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I’m so excited about this bundle, because I’ve experienced firsthand just how incredible membership sites are and I know so many of you are wanting to build your own or are already building one, so I hope this helps you to create something amazing.

As always, I’m here to help. If you have any membership questions ask away over in the Facebook group.

Building a membership site has been something I’ve always wanted to do - they’re an amazing way to bring like-minded people together, to share information, to create an amazing community and then from a financial perspective, they allow you to create recurring revenue in your business (amazing!).

For me, building the Members’ Club has been one heck of an adventure. I star ted off not really knowing anything about how to build a membership site, but within 18 months it had flourished into an incredible community with over 2000 members, thousands of people on the waitlist and we’d collaborated with some incredible exper ts to create bundles.

However, in order to reach that point I made quite a few changes and investments.

One of those investments was working with the amazing Stu McLaren, who is the co-founder of Wishlist Member and the strategic business par tner of Michael Hyatt’s Platform University.

So I’m honoured to be collaborating with him to create this bundle.

When it comes to building, launching and growing membership sites he has a wealth of knowledge and I’m excited that we get to share it with you.

This bundle is going to guide you through 5 core phases of building a successful membership site. Here’s what we’re going to be covering:

1. The Master Strategy - this is your 30,000ft view of what you want to create

2. The Content Strategy - here we’re going to be talking about what needs to go inside of your membership site and how to create content without feeling overwhelmed

3. The Marketing Strategy - this is the exciting par t! How to get your site out there and get people to sign up!

4. The Retention Strategy - once you’ve got members, how do you get them to stay?

5. The Growth Strategy - how do you take things to another level and grow?

Carrie xx

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Before You Get Started

You’ve probably noticed that membership sites are popping up all over the online business world. There are all kinds of membership sites out there from memberships that offer monthly knitting patterns or suppor t communities, to groups that offer specific lessons on how to do something, like build a business (ahem FEA :-)).

While all membership sites vary on the content and value they provide, they usually fall into one of three categories:

S O , W H Y H AV E A M E M B E R S H I P S I T E ?

As a business model, membership sites help solve the entrepreneurial dilemma of time = money. Consider this, as a consultant or service based business, your income is often limited to the number of people you can serve, which is limited by the number of hours you want to work. When your business model is set up to trade time for money, your income is constrained to the number of hours in a day (that you are willing/able to work).

A membership site provides you with the platform to serve more people without expending an exponential amount time. Additionally, If you can create and maintain a membership that fulfills your ideal client’s needs, you can build more financial stability in your business with regular recurring monthly income from memberships.

Basically, they’re amazing… so let’s get star ted on yours!

First things first, let’s take some time to map out your 30,000ft view of your membership site, so you can get super clear on exactly what you’re intending to create.

They provide something for people with an ongoing need (think meal planning or sewing patterns)

They provide a knowledge base for people looking to master some specific area or skill over time (FEA is a great example of this)

They provide a community or environment for like-minded people to connect and suppor t each other.

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W h a t ’ s a t t h e h e a r t a n d s o u l o f y o u r m e m b e r s h i p ? W h a t ’ s y o u r m a i n a i m ? U l t i m a t e l y , w h a t ’ s i t a l l a b o u t ? G o …

When I was working on the Members’ Club I got very clear on the fact that I wanted to create a beautiful space online for like-minded female entrepreneurs to come and hang out, build relationships, learn strategies to help them build a successful business. I wanted it to be a place that inspired and empowered people. I wanted it to be a warm, caring, friendly and suppor tive place. That was the intention and the energy that I created the Members’ Club with.

W h o i s y o u r m e m b e r s h i p s i t e g o i n g t o b e s e r v i n g ? W h o w i l l y o u r m e m b e r s b e ?

