Identifying your customer persona, buyer persona or target audience profile, is crucial before launching a membership website. Understanding who your audience is allows you to create targeted marketing campaigns, improve user experience, develop relevant content, optimise pricing strategies, and foster long-term growth.

Getting your first 100 paying customers for a membership website is always the hardest part. But once you reach that number, it becomes much easier to attract new members.

We've put together a 90-day plan for you to get your first 100 paying customers.

Personalization has grown to be a crucial component of the subscription industry. The likelihood of retention and happiness is higher when each member's experience is more individually tailored and personalized. Personalization fosters a closer relationship with members and has a big impact on how quickly a company expands. Here's where movies can be useful. Videos have developed into a useful instrument for personalization, and they aid in giving members a more interesting and interactive experience.

When you use videos in your membership company, you can personalize your communications and produce content that is tailored to the wants and needs of each member. Videos can be used for many different purposes, such as onboarding new members and producing personalized video messages for each user. This strategy can foster long-lasting relationships with your members by fostering confidence and loyalty.

Understanding your members

Understanding your members' requirements, interests, and problems is crucial before you start making personalized videos for them. Your ability to produce videos that appeal to and benefit your members will depend on your ability to comprehend them. Here are some techniques for better comprehending your members:

Demographics: Analyze your users' demographics to start. Their age, gender, location, level of schooling, and line of work are all included. You can use this knowledge to produce videos that are suited to their requirements.

Interests and preferences: To learn about the interests and preferences of your members, conduct surveys or collect input. You can use this information to produce videos, like tutorials, product reviews, or behind-the-scenes material, that are tailored to their particular hobbies.

Pain points: Determine the difficulties or pain spots your members are experiencing. You can use this knowledge to produce videos that speak to their particular issues, provide answers, and foster a sense of trust. You can use this data to produce personalized video material that engages your members more deeply.

You can use personalized videos to greet new members, share updates, or promote special deals. The secret is to produce movies that are sincere, pertinent, and beneficial to your subscribers. We will look at how to make personalized video content that appeals to your members in the following part.

Creating Personalized Video Content

You need the appropriate methods and instruments to produce personalized video content. Here are some pointers to assist you in producing customized movies for your subscribers:

Use clip maker tool: You can swiftly and easily create customized videos with the aid of a clip maker tool. It allows you to include text, music, graphics, and other elements that are consistent with your identity and appeal to your members.

Be authentic: When making personalized videos for your users, authenticity is essential. Avoid using a salesy tone and be sincere and honest in your videos.

Use storytelling: A great way to emotionally engage your users is through storytelling. Use tales to share your brand's journey, highlight the advantages of your membership, or highlight the accomplishments of your members.

You can make customized video material for your members by using a clip maker tool, being genuine, and using storytelling. These videos can be used to introduce new goods, give subscribers updates, or promote special deals. Additionally, personalized videos can be utilized to welcome new participants and help them feel a part of the group.

Integrating Personalized Video into Your Membership Business

It's time to incorporate the personalized video content you've created into your membership-based company. The following advice will assist you in incorporating customized videos into your membership business:

Create personalized welcome letters with videos: A great way to introduce your new members to your business and give them a sense of value is through welcome emails. By extending a warm welcome and introducing them to your business, personalized videos can assist you in achieving this objective.

Use customized videos in your marketing campaigns: Customized videos can be used in your marketing campaigns to highlight your goods, provide privileged discounts, and captivate your audience.

Use customized videos to increase member retention: Customized videos can be used to address the problems that your members are experiencing, provide answers, and foster a sense of trust. You can increase member retention and create enduring relationships with your members by using personalized videos to handle these problems.

Your membership company can increase member engagement, retention, and satisfaction by incorporating personalized videos. Additionally, customized films can assist you in differentiating your company from the competition.

