Episode 5: Making Your Membership Irresistible in 2024
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EPISODE DESCRIPTION & RESOURCES:
You know you have a great membership, but translating that into a strong message isn’t so easy.
In this episode, Natalie shares the four layers of how to communicate what really makes your membership irresistible in 2024 — and what modern buyers are looking for when they land on your sales page and start weighing up whether your membership has a place in their lives.
Links and Resources:
🌱 Irresistible Offer - a new mini-VIP Day for Membership Owners: themissingink.co/irresistible
Contact Natalie: themissingink.co/connect
See how you can work with Natalie: themissingink.co/services
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PREFER TO READ? HERE’S THE TRANSCRIPT:
Transcripts are lightly edited for readability, but there still may be typos and errors.
Well, hey there and welcome back to the show. I'm recording this right at the end of July, 2024. And it has been a really interesting and rewarding month, I must say.
Just to take you behind the scenes for a moment, I'm at the point now where people are beginning to reach out to me about the podcast and tell me which episodes they're liking, what's resonating, maybe even which questions they have.
I love hearing all of this — it’s just fantastic feedback for me for future episodes and it's been sparking conversations that I've always been craving, but I couldn't seem to find in the world of memberships… until I started those conversations myself.
So I want you to hold onto this idea by the way, because we'll be circling back to it during this episode about the conversations that you wish were having and how in many ways that can be an edge for you when it comes to marketing and positioning your membership.
Someone the other day actually referred to me as a podcaster and my reaction was, “who, me?” I couldn't believe it. And I guess I am. This podcast is really happening after nearly eight years of doing this work behind the scenes with clients who have multimillion dollar companies, memberships that generate millions of dollars per year, and finally I'm sharing more of myself and my work on social media in public, and it's really uncomfortable.
And I cringe at myself sometimes, but it has been really special in ways that I couldn't have imagined and I've surprised myself.
So, again, I'm going to come back to this idea of surprising ourselves with who we can become and maybe how you can give your members a sense of that in your membership.
And, if you do, how it might be the most memorable and distinct thing about your work and truly an edge for how you sell it.
So let this just be a little nudge that if there's something you've been dreaming of doing, but you're worried it's not for you or you've missed the boat or you don't have what it takes… you might just surprise yourself with what you're capable of.
I certainly have so far this year and, and even this month.
What makes a membership irresistible in 2024?
So, enough pep talk for now. I'm really excited about today's episode. We're talking about what makes a membership irresistible — what will help you make your membership stand out from the competition? Today, right now, not two years ago because in internet years, and especially in membership years, two years is a lifetime.
I speak about this in episode three of the podcast in more detail, but so much changes over the lifetime of a membership. They’re such dynamic offers. We're adding new content to them all the time, at a much faster pace than other offers.
So much will also change about your business, your life, the world around you… and we have to be really mindful of how we're positioning our work today for the modern buyer, who has more distractions, more choices than ever before, who is consuming and learning differently than they have in the past… versus just running on autopilot or doing what we've always done.
So if you have ever wondered:
What would make my membership feel like a total no-brainer to my members?
How do I explain what makes it unique and one of a kind?
What do I have to change in the way that I talk about it? Perhaps even some things that I might add or tweak to the membership itself…
Then you’ll walk away with some really interesting ideas from today’s episode.
And if you happen to love today's episode, so much of it is inspired by the work I'm doing inside a Mini-VIP Day that I offer specifically for membership owners called Irresistible Offer:
In just a day, we figure out:
What makes your membership irresistible
The key changes to make to your sales page to communicate that, before your next promotion
A dozen (or more) original ideas to showcase the value of your offer in your emails and on social media
I just did an intensive with somebody last week who left with 18 brand new ideas for how to talk about about her offer in her emails and social media. This was perfect for her as she told me she was feeling like she’d already said all there was to say, which is common when you have an established membership.
After our Mini-VIP Day, she told me that she wrote emails more quickly than ever before, she felt more excited about her launch than she has before, and the email that she sent based on one of the outlines we created received double the clicks as the emails she had been writing before.
That means double the eyeballs on her offer, just by tweaking the way that she talks about it.
I'll put the link to the show notes below where you can go learn more about Irresistible Offer (or just click here to check it out) so you can see if this might be a fit for you.
