If you’ve been wanting to start your own membership to make a consistent monthly income, or if you’re curious about what it’s like to run a membership, then you’ve come to the right place.

In this post, I’ll teach you how to start and grow your membership, plus a few things I wish I did differently when launching a membership.

Step 1: Build Out Your Offer

I feel like building out my membership was the hardest thing for me to do when I had one. I had so many thoughts and questions.

What should I include? What should I offer? What’s too much? What’s too little? Will people even like what I have to offer?

It can be overwhelming.

There are generally 3 things to keep in mind when building out your membership:

1. What kind of membership do you want to create?
2. What does your current market offer?
3. What does your audience consider to be valuable?

What Kind of Membership Do You Want to Create?

To me, this means deciding whether you want it to be more passive or active.

By “passive,” I mean you can set your membership on autopilot so that you don’t have to show up often. By “active,” I mean you’re putting in consistent effort to keep it running. You can also do a combination of the two.

The first time I launched my membership, all of my offers were very active offers.

I promised weekly, hour-long live trainings, weekly bonus videos, monthly challenges where every month we would work on our businesses together and Instagram audits.

ALL of those things required me to show up A LOT, showing up live in the group daily to make sure people were doing their monthly challenges. It was a lot.

So, I recommend a combination of passive and active.

Passive, so that you don’t have to burn yourself down to the ground.

But active enough to where your members are still able to interact with you and you can retain audience subscriptions.

What Does Your Current Market Have to Offer?

Look at other membership sites in your niche to see what they’re offering and at what tier levels.

If you’re a yoga teacher, look at other yoga membership sites. If you’re a social media coach, look at other coaches’ membership sites.

Write down every single offer you see on a piece of paper while doing your research and what’s included in each offer. Every single one.

And write down any idea you may get as you’re doing your research. 

When you’re done, start packing them together into 2-3 bundles, which will then become your tiers.

When doing this, always start with less.

You can always add offers into different tier bundles after you launch, but removing something from a tier after someone is paying for it makes things complicated.

What Does Your Audience Consider to be Valuable?

Let’s say during your market research you saw someone include “monthly training calls” on their membership site. But you know that your audience doesn’t need (or want) to show up live consistently to have to learn.

Then don’t include it.

Really understand who you’re trying to “sell to” or who you want to be in your membership.

Package an offer that will excite them!

Step 2: Pick Your Site

Last year, I had a membership that was great to start out with, but it wasn’t the most customizable experience for me or my members. It also burnt me out… so I stopped it.

Then this year, my team and I were researching different membership sites trying to figure out which one would be best for our needs and when I came across UScreen.

And I freaked out.

It was EXACTLY what I was looking for in a membership site.

UScreen is my personal favorite platform for building a membership that generates a sustainable & predictable revenue stream for professional Content Creators.

The feature that I was looking for everywhere and freaked out about? Their Netflix-style category system, which allows your members to binge through your video content like they would binge their favorite TV show. 

Creators with large or small followings can sell their videos online using their desired pricing models through their video-on-demand (VOD) website and apps.

Yup, you heard me correctly.

The BEST PART is that they have an option where you can get to have your very own, branded app that their team will design for you to offer to both iPhone and android users. That way, your students can watch your content everywhere: their phones or even TVs using devices like a Roku Box, AppleTV, Android TV & Amazon Fire TV.

Now, UScreen is the only platform I can personally vouch for. So do your own research to find what’s best for you and your future subscribers.

Step 3: Setting the Price

There is no fancy strategy for picking the right price for your membership. It’s a personalized combination of three things:

1. Market research
2. Business expenses
3. What feels right to you

Market Research

Look at other people in your niche and see how their memberships are priced. 

Keep in mind how long they’ve been in the industry, the quality of your work compared to theirs and every parallel to fairly compare prices.

If you’re looking at a membership site of someone who’s been in the industry for many years and whose membership site has been up for just as long, their prices might be more expensive. And for good reason.

Your pricing will be a bit less since you’re just starting your membership.

So take note of every bit of information you have available to you.

Monthly Expenses 

Then think about your monthly expenses as a business.

How much does it cost you to run your membership? Here are some costs to consider:

• The membership site
• Your time
• Equipment

Your goal should be to make that money back with member subscriptions and then some.

Let’s say, for example, your monthly expenses are $1,000 a month, and you want to profit an extra $1,000. So, your goal is to make $2,000 with your membership.

Luckily with UScreen, there’s a tool where you can set your income goal and play with how many members you’d need and at what price to hit that goal.

That will help tremendously with setting your pricing.

Then, find the sweet spot that feels right to you.

Step 4: Launching and Growing

When launching your membership, my biggest piece of advice is to let your audience in on the building process.

Get their opinions on what should be included, what the membership group should be called, all the things. 

Letting them in on that process will help build excitement for the launch.

Then, don’t stop talking about it!

If you have a monthly membership, you want to be talking about it on your Instagram stories, posts, YouTube videos, TikTok, etc. at least monthly.

I don’t mean you should be super “salesy” about your selling your membership. I know a lot of us get uncomfortable with that idea.

Simply show up on your Stories, casually talking about progress on your membership site, what you’re currently working on, or if you’re about to go live for members.

Share the behind-the-scenes of what your membership is like and how often you’re showing up for your members. People who want to be a part of that will subscribe. Those who don’t, won’t, and no one will feel “sold”.

There you go! You’re officially ready to go out there and start your membership.

Follow your joy!