For me, I focused on getting clear on understanding the kind of people who would want to be par t of my membership, by thinking about the kind of people they’d be (passionate about building a business, determined, people who want to network, build relationships, learn new skills… things that would help me as I came to create the sales copy and the content for the site). I also took time to get clear on their challenges and frustrations, so I could address them. I did this by creating a survey and asking my audience questions so that I could better understand. I also asked them if they’d be interested in joining a membership group and if so, what they’d like to see inside it… I didn’t have all the answers and in order to create something great I had to ask my audience for the answers.

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W h a t t r a n s f o r m a t i o n / b e n e f i t w i l l t h e y g e t b y b e i n g p a r t o f i t ?

When I was planning this out for the Member’s Club, I kept it simple…

The transformation was about going from feeling alone, struggling, not knowing the answers, to feeling suppor ted, having a great network to tap into and having access to the answers to up-level their business. It was all about creating a space to enable people to succeed, by us all coming together (members + exper ts) to suppor t each other and to cheer each other on.

W h a t k i n d o f m e m b e r s h i p s i t e w i l l y o u c r e a t e ?

H o w d o y o u e n v i s i o n i t r u n n i n g ?

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I’m going to be completely honest, when I was working on the Members’ Club, I got so confused about this. I just didn’t know how to decide what kind of membership site I wanted…

I was literally going round in circles and listing the pros and cons for all of them… and there were plenty of good pros and cons for all. So in the end I asked myself:

So that’s why I chose to go with the model I have. There’s nothing wrong with the other models at all, you just have to go with what will work best for you.

1. What would work the best right now? (I.e. do I want to take more time to create a lot of content before I launch?)

2. What feels the best for me? For this I thought about revenue and decided that I wanted to create monthly recurring revenue and I also realised that I wanted to create something where I could build up my member base, rather than having members pay for 12 months (like with Podcasters Paradise).

1. Did I want a membership site where I created monthly content and charged a monthly fee? (Like DM Lab or Fizzle)

2. Did I want a membership site where I created content up front and then people paid an annual fee to access everything? (Like Leonie Dawson)

3. Or did I want to create a membership site where I create a set amount of content and then charged people a more expensive rate for 12 months, with life-time access (like John Lee Dumas does for Podcasters Paradise)

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G E T T I N G T E C H I E

So once you’ve nailed the concept for your membership site, how are you actually going to build it?

Thankfully there are some amazing tools available today that make this quite simple and I’ll list some of them below. I, however, chose to work with a developer to build out my membership site, because I know that my area of exper tise really isn’t building sites and setting up payment gateways and I wanted to design something that look beautiful, so I need some customisation.

That being said, it’s good to have an understanding of the technical side… I’m sure there are plenty of people in the Members’ Club who can give suggestions on this too, so if you have questions make sure you ask in the Facebook group.

W h a t p l a t f o r m a r e y o u g o i n g t o u s e ?

There are a number of different platforms for building out your membership site, the main ones are:

Most people tend to use Wordpress, as there are a bazillion membership site plugins out there to choose from. So let’s talk about them…

ClickFunnels

Wordpress

Kajabi

Customer Hub (par t of Infusionsoft)

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W O R D P R E S S M E M B E R S H I P S I T E P L U G I N S

The plugin that you choose is what will enable you to turn your Wordpress site into a membership site. Different plugins have different features, but most of them will allow you to do the following:

There are a lot of them, so how should you choose what will work best for you? Well, all I can say is that you need to research to find one that has the features you’re looking for and the price point that works for you.

Here are some options to look into:

Member management

Protect your content, so people have to be logged in to see it

Sequential content delivery

Analytics (so you can see what’s going on with your members)

Multiple membership levels

Payment integration

Wishlist Member

AccessAlly (created by Nathalie Lussier, I’ve never used it, but it looks brilliant!)

iMember360 (this is what I use, which works for protecting the content, but I find it’s not so good at giving me the stats I want to see)

Zippy Courses (more for online courses)

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W H AT PAY M E N T G AT E WAY ?

Something else to consider is what payment gateway you’re going to use. We use PayPal and we also take credit and debit card payments through Infusionsoft.

