perhaps it’s time to add more value to your offering and take your membership to the next level.
Most people would be very happy if their membership keeps growing at a constant pace – month to month, year to year. But if you decide to push things even further and achieve something beyond simply increasing the number of memberships, the reward will definitely be worth the effort.
In this post, we will take a look at some ways you can take your membership offering to the next level by adding more value to your offering.
Tip #1: Create Course Bundles
As the owner of a membership site, you’re probably already offering courses to paying customers and managing content on a regular basis. One way to take your membership to the next level is by packaging your courses into bundles.
Course bundles allow you to group multiple (related) courses together into a package and offer them as a single offering. You can sell these course bundles using a payment plan of your choice. For example, you might make them available to members as part of their monthly or annual subscription.
Purchasing a membership subscription for a course bundle will give the member access to all the courses included in that bundle. And once their subscription expires, they will no longer have access to that content.
If you’d like to keep offering new content to your members, you have the option to create a new course or add new content to an existing course – depending on the membership or LMS plugin you’re using.
Tip #2: Create Multiple Subscription Tiers
To increase the revenue you generate from your membership site you either need to sell more memberships or get existing members to spend more money on your website. As you can probably already guess, it’s much easier to get existing members to spend more money than to convince new people to buy a membership subscription.
Creating multiple subscription tiers is an effective (and easy) way to take your membership offering to the next level. Essentially, the goal is to increase the average amount of money spent by a member. So, for instance, you could consider offering three different subscription tiers to your members. You might name them Basic, Pro, and Premium.
In one subscription tier, you can offer members access to only the core content and resources. In the next tier you might give them access to premium features such as online webinars, one-on-one coaching sessions, downloadable resources, or recorded lectures.
Implementing the multiple subscription tiers strategy is pretty straightforward.
Simply decide on the features and course material you’d like to grant members access to on the most basic plan and work your way up from there. The mid-level tier might have a few extra course-related resources, and the highest-tier might include everything in the mid-level tier in addition to a premium service such as a 30-minute one-on-one coaching session every month.
Once you have this set up, you’ll be ready to start selling multiple membership tiers through your membership site.
Tip #3: Upsell Membership Plans and Add-Ons
Another way you can take your membership to the next level is by upselling. To develop a successful upselling strategy, you will have to first determine what you’d like to upsell and when you’ll be upselling.
For instance, you might consider upselling your Premium membership plan to members who are about to renew their subscription to the Pro plan. Or you could upsell add-ons such as an additional 30-minute one-on-one coaching session to members who’ve subscribed to the Pro plan.
This brings us to the next question: When should you upsell?
- After the customer makes a purchase. One way is to make the upsell offer right after the customer has made a purchase. Some online course platforms let you add options to upsell add-ons to customers after they’ve made a purchase.
- By creating bonus content. You could create a bonus (supplementary) lecture for a course, mention the bonus course’s details at the end of the original course, and add a call to action that will lead the customer straight to the checkout page for your bonus course.
- Through email marketing. Email marketing is also a very effective way to upsell to your members. Most online course platforms allow users to send course completion emails to your members. You can use this as an opportunity to upsell related offers to members.
Tip #4: Create Multiple Content Types
If you’re running an online course website, the main product your membership site offers customers and members is your course content. And if you’re able to offer real value to your members, they’re not only going to keep renewing their subscriptions but will also ask you for more quality content.
The great thing about having a WordPress-based membership site is that you’re free to create multiple content types to make your offering stand out from the competition. Here are some of the most popular types of content you can include in your membership offering to deliver more value to your members:
- Videos and Audio. Creating media content (such as video or audio) is a great way to deliver more value to your written course content. You can create video-based lessons and tutorials or record your lectures in audio format making it easy for members to consume content on the go.
- Downloadable Resources. Supplementing your existing content with resources like checklists, worksheets, lecture notes, practice quizzes, etc… is a great way to enhance your offering. You can also make these resources available as PDFs on your membership site so that members are able to download them for offline use.
- Live Webinars. Another increasingly popular option is to offer exclusive webinars on your membership site. It’s a great way to give prospective members a sneak peak at what they can expect to receive if they sign up for a membership and gives existing members quality content that’s delivered in an engaging format. Facebook Live is an excellent platform to host a live webinar.
We recommend testing out different content types to see what resonates best with your membership site’s audience.
Tip #5: Facilitate Discussions
Membership websites with communities that actively participate in discussions and engage with one another are able to (1) attract new members and (2) promote your membership offering.
For this reason, one of the most effective ways to take your membership offering to the next level is by setting up a forum and allowing members to leave comments on lectures and courses.
Most online learning platforms will let you add comments directly to your course content. This enables students to ask questions, give feedback, and initiate discussions with other students. And, as an online course instructor, you can also use the same platform to engage with students and make yourself more accessible.
Tip #6: Award Certificates
As someone who already runs a successful online course membership site, you understand that people sometimes require outside motivation to take action.
For this reason, we strongly recommend that you create a reward strategy for your members. This will help your students get motivated to take action. Here are some quick ideas to help you get started:
- Award members with personalized course completion certificates.
- Offer members access to exclusive content when the hit a milestone.
- Send special discounts their way for making referrals.
Tip #7: Gather Data
If you’re not sure about how to deliver more value to your members through your site, why not ask them for feedback? Sending members surveys is a great way to share your ideas with them and get their input on what sort of improvements they’d like to see.
As a membership site owner, the feedback your members give you is incredibly important and you should make a point of collecting it regularly.
While most online learning platforms and membership plugins come with the option to send out emails, not many have the option to send surveys. Thankfully, you can use a tool like Google Forms or Survey Monkey to create a quick survey to send out to your members.
Conclusion
Once you have a membership site – complete with course content and members – the next step is to grow it by improving your offering and delivering more value to your existing members. Let’s quickly recap some of the ways you can take a successful membership to the next level:
- Package individual courses into bundles of related courses to create course bundles.
- Create multiple subscription tiers to give members more options.
- Upsell membership plans and add-ons at checkout or via email marketing.
- Create multiple content types (such as video lectures and tutorials) to add more value to your course content.
- Facilitate discussions by setting up a forum and allowing members to share their thoughts and ask questions directly on lessons and courses.
- Award certificates to members when they achieve a goal or reach a milestone.
- Gather data by surveying your members to get insight into how you can deliver more value through your membership offering.
We shared some of the ways you can take your successful membership offering to the next level. Hopefully, you’re in a good position now to take things further.
Have you used any of these tips to take your membership offering to the next level? Let us know in the comments section below!