Measuring the Impact of Personalized Videos

You need to monitor metrics like engagement, retention, and conversion rates to gauge the effect of personalized videos on your membership company. The following techniques can be used to gauge the effect of customized videos:

Engagement: Track how many people watch, like, comment on, and share your customized videos. You can learn more about your audience's reaction to your videos using these measures.

Retention: Measure your users' retention rates both before and after you start using personalized videos. A better retention rate demonstrates how well your personalized videos work to maintain members' interest and satisfaction.

Conversion rates: Check your customized movies' conversion rates. This includes the quantity of leads produced, the quantity of sign-ups, and the income produced by your customized videos.

Using Data to Improve Your Personalized Video Content

Data can be used to enhance and increase the effectiveness of your personalized video material. You can find ways to enhance your personalized video material by looking at metrics like engagement, retention, and conversion rates. Here are some strategies for enhancing your customized video material with data:

Examine engagement data to discover the kinds of videos that are most popular with your audience. Utilize this knowledge to produce additional videos with a related theme or manner.

To determine your members' pain spots, analyze your retention metrics. Utilize this data to produce customized videos that discuss these problems and present answers.

To determine which personalized videos are most successful at producing leads and sign-ups, analyze conversion rates. Utilize this knowledge to produce additional videos with a related theme or manner.

You can make customized videos that are more engaging, pertinent, and successful in helping you reach your business objectives by using data to improve your personalized video content. In conclusion, personalized videos are a great way to engage your members more deeply and increase member retention, happiness, and engagement.

Conclusion

In conclusion, personalized videos are a great way to establish a more personal connection with members and raise their level of engagement, happiness, and retention. By adjusting your message to each member's specific hobbies and preferences through personalized videos, you can give them a more tailored and pertinent experience.

In conclusion, customized videos are a crucial tool for any membership business seeking to establish a more personal connection with its customers. You can give your members a richer, more meaningful experience and eventually propel the success of your membership business by utilizing the power of personalized videos.

Choosing a Subject for Your Membership Site

• Passion! Passion! Passion! – If you are not passionate about the subject you are writing about, you will struggle to succeed
• Go Niche – It is far easier to become the world leader in a small niche than in a broad subject area
• Who Are Your Competitors? – It is so easy to find out who your competitors are using the search engines. Ask yourself “Can I do a better job than they are doing?” If the answer is ‘no’, pick another niche
• Where Do Your Audience Hang Out? – If you don’t know how to reach your audience you will always struggle to build a successful membership site
• Build a List Of Content Sources – Before you progress too far build a list of all the places you can source content. Is there enough material to update your site everyday?
• A Name To Remember – Pick a domain name that is easy to remember, pass on my word of mouth and is relevant to your subject
• Build Authority – You’re a guru if you know more about a subject than the person you are speaking to. You need to be perceived as an authority in your niche to become a leadership figure
• Is Your Subject Suitable to Today’s Environment? – Setting up a membership site today about how to become a property developer might not sell!
• Think Global – One of the greatest benefits of the Internet is you can reach a global audience at no additional cost. A niche subject that is not viable within your country could reach a big enough audience if it was global

Planning Your Business

• Write a Business Plan – If you don’t know where you are going, you will never get there
• Your Business Plan: Where Am I Today? Where Do I Want To Be In One Year? What Do I Have To Do To Get There? – A business is simply a series of small actions which add together to create something of value. Know what those small actions are before you take the first step
• Best Estimates – Work out how much your business will cost to setup and how long it will take to become profitable. If you doubled the costs and time would you still go ahead?
• Get A Book Keeper – The best investment you can make (unless you are an accountant) is to get a book keeper who can keep you completely up to date with how much money you are spending and making
• Hare and The Tortoise – Building any online business is a marathon not a sprint. Set your expectations at the outset that this is a long (but fun) journey and only those that keep going will succeed
• There are No Shortcuts – There are so many get rich quick schemes/scams on the Internet. Please let me know if you find one that works
• Membership Churn Rates – When planning, assume a churn rate of at least 30% after three months i.e. if nine people sign up today, assume three of them will leave within 90 days. It is better to be pessimistic when planning