For credit and debit card payments you might want to check out:

You’ll need to check that the shopping car t you choose integrates with the platform/plugin you choose.

Stripe

Braintree

Samcar t

Recurly (specifically for recurring payments)

P R I C I N G

As par t of your master strategy you’ll want to consider what price you’re going to charge, which for some can be a tricky area!

Pricing for membership sites ranges from $1 a day up to $100+ monthly. It varies depending upon the need, topic and return for members. There are pros and cons to pricing both high and low, and ultimately it hinges on what you feel is right for your business.

Star ting out low gives you the room to grow your membership and then increase your rate over time, providing the oppor tunity to refine your content and

structure as well as learn more about what best serves your members while making some income. There’s less risk with a lower price point for members so you will likely have an easier time getting people to join at the beginning and you will also gain the value of experience, and hopefully gain momentum to be able to raise your pricing when the time is right.

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M a p o u t y o u r p r i c i n g s t r a t e g y a n d p o s s i b l e v a r i a b l e s / s c e n a r i o s t o c o n s i d e r

When I was deciding my price point I went in circles for a while and really had to way up the pros and cons for all options and ultimately had to make a decision based on what felt right.

I star ted off charging $25 per month, which has since increased to $30 and at some point in the future will likely increase again.

In the masterclass with Stu he shared the pricing strategy for Platform University and it was very similar. They star ted off at $15 and then increased the price within the first 7 days and then have slow increased the price to $30 and have plans to do another increase soon.

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What content are you going to create for your membership site & how are you going to manage it?

Membership sites involve content creation, which can be structured in many ways!

The key thing to keep in mind when developing content is that you don’t want to overwhelm your members - the #1 reason why people cancel their membership subscription is because they feel overwhelmed, so keep it simple, clear, and actionable.

So to star t your content strategy, it’s good to identify the core content topics you’re going to be covering in your membership site.

For example, for a business membership site your core content topics might fall under :

Or if you had a membership site all about online marketing you might have:

S o w h a t w o u l d y o u r c o r e c o n t e n t t o p i c s b e ?

Having the right mindset

Building your audience

Generating revenue

Creating systems

Facebook groups/online communities

Social media

Marketing funnels

Video marketing

Adver tising

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Ta k e s o m e t i m e t o b r a i n s t o r m s p e c i f i c c o n t e n t t o p i c s …

Before I launched the Members’ Club I did a survey to find out what topics my audience most wanted help with, based on that I brainstormed 12 potential bundles I could create for the Members’ Club.

This helped me to feel so much clearer about what I had to get done.

How are you going to deliver your content? And what other features are you going to have?

Now that you have some fabulous ideas for the type of content you want to provide, what is the best method to deliver this content? Are you releasing something monthly? Are you sending them something each week? Consider the best way for your audience to digest and implement your content. Remember that you don’t need to share everything you know about the topic in one go, most people are looking for clarity and convenience - “what do I need to know and do this week”?

Like Stu talks about in the masterclass, it’s good to have 4 content buckets. For Platform University this looks like this:

• Monthly Masterclass

• Platform U How To

• Live Q&A session/class

• Backstage pass (video where Michael shows behind the scenes)

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S o , h o w w i l l y o u d e l i v e r y o u r c o n t e n t ?

Like you know with FEA, we have 3 content main features:

Additional features that FEA has is the Facebook group and the monthly accountability par tners, so take some time to think of all the features of your membership site… You don’t have to star t with all these features, you can add them as you go.

H o w m u c h c o n t e n t a r e y o u g o i n g t o c r e a t e b e f o r e y o u l a u n c h ?

Monthly Bundle

Monthly Masterclass

Monthly Goal Planning Workshop

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In the masterclass, Stu mentions that it’s good to have at least two month’s wor th of content created and to have a clear plan of what content you’re going to create after that.

