How do you grow your online course for membership? This is a hot-button topic that is widely discussed in the online space. In today’s blog, I will share with you my proven tips on how to grow and scale your membership.
Offering an online course, membership or group program, now what?
You’ve got a course or a membership or a group program, and now what? This is one of the questions I get asked over and over again. You launch something; Maybe you hear crickets, or perhaps you had an okay launch and now you want to know, “Well, how can I get more members in there? How can I turn it evergreen?”
I’m going to share with you some of my favorite fundamental elements that are really important to
- understand
- will help to grow your online course or membership organically and strategically
Understanding Traffic to grow your membership
One of the key factors in growing your online course or membership is understanding traffic. Traffic is one of the key ways in which you can grow. Often it is something that most people don’t really understand or focus on.
For example, if your goal is to get 20 new people into your membership or course every day and you don’t know how many people are actually visiting that page or where they’re coming from, it’s going to be really hard to increase those conversions if you don’t know what the number is.
How does traffic work to grow your membership?
There are three types of traffic. Organic traffic, Earned traffic, and Paid traffic.
Organic traffic is great for everyone, newbies, veterans. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the course game. Organic traffic is key. Organic traffic is your SEO, your community. It’s organic. You can post something and you can drive traffic because you’ve built this audience to the sales page or whatever it is that you have going on.
Organic traffic is super valuable, and I highly recommend you start focusing on organic traffic before you’re even ready to launch because this will give you someone and an audience to launch to. This is a mistake that so many people miss. They go through all this effort of creating something and then they fail to build the audience to launch to.
Get started with a blog or some sort of macro content to build that organic audience prior to being ready to launch. Think of ways in which you can cultivate your own organic traffic. It’s the most valuable traffic out there!
Earned traffic is just like how it sounds, you are giving your time in exchange for providing value in front of somebody else’s audience. That could be via a video, a podcast interview, a guest writing opportunity, speaking at a summit, or a speaking engagement. There are lots of ways in which you can earn traffic, but essentially, you’re leveraging somebody else’s organic traffic or audience to drive traffic to your offer.
This is a lot of work, but it works really well. I teach a Dream 100 strategy inside my BEB group that works great for this once you have that system in place to drive traffic to. If you’ve already launched your membership or your program, start thinking about how an earned traffic strategy might for you. Your goal should be to start cultivating relationships with 100 people who have your ideal client in that audience.
Paid traffic is just how it sounds, it’s paid. You are paying one of many different options, Google, Facebook, Pinterest. You are paying for traffic to be sent to your website.
This is a great option for people who are looking to scale. They know that their offer converts organically. They’ve solved it. They’ve honed it. They’ve tweaked the delivery. They know that it works. That’s when you can start to turn to paid traffic.
Oftentimes newbies always want to start with paid traffic, which is a mistake because essentially you’re paying Facebook, Instagram, or Google to test to see what’s working and what’s not working. Understanding that there is a gamble when it comes to paid traffic because you don’t necessarily know what converts organically doesn’t always convert from a paid perspective. I always recommend selling it first organically, prove that it works, and then try for the paid. That way, it usually converts more often than not.
Online Course or Membership Growth Tips
Now that you know more about the different traffic types, let’s look at growth tips.
1. Make it easy for people to buy
The first and foremost is to make it super easy for people to buy. People love to buy, but they hate to be sold. So make it really easy and a seamless purchasing process for people to buy from you. Make sure that you have a well-designed and well-written sales page. Make sure that the delivery is automated and that the process is seamless for the person on the other side.
This might seem super straightforward, but you’d be surprised at how many people have confusing offers, confusing sales pages, or it just isn’t a great upfront experience for people. Be sure to get feedback from someone like myself or a friend to ensure that your sales page is tip-top.
2. Collaborations
Collaborations are great when you offer a bonus item from somebody else, or you have an affiliate or a launch partner. Somebody who is willing to share your content or offer with their audience. It’s super important and a great way, once you’ve proven that your model works. It’s a great way to really quickly and easily scale up because people are always looking to deliver value to their audience and help move them along.
For example, if you are somebody who wants to launch a social media membership, you might be wise to partner with somebody who is a web designer. You don’t necessarily always want to have somebody that’s in the same exact industry, but rather a sister industry.
3. Focus on the delivery and client experience
This might seem counterintuitive to getting really great growth, however, when you create amazing experiences for people, they talk about it, they share it. When you can keep your students engaged throughout your program, they will actively talk about it on social media and share it with their business friends. This will in turn create more sales in your business because people will be talking about it.
It’s really important to understand that and it’s something that people don’t focus and pay enough attention to. Oftentimes they launch something and then they never circle back to actually optimize and systematize the delivery and the experience for the client. Make the client experience a priority. The more you make that an incredible experience, the more people are going to share it.
4. Optimize your Social Media
Optimize your social media so that your program is front and center. Some people make it hard to figure out how to buy their programs. To avoid that, make sure that once a week on your social media, you talk about your program. Deliver value-driven content around your program, and make sure that it’s easy for people to find the sales page. Don’t make people go searching for the sales page in order to buy from you. Make it front and center on your social media.
5. Examine your data
Lastly, look at the data to see where you need to make adjustments. If you have a goal of getting a hundred people in your membership, but you’re only getting 50 people a month in terms of traffic, you have to understand that data. You might be getting a hundred people on your sales page but you’re not getting any conversions. These are all things that you need to tweak, hone and massage along the way. People often post something on social media and then they pull it down or reset it before they’ve even given it a shot to be successful. I truly believe it takes almost a year to optimize a sales page, the delivery, all of the details along the way.
I encourage you to look at the data on your sales page of your traffic and then slowly and surely make tweaks and adjustments and hone it as each day goes on.
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