Membership Geeks Podcast with Mike Morrison

Email marketing is the golden ticket to growing any kind of membership or online business. But a successful email marketing campaign is about so much more than sending out the occasional email to your mailing list.

If you really want to step up your email marketing effectiveness, you need to use some tried-and-tested tactics. In this episode, we share six ways to improve your email campaigns.

You’ll hear why emailing more often is the right move, how to use narrative and open-loop emails to keep interest and how to use different email marketing features to transform your campaigns. Tune in today to learn more.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why you should get out of your comfort zone with email marketing
• How to utilize the P.S. section of your emails to drive sales
• Why storytelling is the key to a good email
• How to maintain interest through open-loop emails
• Why you should always try to experiment with email marketing
• How to use conditional content

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Guys
• Membership Academy

Key Quotes:

“Stories are far easier to infuse your personality into, which of course helps to foster connection which goes a long way, especially with memberships where that connection is so key.”

“If you've got a great story to tell and a strong narrative that lends itself to being sent one bit at a time, then using open loops in your emails can be fantastic and engaging.”

“Split testing can be invaluable for refining and perfecting your approach to email marketing to best suit your audience's preferences.”

If you’re thinking about starting a membership site, the very first decision you need to make is what it’s about.

Your choice of topic is fundamental to your success. A good choice is a strong foundation. A poor choice will lead to an uphill battle you really don’t want to tackle.

But how do you make the right choice?

Tune in to this episode to hear the crucial elements that make a good membership topic idea. We cover why you need some expertise and what to do if you aren’t an expert. We also discuss why you should pick an evergreen topic if you want to be in this for the long haul, and much more!

Essential Learning Points:

• Why your choice of topic is essential
• Why you should chasing avoid any fads
• The importance of picking a topic you have some expertise in
• How to pick a topic that’s evergreen
• Why you need to love your topic
• What to do if your membership idea doesn’t tick all the boxes

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Guys
• Membership Academy

Key Quotes:

“If you make the wrong decision about your membership topic, then that pretty much means that anything else you do is built on a pretty unstable foundation.”

“Most online memberships will involve tapping into your knowledge, skills, experience, and expertise to help someone accomplish something to learn something to make progress towards a specific goal result or outcome.”

“If you've got a real passion and enthusiasm for your topic, then the idea that you get to eat, sleep and breathe this subject day in day out for years to come will be absolute perfection.”

“In an ideal world, your topic should really be something specific, something niche, as opposed to something generic.”

Do you want to launch a membership, or have you launched already and now found that there are big, established competitors in your market?

Don’t panic. Your competitors may have a massive library of content, years and years of experience under their belt, or thousands of members, but don’t let that intimidate you.

Your size, your uniqueness, and your ability to zig when your competitors zag, gives you an edge – if you know how to take advantage of it.

In this episode, I share many tips on how to differentiate yourself from the competitors. From zeroing in on your specialty and niche to emphasizing your personal brand and offering a personalized service, these tips will help you get a share of that membership pie.

Essential Learning Points:

1. How understanding ‘why you exist’ can help you differentiate from your competitors

2. Why specializing and niching down on your topic and who you serve can help your positioning

3. The benefits of focusing on your personal side, embracing your underdog nature, and striving for quality

4. Why you should avoid getting wrapped up in competitor numbers and look for opportunities

5. What to avoid doing when dealing with competitors

Important Links & Mentions:

• Bob Burg, “The Go Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea”
• The Membership Academy
• The Membership Mastermind Facebook Group
• The Membership Guys’ Twitter
• Mike’s Instagram
• Callie’s Instagram

Key Quotes:

“If you can offer something that caters to a specific segment of your audience, then you are going to stand out and beat your competition every single time.”

“Don’t be intimidated by that established competitor with a library of content. It’s all about what value and what results you can deliver.”

“Don’t obsess about the fact your competitor has more members than you or that they have cornered a percentage of the market because, in all honesty, you only need a small percentage of the marketplace to succeed.”

Are you ready to launch a membership? Are you really ready?

If you’ve been toying with the idea of launching a membership for some time, you might be wondering if the timing is right. Many business gurus out there will tell you to jump in and “just start,” but hold on!

Memberships are a funny business. Launching your membership is all about timing it right. If you get it wrong, it’s much harder to change your mind or get out of it when you have paying members with high expectations. You need to do the groundwork first.

In this episode, we take you through the signs that now is the time to launch your membership. These are signs that your membership will get off to a great start, has a real audience, and won’t fizzle out over time.

Essential Learning Points:

• Why timing is so important when starting a membership
• The downsides of jumping into a membership before you’re ready
• Why you need to be clear on what you’re offering and who you’re serving
• How much time you need to dedicate at the beginning
• Why building your audience before launching a membership is the best move

Important Links & Mentions:

• The Membership Guys
• Membership Academy
• Why Membership Site Owners Need to Niche Down (And STAY Niched)
• Membership Toolkit

Key Quotes:

“The most successful memberships are the ones that solve a specific problem and serve a specific audience.”

“The riches are in the niches when it comes to memberships.”

“It's not about having thousands of people on an email list before you can even contemplate starting a membership. It's far more important that your following is relevant than it is huge.”

In many ways, launching a new membership website is one of the biggest marketing opportunities you'll experience as a membership owner.

So it makes sense why some people may advocate for constantly closing and re-opening your membership in order to recapture that opportunity over and over again.

But it's not quite as simple as that.

In this episode, I cut through the hype and talk about why I strongly dislike "closed door" marketing tactics and why it might not be the best thing for your membership strategy.