S o , w h a t w i l l y o u r f i r s t f e w m o n t h s o f c o n t e n t i n c l u d e ?

When I launched the Members’ Club I’d created the first bundle and was working on the second month’s and I had a plan for the next few months after that. However, it was stressful and I probably should have had more content created!

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W O R K I N G W I T H E X P E RT S TO C R E AT E C O N T E N T

When you’re creating a lot of content, it’s often a good idea to work with other exper ts so it’s not just you creating content all of the time.

In the Members’ Club we frequently collaborate with amazing exper ts to create bundles and with Platform University, Michael has exper ts involved every month.

W h i c h e x p e r t s w o u l d y o u l o v e t o c o l l a b o r a t e w i t h ?

C r e a t e a w i s h l i s t o f p e o p l e a n d w h a t t o p i c s t h e y c o u l d c o v e r …

When I was star ting the Members’ Club I always wondered how other people worked with exper ts… did they pay them? How did they get introduced? How did they structure it?

So I want to share with you how it’s worked for me.

I was very intentional that I wanted to work with other exper ts and in the beginning I reached out to people who I already knew to some extent and asked if they’d like to be a featured exper t.

At first I didn’t really know what I was doing! I was just asking them for their strategies and tips and from that I created the workbooks. As time went on I found that more and more people wanted to be a featured exper t, which was amazing!

Whenever I work with exper ts I always let them know that the aim of the bundle is to provide step-by-step guidance on how to make something happen - whether that’s writing amazing copy or getting to grips with your finance. I want the exper ts to share an easy to implement process - it needs to be actionable.

There’s no money exchanged.

It’s always work in progress and if I reach out to someone I don’t have a relationship with and ask them to get involved I make it as simple for them to say yes as possible. For example, with Mastin Kipp, we filmed the masterclass, because it was the easiest way to allow him to share his strategies.

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When you’re star ting a publisher style membership site, a big fear is that you’ll be stuck on a content treadmill! So in order to avoid that the key is to batch create content.

For Platform University they batch create 12 months wor th of masterclasses and backstage passes over a few days!

H O W A R E YO U G O I N G TO S TAY O R G A N I S E D W I T H YO U R C O N T E N T C R E AT I O N ?

S o w h a t c o n t e n t c o u l d y o u b a t c h c r e a t e ?

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How are you going to get your membership site out there and get members?

This is the exciting par t, when you can put your membership site out there and star t getting members! So let’s craft your marketing strategy…

M A R K E T I N G P R I O R TO L A U N C H

Several months prior to launching it’s helpful to bolster your list with as many qualified leads as possible.

You might do this by...

• Hosting some webinars on a topic congruent with your membership site (see the Webinars Bundles for complete instructions on that)

• Creating and adver tising a new opt-in PDF that shares some really valuable information in your area of exper tise

• Doing some general list building adver tising effor ts (see the List Building Bundle).

B r a i n s t o r m i d e a s f o r l i s t b u i l d i n g p r i o r t o y o u r l a u n c h :

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It’s also a good to star t a waitlist of people who want to know more about your membership site - get people to sign up via email. Place banners on your site, post out on social media to let people know something exciting is coming and give them a teaser, you could even test Facebook ads.

Once people sign up to your waitlist, make sure you send them some more information about your membership site and get them excited! You’ll be glad you did this when you come to launch!

S TA RT I N G A WA I T L I S T

F O R M O R E H E L P W I T H T H I S D E F I N I T E LY C H E C K O U T T H E L A U N C H B U N D L E .

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When it comes to the launch there are some things you need to consider beforehand…

W I L L YO U H AV E A N O P E N D O O R M E M B E R S H I P O R W I L L YO U H AV E A C L O S E D M E M B E R S H I P ?

Basically, will you allow people to sign up anytime or will you have specific periods when people can enrol?

There are pros and cons to both. Open door allows you to be constantly replenishing members, but also requires you to promote your membership each month. A closed membership can seem intimidating because the pressure is on you each month to make sure existing members stay.

