecting with each other for ongoing encouragement along the way. This challenge has the added bonus of bringing in revenue from new members that want to join this membership journey.
Think of a couple of things that you can build the year around that adds value in different ways and pulls people into your bubble of your community, network and membership. Plan that in advance, build those experiences and then evolve from there.
Daniel Kosmala, Senior Marketing Manager, Uscreen
💡Takeaways
- Plan ahead for the next year or two in advance
- Create regular events or challenges for members to take part in
- Build experiences that are meaningful to your members’ lives
4. Regularly engage with your members and get their feedback
Katie Steckly has some great insights to share on how to engage members long-term, why this can be a challenging part of running a membership program, and how she tackles this:
“I think one of the biggest challenges that membership creators face is keeping their members engaged long term. It’s hard to foster an active community space – people have lots going on in their lives, they already have several inboxes and social media platforms to check, so it’s a big ask for your members to be diving into your community and posting there everyday.
So with that in mind, I developed a strategy for Creator Club. We’ve started hosting “Feedback Fridays” – essentially, I found the most valuable thing that most of our members get out of the community space is the ability to gain feedback from other creators (and myself and my team) about their content. How they can improve their thumbnails, their video editing, or caption writing.”
The team decided on a strategy for getting valuable members feedback by scheduling these Feedback Fridays at the beginning of the month so everyone can be prepared: “Members can come into the community, drop a link to the content they want feedback on or share feedback with other members, and they know that by the end of the day they’ll have some solid suggestions from other creators on how to improve their work.
This solved our problem of haphazard posting that might wait several days for a response. This way, we all know the time to give and receive feedback. It’s been a great way to get our members more engaged and really provide that feeling of community connection a few days a month.”
💡Takeaways
- Set aside a regular time slot for community engagement
- Give members advance notice so they can join in and contribute effectively
- A regular schedule helps form a habit and allows members to build connections with each other
5. Choose the right platform for your membership community
If you want to provide members with the best possible experience, taking the time to choose the right platform is essential.
A great way to start is to put yourself in the shoes of your ideal member. What would you want to see? Is there anything you could improve about the overall customer experience?
While no platform is a one-size-fits-all solution, there are some common key features that are essential for the success of any membership:
- Your community and content should live in the same digital space. This makes for a smoother membership journey so users aren’t having to jump between multiple discussion forums and social media groups. It also boosts member engagement because they’re not getting sidetracked by other content.
- Look out for a platform that’s white labeled, that you can customize with your own branding. This helps to build a strong brand identity that your members can clearly recognize at a glance.
- Make sure flexible monetization options are on offer so you have the freedom to offer a range of different access levels, pricing plans or membership programs.
- Membership management is important too, which includes having access to your member’s basic information and the payment methods the platform supports. You want to make things easy not just for your member base, but for you too.
- The last essential item on the list is ongoing education and support. Does your membership management software provide plenty of resources and contactable support to help you make the most out of the platform and guide you if you run into issues?
Making the overall experience of your current members a priority shows them that they’ve made the right choice investing in your membership, laying the foundation for keeping them around for the long term.
💡Takeaways
- Have both your content and community accessible from the same platform where you have brand ownership
- Look for platforms that allow flexibility in your monetization options where you can offer different types of memberships
- Make sure there is robust support available to help you navigate the technical side and make the most of the features
How Uscreen helps to build and maintain the membership experience your members deserve
Uscreen is an all-in-one platform creators use to monetize their audience and sell exclusive memberships built around their unique skills and knowledge, creating like-minded communities that empower members to achieve their goals.
Uscreen customers provide value to their audience by providing accessible content that members can engage with on the app or device of their choice, and enjoy the benefits that the whole membership experience has to offer.
It provides everything you need in one platform, empowering creators to monetize their content and memberships in a way that generates reliable, ongoing income and brings your community into one place that’s easy to manage and offers a tailored, branded experience.
Check out Fittest Core’s story where they share their success in migrating to Uscreen as a family-run fitness membership business that brings in 6-figures in annual revenue.
The changes in customer feedback and behavior since migrating to Uscreen have been night and day. Customers can now interact directly with me and other members, which is an awesome change. It’s also much easier for them to navigate the platform. When they open the app, they know exactly where to go and aren’t confused about how to start or what works for them.
Macy Pruett, Founder of Fittest Core
Build, launch and manage your membership, all in one place.
Membership experience FAQs
The membership experience is made up of the content on offer to your members, how they can access it and their ability to engage with the community. Each detail and step of the journey matters in fostering an unforgettable member experience.
You can improve your membership experience by offering an exclusive branded community where you regularly engage with members, a smooth user experience and valuable content.
Membership experience is important because it’s what your members signed up for; and a positive experience that brings them value makes them more likely to stay and improve your retention rate.