But, in the meantime, here are some great ideas to get you thinking about what exactly makes your membership one of a kind in 2024.
The 4 layers of communicating what makes your membership great
What's really guiding my thinking around this is — I'd love to hear what you think as I share this with you — I believe that there are four layers of communication when we talk about what makes our membership distinct.
I think most people get stuck at number one.
Most business gurus are selling us number two.
And the people who have standout brands and wildly lucrative memberships usually nail one, two, and four…
But they often forget about number three.
And I think number three is where a massive opportunity is right now.
So let me tell you what they are.
🔷 Number one is information. This is what people learn, the information, the skills, the knowledge that you impart to them when they become your customer.
🔷 Number two is implementation. These are the results people get, the wins they will celebrate, the outcomes that you talk about, the promises that you make, the thing that motivates them to take action that you position as a reason to buy your membership.
🔷 Number four (I'm going to skip over number three) is ethos. This is the unique perspective, the personality, the attitude, and the values of your membership, not just your brand, but your membership, because your membership exists to solve a specific problem and to fill a certain space in the world of your ideal customer. I'll talk more about all of this soon.
🔷 Number three is experience. Experience is how your membership fits into the life, the day, the week, the month of your ideal member. These are the habits, the routines and rituals that they have to build, the micro-actions they have to take consistently… in order to get the results you are promising.
This is how they engage with your community, with your content, even on their own — taking what you've taught them and putting it into practice.
People want to know how your membership, how your offer fits into their life.
Okay. So those are the four: information, implementation, experience and ethos.
As you listened to this… If we were to do a quick check of how you rank with those for your own communication, which ones do you feel like you're nailing? Which ones do you think you could do a better job with?
My experience is that everybody could definitely improve in all four areas (there's no such thing as perfection). But, most people really do get stuck at number one and two.
We play in this world of: here's what you'll learn (that’s information) and here's the result (that’s implementation). And we can often forget about the other two pieces, which I really think are our biggest opportunity: experience and ethos.
And my experience of working behind the scenes of memberships and companies that serve thousands of customers is that they often do a really fantastic job in their branding and their marketing of nailing ethos (here’s who we are in the world) but almost everybody needs a lot of help when it comes to positioning experience.
In 2024, talking about experience — how your membership fits into somebody's life — is one of the most distinct things you can do to set your membership apart.
I want to talk about that today and how you can make these four layers of communication fit, so that you're reflecting all of the reasons why somebody might buy your membership, what makes it special, while answering the big questions and big objections people have.
If you can tackle these four areas, well, you will truly have a distinctive membership that feels unique and one of a kind.
Layer 1: Information
This is where most of us hang out. I just did a summit presentation recently for Summit in a Box, where I spoke about how we often get stuck in selling our deliverables — that is, the information, the stuff people get — over the actions people will take and what they will be doing instead.
Are you using language to sell your membership like:
“Access to 300 plus videos!”
“125 hours of training!”
“All of my courses and programs in one place!”
“It's like the Netflix of {Insert your industry here}!”
👆 That “get all my stuff in one place” approach isn't what sells memberships in 2024. So if you're stuck at this layer of information and just selling the things people get, then you're doing yourself a disservice when it comes to making your membership stand out and shine.
I do have one simple piece of advice for you here though, which is as you're working through the information included on your sales page, let's practice getting to the point sooner.
I think those days of really, really long sales pages that spend, 1000 to 2000 words just laying out the problem and everything that's wrong are really trying people's patience.
And, and I say this as someone who is no stranger to the long-form sales page and I’ve written many long-form sales pages for my clients that have generated them millions of dollars.
So I'm not saying that long copy doesn't work, but I think that our prospective customers want us to get to the point sooner. And that doesn't mean to not communicate all the information that people need to make a buying decision or to cut out essential details, but what I'm really looking at on sales pages today, for the people who I write for and people who I'm working with in consulting and VIP days, is how quickly are they getting to the point?
Can I land on this page and understand immediately what this membership is, what you're promising me and what you're offering me in terms of the deliverables, the outcome?
Or is it like… when you go searching for a recipe on Google, and someone's worked really hard to SEO-optimize that page, so you have to do a lot of scrolling and try to skip over the part about their vacation in Maine before you can get to the recipe about the pumpkin pie that you want to make?
We don't want to be creating that same feeling of just scrolling past all the filler to get to the good stuff on your sales page. And it's because people don't have the patience for that anymore.