Generally, the closed membership allows you to invest more time/energy into the launches than when you have to launch/promote each month. Ultimately it comes down to what you feel is best for you. Remember, that nothing is set in stone and you can always try it one way and then decide to change it later. The impor tant thing is to just get star ted and try things out, because it will provide you with so much insight. Like your business itself, your membership will always be evolving and growing.

When I launched the Members’ Club it was open all of the time, so each month I would market it. Then I switched to having it closed and doing two enrollments per year.

It was a scary transition, but when I did my first launch and then closed it I had more members join in 7 days than I had join in the first 18 months! What was even better was that because enrollment closed I didn’t need to worry about marketing, which gave me more space to focus on how I was going to add more value to the Members’ Club!

W H AT A C T I V I T I E S W I L L YO U D O TO L A U N C H ?

There are a million ways you could launch your membership site and there are no rules to follow but one of the most popular ways to launch at the moment is by sharing a 3-4 par t video series with your list. This allows you to deliver value and build trust very quickly. You can also accomplish this with a series of webinars or do both!

Here’s what launch activities have worked well for me:

• Creating a free workbook + 3-par t video series, which then leads into the launch (this builds my list, creates excitement and builds trust/the relationship)

• Facebook ads to promote the freebies + the enrollment

• Social media

• Email marketing - for my last launch the majority of new members signed up from an email I sent.

• Live webinars

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S o , w h a t s p e c i f i c a l l y w i l l y o u d o t o l a u n c h y o u r m e m b e r s h i p s i t e ?

I F YO U D O N OT H AV E A N A U D I E N C E Y E T, T H E R E A R E A F E W O P T I O N S

YO U C A N L E A R N M O R E A B O U T T H I S I N T H E L I S T B U I L D I N G B U N D L E A N D F A C E B O O K A D S B U N D L E .

You could find someone to collaborate with who does have a following

You could fast track your list grow using adver tising.

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C R E AT I N G A N E V E R G R E E N F U N N E L

If you’re going to have your membership site only open for enrollment a couple of times a year, it’s a good idea to consider creating an evergreen funnel for people to join through the backdoor.

You could create a webinar and then adver tise that on Facebook and at the end of the webinar offer people the chance to join. This is what they do for Platform University.

F L A S H P R O M OT I O N S & V I P / WA I T L I S T E N R O L L M E N T S

You could also consider doing a flash promotion or opening the doors to your waitlist more frequently. So if you are going to do 2 big enrollments a year, you could also do an extra 2 flash/waitlist promotions.

Use the space below to map out what your annual marketing strategy will look like for your membership site:

Remember, you don’t have to do everything all at once! When I first launched the Members’ Club I just sent out emails, did Facebook ads and posted out on social media. That’s it.

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How are you going to keep members on board?

Okay, so you’ve created the content, figured out your membership site structure, had an amazing launch and have a beautiful community of members! Amazing! So, how do you keep them month after month?

Well the truth is, you’re not going to be able to keep all of them (although it would be nice!), but there are things you can do to make sure your retention rates are high.

So the first thing you need to be aware of is the #1 reason why people cancel their memberships. It’s this…

O V E RW H E L M

Believe it or not, the number one reason why people leave (and we can verify this as our #1 piece of feedback when people decide to cancel their membership with FEA) is because they feel overwhelmed.

The content may be amazing, but if it’s presented in a way that seems daunting or there is no clear path to success - people go into overwhelm and give up. Think about it - how many things are on your to-do list each day just to maintain your personal or family life? Even with a strong desire to want to learn something, if you can’t see the clear path to success or know where to star t it’s easy to let other things take priority. And then they have a membership they are not using and that’s easy to see that it becomes of no value to them anymore. It’s funny because often the main concern you have when creating a membership site is that there is not enough content, but the truth is that you really have to be clear and careful with how much information you present and the way you present it.