Your Website

• Blog For Starters – If you have no experience of publishing online, set up a free blog initially on Blogger. Is it still fun after a month or so?
• Get Someone Else To Do The Techie Stuff – If you are not technical, don’t try to run the technical side of your online business; it will end in tears. Use fully managed membership software like SubHub
• Be In Total Control Of Content – You MUST be able to add and edit content on your own membership site. If you have to rely on someone else, like your developer, your website will fail
• Design Is Important – You only get one chance to make a first impression. Make sure your website looks professional, particularly if you want people to pay to access your content
• Don’t Give Your Designers Too Much Freedom – Designers love to be creative and original, but that’s not what you want! You want a site that is based on what has worked for others
• Buy An Existing Website – Think about buying a website that is up and running. Often you can buy sites for reasonable amounts and this will give you a great head start
• Own and Control Your Domain Name – NEVER let someone else buy or manage your domain name. One day it will be the most valuable asset your business has
• Never Let Your Web Developer/Designer Control Your Domain Name – If you have a dispute, they can turn your site off and refuse to give you your domain name back
• Backup! Backup! Backup! – Always keep a backup of your website files and content so you can quickly restore it if you have a catastrophe
• Future-Proof Platform – It is impossible to create a website which is completely future-proof, but if you use a well built platform from a reputable company it should grow with your needs
• You Need Support – Make sure you can get ongoing support from whoever builds your site. If you don’t you could spend hours or days sorting out small problems

Content

• Give Content Away For Free – Even if you are building a paid membership site you should give at least 20% of your content away for free. This will attract visitors via the search engines, start to build a relationship with prospects and give people a taste of what they are buying into
• Create Your Own Voice – Give your site its own personality by developing your own unique style
• Content Plan – Get a diary or spreadsheet and plan the content for your site for the first 90 days . . . and keep the plan rolling forward
• Remember the HEART Rule – Keep your content Honest, Exclusive, Accurate, Relevant and Timely
• For Sales Copy Remember AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
• Understand What Your Members Read – Once you get your site up and running watch what articles your visitors read most and write more of them. You can easily track pages with a good web stats service (see below)
• Don’t Steal Content – Copying from one site is plagiarism, copying from two is research! But seriously, get ideas from other sites by all means, but turn them into your own original content
• Get Guest Writers – Reduce your writing burden by inviting other writers to contribute articles. Make sure they are not just advertorials however
• Go Multimedia – One of the huge benefits of the web versus print media is the ability to have audio and video content. Go for it! It’s surprisingly easy to create
• The Best Guest Writers are Your Customers
• Images Provide Interest – Use images which are relevant to the content, not just eye candy. Get images from the micro stock image libraries like iStockPhoto.com and Fotolia.com
• Aggregate Information In Google Reader – There are about 100 websites that I follow. If I wanted to visit all of them everyday I would have no time to do anything else. By getting all the updates from these sites in Google Reader (www.google.com/reader) I can scan the whole lot in 30 minutes
• The Best Place To Learn How To Write Great Headlines – Go to a newsagent / newsstand and read the headlines on the covers on as a many magazines as you can
• The About Us Page is Important – The About Us page is very important for building trust. Write with care and include a photo of you smiling
• Grammar and Spelling Matter – Errors give the impression of sloppiness and carelessness