So I still love long copy. I love persuasive, thoughtful copy, but long copy can still be succinct and it can make the point it needs to quickly.
So that's how I'm approaching speaking about the information and deliverables inside a membership in 2024. I say it early and clearly: here's what this membership is, and here’s what you'll get.
So that's one way to improve this at the “information” level, but don't let yourself stop here and remember people aren't just buying for the stuff that you teach or the content they'll have access to. That's no longer an edge when there's so much out there today.
We need to go deeper.
Layer 2: Implementation
The next layer that most people do get to is the implementation level. These are the results, the outcomes, that people should be celebrating if everything goes well and they take action as a result of your membership.
This means we’re going a step futher — from focusing on deliverables to talking about the outcomes. And again, I don't want us to get stuck here because I think that our opportunity is really up in those further levels of ethos and experience.
But I just have some thoughts for you here at this implementation, the result, the promise level, which is to think about your outcome in a few different ways.
If you were to only promise one thing that members get as a result of your membership, could you say it? Or are you still thinking about it in terms of, “this is a place for people who like painting (for example). And you'll get access to all of my courses in one place.”?
If you're not there yet, then bring it around to a big outcome. And then once you have that big outcome in mind, think about — on the way to achieving that — what are three to five wins, or mini-milestones, that people will be celebrating along the way?
I'm going to share an example with you, from someone who is working on their promise, but it’s still a little fuzzy. I saw this out in the wild.
So here's a big promise: “where women go from stuck and overwhelmed in their professional lives to taking courageous action.” So, yes, that is one big promise. One big outcome, but it is incredibly fuzzy. And I always say when it comes to the promises that we make, when we're playing in this implementation level, I want to know, can it be observed?
Which is, can we see from the outside that someone has achieved the result that we’re promising. For example, I can see that Susie got a new job last month.
I’m also looking for whether it can be quantified, which means: can we represent it in some kind of numerical or concrete format that gives a really sort of crispy, specific flavor to the promise that we're making.
So if we were to zoom in on a bigger promise and make it more specific… rather than “going from stuck and overwhelmed in your professional life to taking courageous action...”
I might play with some micro-promises like this:
Position yourself for your next promotion in the next 12 months.
Step into a higher paying role, without the 70 hour work week.
Negotiate Fridays off every week.
Stop spending your Sundays worried about the week ahead.
So that's a zoomed-in, more specific way to reflect a big promise.
You can also ask yourself questions like:
What will somebody achieve in the first 30 days with you? (That's usually a micro-win that is worth positioning in your promotions and how you sell your membership.)
What will they be able to do differently 90 days from now, that they couldn't do today?
What will be noticeably observably different in their life?
So just run this through a quick filter, as you think about the promises you're making: Am Ionly talking about deliverables? Am I promising a big outcome? Am I being specific enough with that big outcome, in terms of how someone could visualize that looking in their life?
Also ask yourself, have I broken it down into micro-wins, that people are going to be excited to celebrate along the way?
That is great positioning. It’s great copy. And you might even find that it provides great content for you to write about and share about and your launches that you haven't thought about sharing just yet.
So, as I was saying, I think that most of us do get stuck here. And I think in many ways we sell ourselves short when we do. Just think about all of the big business-building programs that are available online, sold to business owners in the online world.
It's very much about: “get your first $10,000 a month” or “grow to your first million dollar year” or “grow a team that will allow you to remove yourself from the business”…
We’ve seen and heard all that before. It’s not new or fresh. So even though we're no stranger to promises about results and outcomes in this world, I think that there's so much we can do to make our own version of a specific promise that feels just like us and that our ideal customers won't roll their eyes at, because they've seen and heard it all before.
And so when you're ready to go further, I really invite you to play in the world of ethos and experience. I'm going to talk about ethos first, then I’ll circle back around to experience.
Layer 4: Ethos
When I think about ethos, what I'm really asking is:
What is the identity of this membership?
What is the conversation that needs to be had?
What do you wish they knew about what is required for them to get the result they want, and what kind of world they can be living in when they take action with you?
This is about painting a new vision of what is possible for them, based on your perspective on how the world should be, and really, how you think their lives (as it relates to this specific area where you serve them) could look.
So what is that conversation that needs to be had? Your promotions, your launches, your sales messaging needs to start this conversation.
