Businesses that rely on membership have the ability to double sales in a matter of months if they dedicate time and effort to learning and implementing new sales and marketing tactics.
Whether you’re a fitness center, an online membership site, or any other membership-driven business, increasing membership sales is key for the growth and sustainability of your organization.
In this article, we’ll teach you seven low-cost tactics that, when properly executed, can attract wave after wave of prospective members.
- Optimize Your Pricing
- Highlight Your Value Proposition
- Focus On Your Marketing Efforts
- Offer a Free Trial to Potential Members
- Upsell Your Current Members
- Create a Membership Referral Program
- Improve the Efficiency of Your Processes
- Conclusion
Optimize Your Pricing
One of the first steps to increasing your membership sales is to optimize your pricing strategy.
Selecting the price members are willing to pay for membership is important for increasing revenue and user retention.
To figure out the right pricing, ask yourself the following questions:
- What are my competitors in this market charging?
- What is the average disposable income level of my target audience?
- How much profit do I want to make from each sale?
- How much value am I creating for customers?
Finding the optimal pricing for your offer is usually an iterative process. It’s rare to identify the best price on your first try.
Instead, pick a number that covers your costs and comes close to the prices your competitors are offering.
Then conduct A/B tests to determine your price.
Track a few metrics that align with your goals—e.g., conversion rates and revenue earned.
When the test is over, implement the price that has delivered better results on those two fronts.
Source: SplitMetrics
In addition to a specific number to charge your customers, you also have to decide which pricing model to use—freemium, flat rate, per user, or some hybrid between them. Consider offering tiered membership options to cater to different segments of your audience, allowing them to choose a plan that best fits their needs and budget.
Additionally, offering a discounted rate or a limited-time promotion can incentivize potential customers to sign up quickly.
Highlight Your Value Proposition
If you want to increase sales, make sure that you’re giving your leads a compelling reason to become members.
Create and promote your value proposition, a 1-3 sentence statement that explains to ideal customers why your business would be valuable to them.
Whether it’s access to specialized resources, one-on-one consultations with a personal trainer, or a supportive community, make sure your sales pitch emphasizes what sets your membership apart from the competition.
There are three elements to a successful value proposition:
- A problem you solve for your customers
- How your business solves the issue
- The major benefits customers receive
For example, a membership site that teaches people how to create blogs might have the following value proposition:
Scared of spending hundreds of hours writing blog posts and ending up with little to show for it? Our online blogging course teaches busy professionals how to rank articles on Google for competitive keywords and create a blog that’s earning $4,000 per month by the end of a year.
To create a compelling value proposition, pinpoint your positioning in the market, understand your target audience and their needs, and define how becoming a member is a solution to your audience’s pain points.
Your value proposition should be front and center in all your marketing efforts, from your website to your social media platforms.
After interacting with your brand on multiple fronts, and repeatedly being reminded that you can help them, your target market will start to consider buying from you.
Focus On Your Marketing Efforts
Membership businesses should focus on branding and being consistent in their marketing output to increase brand awareness and sell more memberships.
Below are some membership marketing methods to consider adding to your marketing mix:
- Content Marketing: Write valuable blog posts that answer questions your target audience is asking on Google. When done consistently, this is a great way to drive traffic to your website and build trust with your audience.
- Social Media Marketing: Create entertaining and educational social media content and post it on social networks where your target audience is active.
- Paid Advertising: Run online ads on Google and social media websites to drive traffic to your service or a lead magnet.
- Referrals: Offer rewards and discounts to incentivize current customers to get their friends and peers to subscribe to your membership business.
Utilize a mix of these marketing strategies to engage with your target audience.
Highlight success stories, positive feedback, and testimonials from current members to build trust and credibility.
Additionally, regularly analyze the performance of your marketing campaigns to identify what resonates best with your audience and adjust your market research accordingly.
Offer a Free Trial to Potential Members
Offering a free trial is an opportunity to convince those who are not ready to commit right away to become paying members after their free trial expires.
It gives them the ability to test drive your product or service without any risk, so consider offering one to win over those skeptical and hesitant buyers.
Most membership businesses offer free trial periods in the duration of between seven and fourteen days.
Of course, regardless of length, you want to convince people using your free trial to become members when it ends.
To convert users from a trial membership to a paid one, offer them the best possible experience.
Make sure to follow up through personalized emails or calls from a sales specialist to encourage them to become paying members once their trial ends.
Upsell Your Current Members
Don’t overlook the potential to increase sales by upselling to your current members.
These people already trust your brand, enjoy your products and services, and are confident in the value of membership, so they’ll be more receptive to sales offers than cold leads.
A great time to make your upsell to a customer is when it’s time for them to renew their current membership.
In renewal reminder emails and during checkout, promote add-ons and more advanced plans to your customers.
Consider offering an upgrade at a discounted rate to sweeten the deal, as Grammarly does in their renewal email:
Source: SendPulse
Create a Membership Referral Program
Word-of-mouth is one of the most effective ways to grow your membership base.
A membership referral program is a marketing strategy where you offer your customers a reward for successfully influencing someone else to purchase from your business.
For it to work, the reward must be enticing. Below are some great incentives:
- Discounts: Give customers a discount storewide on membership fees, exclusive content, or other perks to both the referrer and the new member.
- Store Credit: Give them funds they can use in your store, or several free months using your service.
- Raffle: Enter customers into a sweepstakes competition to win something awesome, be it concert tickets or a vacation.
- Charity Donation: Allow customers to pick a charity from a list and promise to donate a set amount of money to the charity.
After creating your referral program, promote it on your website, social media, and through email to increase awareness among existing members.
For example, here’s an email that Sheertex sends its customers to promote its referral program:
Source: ReferralCandy
As long as you’re providing your customers with excellent service that they think their friends and peers would benefit from, and your reward is desirable, a referral program is a great way to increase your sales.
This will not only help to increase your sales but also strengthen the sense of community within your membership program.
Improve the Efficiency of Your Processes
You should set aside time each month to review your current business processes to identify inefficiencies that may be holding your membership business back from selling more memberships.
Processes worth analyzing for bottlenecks include email marketing, customer registration, social media marketing, and others that help you attract and close new customers.
A great way to ensure your processes are running like clockwork, and you have access to data and reporting tools, is to use some form of membership management software.
Regpack is one such tool.
It helps membership businesses streamline and automate processes like customer billing (via recurring billing), customer registration, and email marketing.
For example, you can create trigger-based email automation, so that leads receive personalized emails when they take a specific action:
Source: Regpack
Nudging leads toward the purchase line becomes easier when they are receiving relevant marketing emails at the right time.
Additionally, with Regpack’s customized reports, membership businesses can make informed decisions about further improving their processes.
Membership businesses have a lot of methods at their disposal to increase sales and revenue.
By integrating these best strategies into your sales process, you can boost sales, improve member retention, and build a strong membership base.