Marketing

• Marketing Bullsh*t – A lot of what is written about Internet marketing is crap! Pick people with a great track record, like Perry Marshall, to follow and avoid jumping from one trend to another
• Marketing Is About One Thing – for online publishers there is only one thing that is really really important to get sustainable search engine traffic; create outstanding content. If you focus on regularly updated, great content your website will get lots of free traffic
• Write Articles For Humans, Not Search Engines – Keywords and keyword density are less important than well written articles
• Inbounds Links Are Important – If you create great content people will link to it. However it can do no harm to proactively get inbound links. They will help drive traffic
• SEO is Everything You Do – Every bit of content you add, every link you get, every image you place, every directory you list in is SEO
• Many SEO Consultants Are Snake Oil Salesmen – Be very wary of buying SEO services. At best they deliver short term results; at worse they can get your site blacklisted! 
• Tricking the Search Engines Is REALLY Foolish – There are lots of ‘black hat’ ways of tricking the search engines to get traffic, but if you get caught by Google or the other big search engines your site will be blacklisted. It’s not worth it!
• Focus On Getting an Email Address – Your first marketing goal is to get a visitor’s email address. Only if you get an email will you be able to continue the relationship after they have left your site
• Trial And Error – Even the online marketing experts don’t know that much about all the different ways to market online. Use trial and error to see what works for you
• Test! Test! Test! – Don’t guess what is working. Look at the web stats and conversion rates to make decisions based on facts
• You Don’t Have a Homepage – If you have free content pages up to 80% of your visitors will find your site via pages that are not the homepage. Therefore treat every page as a homepage
• Don’t Get Obsessed With Keywords – Keywords are important but don’t get obsessed with them. If you do your content will become bland and repetitive
• Press Releases Still Work – There is a lot of rubbish written about press releases being dead. They still work. Use them

Making Money

• How Much Should You Charge? - Look at what magazines in your niche are charging and price roughly the same. You have more flexibility online because you can easily have different levels of subscription
• Don’t Compete On Price – Once you have chosen a price that you think is fair, don’t discount to get customers. Give extra value instead e.g. a free ebook for new members
• Three Choices – Give your customers three payment choices e.g. Monthly, Quarterly or Annual. Make the middle choice the one you want most people to sign-up to and price accordingly
• Annual For Cash Flow, Monthly For Longevity – Your annual members will give you lumps of cash upfront which really help cash flow, but you will get a much higher level of cancellation on renewal. Monthly subs are usually small amounts every month but these members are likely to keep subscribing for longer
• Multiple Revenue Streams – Few content websites can make enough money in the early days from a single revenue stream. Think about text ads, classifieds, display ads, paid directory listings, a job board, affiliate partnerships, selling books, courses, software apps, promoting events, etc
• The Most Important Statistic – The most important figures that you must track is the conversion rate. That is the number of people who come to your site divided by the number of people who become paying customers. Is this figure increasing or decreasing?
• Don’t Become Obsessed With Conversion Rates – although the conversion rate is the most important stat don’t become obsessed with it. If you want an obsession make it the quality of your content
• Profit = Revenue – COSTS – most entrepreneurs focus on increasing revenue, but it is just as important to keep your costs low
• Competitors Can Be Partners – Don’t rule out partnering with competitors
• Use PayPal To Start, But Move To A Merchant Account When You Can – Most people can get a PayPal account but a lot of people struggle to get a merchant services account from their bank. However a Merchant Account is safer, cheaper and easier to deal with problems, so plan on getting one as soon as you can
• Adding Password Protection – Don’t underestimate how difficult it is to add secure password protection to an existing website. It will probably be cheaper to move to a purpose built platform, than customize what you have
• Sell Digital Products – It is much easier to sell products that can be downloaded over the web than physical products you have to pack and post
• Most Valuable Action – Make sure you highlight the action on each page, which will generate the most income for you. Remove other distractions
• Offer 100% Money Back Guarantee – The lower you make the risk, the more customers you will get
• Credit Card Images – Put credit card images on the payment pages. This alone can increase the number of transactions that are completed