The other reason that people cancel is because people don’t feel like their membership is providing the value that was promised. It’s impor tant to not over-promise to your potential members. Make sure that you truly deliver all that you offer and more.

Focusing on serving and helping members creates small wins. It should all be about helping them and providing value for them so they can make quick wins and create momentum for themselves. You will craft an amazing experience for them by being intentional about celebrating their successes with them and becoming their #1 cheerleader - because you care about the results they are getting.

That said, it’s only natural that your membership will have people who decide it’s not the right fit for them, and that’s totally okay. The average monthly loss for most membership sites is around 20-25% of the membership. However, there are some specific tactics you can employ to help keep members happy.

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R E T E N T I O N TA C T I C S

Help them consume content and create anticipation for upcoming content.

HOW FEA HAS DONE THIS:

Community - help them foster meaningful relationships with you or other members

The Facebook Group, where we can all build relationships and ask questions.

Round up of the week email, so people can easily see what’s been going on and we can highlight people’s wins

Weekly Threads (Sunday: what’s your focus for the week? Wednesday: share your offer. Friday: leave a link to your social media)

Challenge of the Month + encouraging people to share their progress/creations

Celebrate the Wins

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B r a i n s t o r m w a y s y o u c a n b u i l d a n t i c i p a t i o n f o r u p c o m i n g c o n t e n t .

B r a i n s t o r m w a y s y o u c a n h e l p c u l t i v a t e c o m m u n i t y i n y o u r m e m b e r s h i p

H o w c a n y o u a c k n o w l e d g e a n d c e l e b r a t e y o u r m e m b e r s ’ w i n s ?

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T H E O N B O A R D I N G P R O C E S S

Something else that I’ve found to be impor tant is the Onboarding Process - how you make people feel from the get-go.

When a member signs up to FEA, here’s what happens:

1. The first thing they see after the payment is a welcome video making them feel excited about their decision to join.

2. They receive a welcome email with their login details in.

3. When they login to the site for the first time they’re given a tour of the site, so they know where everything is.

4. A couple of days after they’ve joined they receive an email from Jess, welcoming them again and letting them know that she’s here to take care of them.

5. They continue to receive more emails over the first month, so we can stay really connected.

It’s so impor tant to consciously create an amazing experience for your members. This will always be work in progress, but for now brainstorm ways that you can make your members feel welcomed during their first month as a member…

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Also, give yourself permission to hire once you reach your goals.

How are you going to take your membership site to the next level?

Once you’ve found a groove with running the membership, the next step is thinking about how to reduce the workload from your shoulders and grow with a team.

Even though you might not be at this stage yet, it’s good to think about the following things...

I D E N T I F Y R O L E S

W h a t r o l e s d o y o u h a v e w i t h i n y o u r m e m b e r s h i p ?

D o y o u n e e d a c o m m u n i t y m a n a g e r ?

D o y o u n e e d s o m e o n e t o t a k e c a r e o f s u p p o r t ?

D o y o u n e e d s o m e o n e t o h e l p o r g a n i s e t h e c o n t e n t ?

I D E N T I F Y G O A L S

G e t r e a l l y c l e a r o n w h a t y o u r g o a l s a r e f o r y o u r m e m b e r s h i p s i t e .

W h e r e d o y o u w a n t i t t o g o ?

H o w m a n y m e m b e r s d o y o u w a n t a n d w h e n d o y o u w a n t t h e m b y ?

B E I N T E N T I O N A L .

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You don’t have to get it right but you do have to get it going.

Your site will evolve over time and you may not end up where you thought you would but it will always be improving and evolving.

Keep it Simple.

So by now you should have a big plan in place for building a really successful membership site.

As always, if you have any questions then ask away over in the Facebook group!

Good luck building out your membership, I can’t wait to see it!

Carrie xx

N E E D H E L P ? W E ’ R E H E R E F O R YO U . . .C O M E A N D S AY H E L L O TO U S O N F A C E B O O K