So here's a couple of prompts for you to think about.
PROMPT 1:
You created this membership because you’re not willing to stand for something anymore — what is it?
What are you just not willing to tolerate for your members or see your members tolerating anymore?
What is happening in their world that makes you angry or upset or indignant on their behalf, that you don't want to see them experiencing anymore? What is it that they deserve better than?
If you can think about that, then you might find that there's a really unique rally cry, anthem, statement or declaration that you can make that will pull people towards your brand, your membership and your unique way of showing up in the world.
Here’s my answer. Maybe it will inspire something for you:
I'm not willing to stand anymore for the idea that memberships need to be low value — that high-volume inherently means low-value, and that memberships are offers that don't give value, that don't create community, that don't create meaningful change.
I'm not willing to settle for it anymore because I have been a part of memberships and have had a very involved hand in growing memberships that people rave about and that have changed people's lives, that have given them a beautiful sense of community and belonging and have been massive revenue generators for the company and allows the business owner and their team to do meaningful work that they love to do. I want memberships to have more of that. I want customers to get access to memberships more like this.
I'm also not willing to stand for the idea that the way that we market, sell and develop our memberships should look the same as everything else we do, because membership offers “aren’t like the other girls”. They aren’t like the other offers!
They're different in terms of how we deliver them and have different metrics to track, but if we go into selling and evolving our memberships with a course creator mindset, then we are set up for frustration.
They require us to think and to approach what we do in different ways. And that's really what my entire business is about and really what this podcast is here to give you a taste of.
So that's what I stand for. What are you not willing to tolerate anymore? What do you wish was different?
PROMPT 2:
What are you not willing to compromise?
Here's another example:
I'm thinking about a long-term client that I have now, who is an early childhood educator. She has an incredibly successful membership, thousands of members strong, and her focus is really about helping educators bring out the unique brilliance in every child.
But, we're not going to do that by working ourselves to the bone. We're not going to do that on our own. We cannot be an island. We have to do this in community, and we're not going to do this by compromising who we are, because the most special thing that we can share with the child is actually ourselves and who we are. And when we focus on that connection, that is when brilliance can begin to emerge.
So think about it: what pathway do you not want your members to take in order to get the result you’re promising them?
What do you value, hold dearly and prioritize on the way to that outcome?
And are you communicating that?
That becomes your edge. It’s how you stand out beyond just: “here's the information you get, here's the result…” so you can speak to something bigger: “This is who we are. Do you want to join us?”
PROMPT 3:
When people engage with you and your membership, how do you want them to feel?
Do you want them to feel excited, inspired, supported, challenged, on fire?
Pick three words and see if, first of all, is your current membership content living up to that? If not, it might spark some brilliant new ideas for you.
Your answers can also inform how you talk about your membership, how you position it, even the experiences that you give people as part of your launches and promotions.
And if you want to hear more on that, I encourage you to listen to episode two of the podcast, which is called “The 3-Part Ease Edit” for your next membership launch.
It'll give you some perspectives on how to bring the identity of your membership into the promotions and launches, to give people a taste of who you are in the world and why they might want to join you on this journey.
Layer 3: Experience (your biggest opportunity!)
The next thing I want you to think about — this final puzzle piece — is experience.
And for me, this is really who somebody becomes with you. This isn't just what they'll learn. This isn't just the results they'll get. This isn't even the vibe and attitude of the space. This is really a question of the self.
And if you think about the result that you're promising… in order for someone to get to that place from where they are now, there are new thought patterns, there are new behaviors, there are new routines and rituals, that this person needs to build into their life. (Because if they already have those things, they’d already have the result.)
So really there is this level of self-development and personal change and even identity shifting that has to happen when people agree to work with you and create any kind of change in their life.
And I don't even care if it's a really simple result. Even if you think, “I'm just giving somebody a resource or a template. They’re not really changing who they are” — I can guarantee that for somebody to use that resource, to put it into practice, to do it consistently, they will have to show up and think in different ways.
Not only that, but they will also need to learn to navigate challenges in different ways. It's very likely that people have already tried to solve the problem that you're going to help them with before, which means they've had failures, they've had things that they've struggled with and they now have all these stories about why a certain outcome isn't possible for them, or why the thing that you teach or support them with just isn't going to work.