Relationship

• No Community, No Loyalty – If your members don’t feel part of a community they will leave. There are loads of ways of building a community online, including email newsletters, RSS feeds, forums, member profiles, comments and webinars
• Get Rid Of Bad Customers – If a member takes up a lot of your time or is a negative force within your community, give them their money back and tell them to leave
• Reputation Is All You Have – On the Internet your reputation is your most valuable asset. Protect it at all costs, by being honest, responsive and totally trustworthy
• Track What People Are Saying About You – Use Google Alerts and if you can afford it Trackur to keep an eye on what people are saying about you and your site.
• Don’t Navel Gaze – Don’t spend so much time on your own website that you lose touch with what is going on in the broader community. Contribute to other forums, blogs and Twitter
• Use Other Services to Build Relationships – You should also have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace accounts, to build relationships and drive traffic to your site
• Try Using The Phone – CALL PEOPLE. In this world of emails, messaging and Twitter its amazing how happy people are to get a phone call
• Always Answer Questions – If people take the time to email you have the courtesy to answer them
• Privacy Policy – Explicitly tell people what you will and will not do with any information they give you

Software/Hardware

• Google Analytics – www.google.com/analytics - This free webstats package is a godsend for online publishers. The stats give you a fantastic insight into how many people are coming to your site, who they are and where they are coming from
• SnagIt – www.snagit.com – captures images, web pages, blocks of text so you can put them in articles. Worth every penny
• Camtasia – www.camtasia.com – the easiest way to make screen capture videos for your site
• Flip Camcorder – The easiest way to produce ‘to camera’ video clips
• Audacity – https://audacity.sourceforge.net/  – free open source software for editing audio. Great for creating podcasts. Look on YouTube for good tutorial videos.
• Elance – www.elance.com  – Outsource activities you don’t enjoy or don’t understand.
• Carbonite – www.carbonite.com – One of the fastest ways to fail in business is to lose all of your information. Backup your hard drive every day. I use Carbonite

Work Space

• Two Monitors – Having two monitors will massively increase your productivity. Most graphics cards have two monitor plugs as standard.
• Buy a Big, Good Quality Monitor – You will spend so much of your life staring at your screen make it as easy on your eyes as possible
• Cheap Desk, Expensive Chair – Any desk will do (provided it is the right height), but an uncomfortable chair will make working miserable. Treat yourself to a really good expensive office chair
• Reward Wall – Have a wall you can see from your desk with photos of things you will buy or do when you have achieved your goals. Have interim rewards like a nice meal as well as big rewards like a 60ft yacht moored off Bermuda!

Work Effectively

• Five Most Important Things – Every morning write down the five things that will have the biggest impact on your business. Do those five things
• Email Paralysis – Don’t look at email all day; it will greatly reduce your productivity. Set aside an hour in the morning and an hour at the end of the day. Be ruthless about what you look at
• Do What You’re Good At, Outsource The Rest – We all do tasks we enjoy well and stuff we don’t enjoy badly. Outsource the bits you don’t like and you will become much more productive and successful
• Be Careful Of Outsourcing – Outsourcing is an essential part of building a company today. However it is not an easy thing to do. Write detailed specs, agree milestones, negotiate penalties for slow delivery and hold payments in escrow
• Fire People Early – If your gut instinct tells you a relationship with a client, supplier, writer, employee or anyone else is not working, fire them quickly. It never gets easier!
• Use Mind Mapping – When planning anything I use mind maps. It is so much more efficient and effective than writing lists. You can use paper and pencil or try using software – MindManager (expensive but good). FreeMind (a bit clunky but free)
• Have Time Off – You will enjoy your business and work much more if you plan lots of time off

Final Thoughts

• Reap What You Sow – Always think about what you can do for others on the web. If you give you will receive
• Plan Your Business In A Way That It Will Eventually Run Without You – It should be every entrepreneur’s goal to be able to step away from the business and it carries on running smoothly
• Enjoy Yourself – Life is a journey, not a destination
• Never, Never Give Up On Your Dreams

Conclusion

Weather you’re offering stock market tips or personal financial advice, a membership website is the best way to monetize your finance expertise.

