Proven Tactics for Starting a New Membership Community

Looking for a way to encourage more site visitors to stay on your membership site? Create community or discussion forums for your site.

Creating a membership community on your site is a great way to form relationships with your members. It helps build stronger connections with members and encourages them to visit your site for something other than fresh content. In addition, you encourage users to stick with your brand long-term and increase recurring subscriptions.

However, creating an online community can be a challenge, especially if this is your first time. In this post, we’ll discuss some useful tips that can help you successfully start a new membership community for your business.

Top membership community websites to take inspiration from

When creating a membership community, one must look at some of the best membership websites for inspiration. This can help you better understand what works best and get a better direction on what to aim for when creating a membership community.

#1. YouMoz

YouMoz is a membership blog website that’s designed with SEO experts and digital marketers in mind. You can find the latest news, tips, strategies, and case studies in the industry submitted by their members.

Regular users and SEO experts can join the membership site and make publications on the blog as they wish. Since it’s a place where like-minded people gather to learn more about SEO, members are encouraged to put effort and heart into making blog posts to gain community exposure.

#2. YouPreneur

YouPreneur is a membership site that’s dedicated to helping its members enhance their entrepreneurial skills and make better-informed decisions.

The site offers a premium membership model that encourages users to subscribe based on the value it offers. If your membership community offers value, people will have a strong incentive to join instantly.

#3. Quiet Speculation

Quiet Speculation is a membership site that focuses on covering tips and tactics of a popular card trading game: Magic the Gathering.

The takeaway from this membership site is that it has a strong community that has lots of like-minded users who only want to talk about the card trading game. This is important to make your membership community relevant to your content and your brand’s goals.

Proven tactics for starting your new membership community

Depending on your business and what you’re looking to achieve with a new membership community, starting a new membership community might be different for you than it is for others.

However, it’s essential to have some sort of a roadmap when creating a community for your business for the first time so you’re taking steps in the right direction. Ideally, you want to create an engaging membership community that’s relevant to your audience and the industry.

This way, you can build a community of like-minded users who are interested in discussing your content and your membership topic while also giving them the option to freely interact with other members. As a result, it not only helps you grow your membership site but also helps improve member retention for your business.

Let’s dive deeper into 10 proven tactics that will help you successfully start your new membership community:

1. Decide on a solid community creation platform or tool

If you’re thinking about starting a new membership community, the last thing you want to do is create a new group on Facebook or use an online forum. While using these options might be convenient, it’s not great for putting out a good brand image or offering a top-notch user experience.

If you want members to join your community, ensuring it offers a great member experience is essential. This is why you’re better off using a dedicated community-building platform or tool and creating a forum section on your own website. This will help you create online community forums and give you a wide range of community management and engagement tools.

2. Create a waiting list

A great way to find out how many users are actually ready to join your membership community is by creating a waiting list for it. This way, you can gauge how many people are interested in an online community before fully committing to starting one. It’s also a great way to make sure it’s worth your effort and resources to start a membership community.

In addition to this, a waiting list also helps build hype and anticipation amongst your members. This can be a great way to promote your online community’s launch and encourage more users to join as soon as it goes live on your website.

3. Keep it relevant according to your membership content

If you’re encouraging users to join your membership site by offering them access to premium quality content, there’s a pretty good chance it’s what they’re also looking for when joining your online community.

This makes it essential to ensure your membership community is relevant to your membership content or it crosses over to your membership content. For instance, you can create a forum thread for students who want to ask questions or discuss their queries with other members regarding your online courses or training videos.

4. Offer advanced community features

You want to make sure the plugin or tool you use to create the online community gives you access to advanced community features such as member profiles, member tagging, and powerful thread management features.

Adding advanced community features to your membership community can help engage your members and make the entire experience much more interactive. This is important for member retention and ensuring your audience visits your membership site daily.

5. Start small

When you first create a membership community, it’s not always a great idea to create forums of all topics you have covered or create hundreds of sections to ensure all your content is covered.

Instead, it’s recommended to start small and slowly scale up when needed or demanded by your community. This ensures you’re not wasting your time creating lots of forums your audience isn’t interested in joining.

