8 Membership Site Mistakes to Avoid
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As of 2022, the digital subscription market hit $650B.
That’s not even close to peaking; it’s expected to grow to $1.5T by 2025 (which as of writing this, is in three months). Membership sites are a slice of that, but they’re a big slice and a fantastic way for coaches, consultants, and agency owners to scale their expertise and create a new stream of passive income for their businesses.
Launching a membership site can be a great money-maker, but it’s not always easy. In this article, I’ll walk you through the top mistakes coaches and consultants make when adding a membership site to their current offering.
Why Launch a Membership Site?
There are so many benefits coaches and consultants get from a membership site that it’s hard to choose my favorites. If I had to, here are my top four:
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8 Membership Site Mistakes Coaches and Consultants Need to Avoid
Of all the pitfalls in your way on the path to a six-figure coaching business, these eight membership site mistakes are the top ones to avoid:
I’ll walk you through each one and show you how to avoid them next.
Launching without an audience
Launching a membership site without an established audience is like throwing a party and forgetting to send out invitations. Without a large enough audience, it’s next to impossible to get traction and build revenue.
To avoid this, focus on building your audience well before launching your membership site. Use proven promotion channels like social media, ads, SEO, video marketing, and an email list to create a community of interested followers. You can ramp things up by offering free value through blog posts, podcasts, or webinars to demonstrate your expertise and build trust with your audience.
Confusing Your Offering
If your messaging isn’t dialed in and crystal clear, this is an easy mistake to make. Let’s say you offer one-on-one coaching engagements for $1,000 per month. Wouldn’t a $100/month membership site offer confuse your existing and potential clients?
It can. And that confusion will result in a higher bounce rate on your site and lost sales for your membership and your primary coaching offer. To fix this, you need to frame your membership site as an extension of your one-on-one services, not a replacement. Check out my guide to combining a membership offering with a coaching/consulting offer for more tips.
Not Enough Content
If your site doesn’t have enough content, it risks leaving your customers unfulfilled and feeling like they are not getting value from their subscriptions.
To prevent this, create a content calendar and build a backlog of valuable content before launch. Aim for a mix of different content types (videos, articles, worksheets, checklists, cheat sheets, assessments, etc.) to cater to various learning styles. Produce regular content after launch, and communicate your content schedule to members so they know what to expect.
Creating all this content can be a monumental task, but PLR (private label rights) makes it a breeze to stock your site with oodles of content that keeps your customers coming back for more.
Not Having High-Quality Content
Low-quality content may be worse than not enough content because it erodes trust in your expertise and brand. This leads to dissatisfied customers who are likely to cancel their subscriptions.
Either invest the time and resources to create premium, high-value content that truly serves your audience or invest in high-quality PLR products and courses. And if you regularly seek feedback from members, you can continuously improve your offerings based on their needs and preferences.
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Forgetting the Customer Experience
A lackluster customer experience can kill your chances of scaling your business through a membership site. If your site is challenging to navigate, slow to load, or not mobile-friendly, members may give up trying to access your content, regardless of its quality.
Choose a membership site platform that is easy to navigate, and welcome new subscribers to set them up for success. Keep your ears close to the ground too by setting up channels for support. Consider also creating a comprehensive FAQ or knowledge base to help members self-serve for common questions. They shouldn’t have to contact you and wait for a reply when it comes to basic questions.
Ignoring Retention
If you’re selling one-on-one engagements, chances are you know a thing or two about retaining clients. A membership site will be different, though thanks to the scale at which you can acquire customers. In the early days, you’ll be tempted to focus all your energy on getting new customers, but that’s a big mistake.
Set up a retention strategy from day one. This could include regular check-ins with members, personalized content recommendations, loyalty programs, or exclusive events for long-term members. Remember, a thriving membership site is built on a foundation of happy long-term customers.
Not Knowing Your Niche
As they say, marketing to everyone is marketing to no one.
If you lack focus, you can end up creating haphazard content that doesn't serve any particular audience. This makes it difficult to attract and retain members and will result in an early plateau for your membership site.
Define a clear audience and niche before launching your site to ensure you have your ideal customer profiles dialed in. Don't be afraid to niche down – a smaller, highly engaged audience is often more valuable than a larger, disinterested one.
Only Prioritizing New Members
While attracting new members is essential, neglecting your existing members in favor of new sign-ups can backfire on you. This leads to long-term members feeling undervalued, which can hurt your growth chances (and their feelings).
Find a way to balance pleasing existing customers with acquiring new ones. Benefit programs or special offers can make long-term members feel valued while new customers get a red-carpet welcome mat into your community. Remember, your existing members can be your best advocates if they feel valued and supported.
Here’s a Helping Hand to Avoid These Mistakes: PLR
While a membership site is a fantastic way to add a passive (or semi-passive) revenue stream to your business, it’s not exactly something you can set up in an afternoon and forget.
You need to select a platform, build a marketing plan, develop a pricing strategy, and regularly share premium gated content with your customers. That’s a lot of work, and it does not necessarily get easier as time goes on.
I have a solution for you: PLR.
PLR (private label rights) content allows you to purchase ready-to-sell white-label courses, webinars, worksheets, ebooks, challenges, and more. So you can have a year’s worth of content ready in minutes (and under $1,000). It’s not just that PLR saves you a bit of time. It saves hours upon hours of time - freeing you up to focus more on your customers and promotion strategy.
If you want to avoid these eight mistakes, start by purchasing PLR to generate content (or supplement some existing content) for your membership site.
I have an extra special treat for you: a 30% discount on your first order if you subscribe for email updates and news. In the next 15 minutes, you can save 30% on your order and have a year’s worth of content.
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