Individuals and families are always looking for non-biased advice on topics like education savings, saving for retirement, home financing and more. And a membership site is the perfect venue to offer consistent stock market tips and advice for a monthly or annual fee.

Launching a successful financial membership website may seem daunting if you’re just starting out or just thinking about taking your expertise online. But if you package your knowledge correctly and with your potential customer in mind, you will have a framework that has proven successful in the industry.  Here are 5 accepted and expected ways to deliver your knowledge, and provide the impact to inspire your website visitors to join your membership. 

Financial Education

Why have you started your financial membership website? To share your knowledge through education, of course.  You can do this in a number of ways:

Online Courses

Most membership platforms these days offer a course creation tool. Some of these tools are fairly simple to navigate, while others are much more complex. SubHub’s course creator is easy to use, while at the same time allowing you to offer courses with as many lessons and modules as desired. Some of the more expensive platforms offer quizzes, badges etc. While these items are not built into the SubHub platform, it is super easy to integrate them using third-party hosting platforms.

Webinars

The popularity of webinars these days can’t be overstated. Webinars are extremely versatile and can be effective tools when addressing potential clients at any stage of the buying cycle. For example, if you have created a signature financial coaching program, a webinar is an excellent way to introduce you and the program to a brand new audience. It works just as well as tool to provide details about your program for those who may know who you are but need more information on your services. You can also direct your comments to those who are ready to buy buy creating a special offer on your program for participants. 

Articles

Articles can contain text, images, audio files, videos, PDF’s and more. Financial membership content in the form of articles is quick to compile and straight-forward to offer on most membership website platforms. Article content can be categorized like a blog, but reside behind a paywall. Membership tiers allow you to charge more for certain more specialized content, or for access to live coaching. Content such as a monthly budgeting planner for newlyweds, a tax planner or 5-year retirement strategy are some example that are well-suited to article content.

Access to the Expert

It’s great to offer pre-recorded videos, podcast episodes, or pre-written articles. To take your offerings up a notch, you may want to offer one on one or group access to you, the expert.This can be in the form of coaching calls, group participation calls, or high-level personalized coaching programs that you can charge a premium for. Usually, financial advisors offer a combination of live and recorded access to their expertise.

For example, an evergreen course that allows students to enrol at any time and take the course at their own pace, might be punctuated with a live group call once per month. On that call, you as the expert can provide a Q&A session, answering questions from your members. This adds tremendous value to the course for your students. 

Financial Tools

Online financial tools have many benefits besides allowing potential clients to get crucial information they need quickly. Calculators, budgeting templates, investment trackers and calendars are just a few examples. These tools provide a service to clients and visitors that will make your website stand out in their minds later. You can offer them for free to everyone, free only to members, or for a fee. It’s entirely up to you.

Another advantage of online tools is that it keeps your visitors on your website longer, increasing the time that they are interacting with your brand. You will find that most membership website platforms will not offer specific financial tools, but may provide a way to embed such features into a web page. ChatGPT may be a resource for creating a tool for you, even one that is unique to your service.

Community Opportunities

Building a community around shared financial goals and challenges fosters engagement and support. Financial membership websites often include forums, discussion boards, or social networking features where members can interact, share experiences, and learn from each other. Networking opportunities allow individuals to exchange insights, strategies, and encouragement.

Regular Updates

Staying abreast of the ever-evolving financial landscape is crucial, especially in a membership model. Assuming your members are paying on a recurring subscription basis, you will be expected to offer updated content on a regular basis. Successful financial membership sites regularly update their content to reflect current trends, regulations, and best practices. You can also offer bonus content via newsletters, blogs, or curated content. The important thing is to ensure your members have access to the latest information and strategies from your perspective.

An effective financial membership website combines educational resources, personalized tools, expert guidance, community support, and up-to-date content to empower individuals in managing their finances successfully. By focusing on these key characteristics, your website can be an invaluable resource hub for your members’ financial well-being.

Ready to start your financial membership website?