Additionally, you don’t want to create sections only on your membership content or topic; you can simply give your audience a place to hang out and relax. This can be great for creating a more casual and comfortable environment on your membership site, especially for new members.

6. Involve your audience more

Running and managing a membership community all by yourself can be hard and requires a lot of work overlooking discussion boards and member comments. This is why it’s a great idea to involve your audience in managing your membership community by creating member moderators.

Member moderators can take care of important daily tasks such as going through comments, approving posts, and managing all discussion boards on your membership community.

The best part is that it’s very easy to recruit moderators from your audience, as most users are already invested in your membership community and content. Moderators can help you effectively run the membership community.

7. Create realistic expectations

When creating your membership community, it’s essential to set realistic expectations for engagement on your discussion forms. For example, if only 20 out of 200 members make posts and comments, it’s completely normal and acceptable.

This is because you need to consider the different types of users visiting your membership community. Only the more “extroverted” or “power-users” will be making posts or leaving comments, while most of your audience will be lurkers, i.e., people who visit and consume your content without adding new posts to the forum.

8. Create relevant discussions

Creating relevant discussions is important if you want your audience to participate and stay engaged with your online community.

You can take some of your most popular blog posts and create sections for your forums to continue the discussion. This helps keep your audience engaged with your discussion threads as it’s what initially brought them to subscribe to your membership site.

9. Maintain your community forums

While it’s important first to launch your membership community with a big bang and offer top-notch services, it’s also crucial to ensure the same level of “quality” is maintained across your community forums over time.

This is because once you make an impression with high-quality and well-maintained community forums, you don’t want to go back on your brand’s claims and promises.

10. Send email notifications

You also want to make sure to send email notifications to users who make posts or comments on your community forums. This way, users can stay updated with the latest discussion and content published on your membership community while offline.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is a membership community?

A: A membership community is a group of individuals who share a common interest or goal and come together to connect, collaborate, and support each other.

Q: How can I build a membership community?

A: To build a membership community, you must first define your target audience and their needs. Then, create a platform or space where community members can engage with each other and provide value through content, discussions, and events.

Q: What is community engagement?

A: Community engagement refers to the level of participation and interaction within a membership community. It includes attending events, contributing content, and actively participating in discussions.

Q: How can I increase community engagement?

A: There are several proven ways to increase community engagement. Some tactics include regularly posting relevant content, asking questions to encourage discussion, hosting live events or webinars, and recognizing and rewarding active members.

Q: What is a community manager?

A: A community manager is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of a membership community. They facilitate discussions, moderate content, engage with members, and ensure the community guidelines are followed.

Q: How can I encourage members to participate in my community?

A: To encourage members to participate in your community, you can provide valuable content, ask for their input and feedback, create opportunities for networking and collaboration, and recognize and reward their contributions.

Q: What are community guidelines?

A: Community guidelines are rules and expectations that govern the behavior and interactions within a membership community. They help ensure a safe and respectful environment for all members.

Q: What is onboarding in the context of a membership community?

A: Onboarding refers to welcoming new members and helping them navigate and understand how to engage within the community. It includes providing resources, introducing them to key members, and guiding them through the platform or space.

Q: Why is community-building important?

A: Community-building is important because it fosters a sense of belonging, connection, and support among members. It creates a thriving community where members feel motivated to participate and contribute actively.

Q: How can I keep my community active and engaged?

A: To keep your community active and engaged, you can regularly share valuable content, facilitate discussions and events, encourage member interactions, and create opportunities for members to contribute and collaborate.

Conclusion

Once you’re ready to start your membership community, it’s important to review some tips to ensure a successful launch. First, you want to choose the best online community creation platform or tool that fits your requirements and budget. This is important for creating a professional membership community that represents your brand well.

You also want to ensure you offer advanced community features to your members and create relevant discussion forums to keep your audience engaged. This helps you increase customer satisfaction and encourages more users to stick with your brand long-term.

Do you know of other proven tactics for starting a new membership community? Let us know in the comments box below.