So what is required for them to move past that, for them to get the outcome, is to navigate those challenges and those problems in different ways.
So it's worth thinking about: how does a successful member navigate a typical roadblock that I know is going to come up on their journey differently than they have before?
That is a new habit. That is a new thought pattern. That is a new behavior, and that is a change in the self. And that's really what you're selling here. That's what people are going to stick around for, what we'll give them a sense of success and progress and momentum inside the membership.
EXAMPLE: IDENTITY IN MOTION
If we come back to what I mentioned right at the beginning of this episode, when I mentioned that I'm finding myself getting into a groove with the podcast, and yet I was still really shocked when somebody referred to me as a podcaster… I think that this is an excellent way to apply this principle of how you’re not just teaching a skill, but you're really helping somebody try on a new identity.
So, in order for me to see myself as a podcaster, I have to build up the routine and the ritual or recording my show on a regular basis, even when I'm not quite sure what to say, even when I find myself stumbling over my words, or when I don't feel motivated to make the show, or I feel incredibly busy.
There are so many habits, routines and rituals that I have to build on my way to seeing myself as a podcaster. There are unique challenges I have to overcome. It’s way more than choosing the right microphone or learning how to edit my show.
There’s also an element of habit that needs to be integrated into my life, into my business, that's required for me to get the outcome that I want, which is having a fantastic show that I'm proud of, that people listen to, of that helps build my business and do more of my work in the world.
So, when people are looking at the sales page for your membership, and they're curious about taking you up on the offer, they're not asking questions like “who do I become with you?” It's your job to communicate that.
But what they are asking is “how does this fit into my life?” and “Okay. I can see that you're going to give me four classes per month and there's a Facebook group and there's a Q&A session, but what do I have to engage with? What do I have to do? How do I have to show up differently in order to get this result? How do you fit into my life?”
And so I'd love for you to ask yourself:
If you had a star member who was engaging with the membership in the most ideal way — how would they practice thinking, what habits would they build, what routines and rituals would be required of them to get a result?
How do you want them to engage with your content?
How do you want them to engage with the community?
What do you want them to do on their own time?
Members need you to make this explicit for them, both in your marketing and sales content and behind the scenes once they’ve joined.
One of the best ways you can communicate this is by having a section on your sales page that says, “here's what a typical month looks like” inside the membership.
I've done this with clients, where we've put this right underneath the section of their page that talks about the deliverables and what they get. I've even added it as a little accordion in the Frequently Asked Questions section, which is just explaining what a typical month looks like.
What makes it really exciting is if those routines, habits and rituals are things that they wish they had.
For example, maybe you have a membership that's about marketing your business. If you think about who your ideal member wants to be, they're probably thinking, “Oh, I really wish that I could build the habit of building new connections in my business with people who could send clients to me, but I just don't do it because I get too busy” or “I wish I could have the habit of producing content for myself regularly.”
So there's stuff that they’re already telling themselves “Oh God, I really need to be doing that, in order to get this result, but I'm not.” So you can help them see how being part of your membership actually helps them build that up.
And this is where I think memberships are the most unique because we’re not just walking them through a linear process, as we might be in a coaching program, a group program, or an online course… when we have a membership, we're with people for months or years at a time.
And so there's this integration of habit, routine, ritual… the practice of how we show up and get the result, which is really unique to memberships.
And I think when we can position it this way, the membership becomes distinct from just another online course or free article where I can learn the information that you're talking about.
Memberships are really about becoming, and if we can begin to show people how they will build habits, how they will show up differently, how they will become a different version of themselves.. then we really start to have an edge.
So, I wonder what you make of all this.
Wrapping it up: what opportunities did you notice?
How do you feel about how you've been communicating at these four levels?
What opportunities do you see?
And how are you going to talk more about your ethos — what is your personal stake in the ground — and then experience, which is how your membership fits into people's lives?
I'd love to hear from you. Tell me what lands. Tell me what questions you have and again, if you're curious about Irresistible Offer and working with me, one-on-one in a very quick, practical, action-focused way to nail down what makes your membership irresistible, to make sure you are communicating effectively at all four of these layers, and then to walk away with some ideas that excite the hell out of you and shine a light on what makes a membership brilliant — in your social content and in your emails for your next promotion, then check it out.
I'll put the information to all of that and all of the resources from today's episode in the show notes below. Thank you for joining me, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
