This article was originally published on Restrict Content Pro. 

Getting your membership site up and running in the first place can be a substantial feat. It’s easy to fall into some common mistakes because there are so many things to create, manage, and maintain.

Because memberships are a different breed of ecommerce, with a business model that is more than just recurring payments, success hinges on real-world value and the user experience. The problem is that these are some of the areas that can get overlooked in the process of trying to create a self-sustaining membership machine.

What are some of the mistakes membership site owners make? Here are 10 things to consider:

1. Prioritizing new members over existing ones
2. Neglecting user experience 
3. Not delivering fresh content 
4. Sacrificing quality for quantity 
5. Not building trust 
6. Making big changes too frequently
7. Spamming members
8. Giving sub-par customer service 
9. Not surveying your members
10. Reinventing the wheel 

Let’s take a closer look. 

1. Prioritizing new members over existing ones

Memberships are built on a recurring payment model that requires members to feel that they are receiving ongoing value. While it might be tempting to focus all of your energy on acquiring new members, nurturing your existing relationships is just as important.

Successful membership sites thrive on community and member retention, so it’s crucial that you don’t stop at the sale. Aim to build a community around your membership site and create an engaging experience that makes people want to stick around. 

Not only does this support your business model, but it also creates fertile ground for the development of an entire ecosystem that could grow beyond your expectations.

2. Neglecting the user experience

When people pay for their memberships, they want to enjoy the experience. A slow website, clunky user interface, or disorganized content could take away from that. 

Every once in a while, walk through the purchase process on your membership site. What emails do you receive to confirm the purchase? Next, log in, navigate the site, and manage an account like a member would. You may be surprised by the things that you find that could be improved.

3. Not delivering fresh content

One of the fundamental principles of a membership site is that customers pay you every month, and you give them ongoing value in the form of content or updates they consume on a regular basis. Failing to replenish that value can stop potentially loyal members from renewing their membership.

The thing is, people (usually) take their money pretty seriously, so that means you need to be sure you’re delivering on the promises you’ve made – at least, if you want to avoid canceled subscriptions! 

Consider creating a content strategy for your membership site. That way, you have something to help guide you, take some of the pressure off, and hold you accountable at the same time.

4. Sacrificing quality for quantity

Although we’ve just covered the importance of replenishing your membership site with fresh content on a regular basis, that doesn’t mean you should sacrifice quality for quantity. 

It can be easy to get complacent or feel tapped out of ideas, especially once you’ve been running your site for a while. But keeping the member journey in mind will help you to create a content strategy that delivers real-world value – the special ingredient that keeps members engaged for the long-term.

Your members pay you for your expertise, whether that be in the form of training, coaching, or entertainment. They may also be paying you for access to a community or for tools they use on a subscription basis. Whatever your members are paying you for access to, be sure to keep quality improvements in mind.

5. Not building trust

With the prevalence of online fraud and digital threats, building trust with customers is becoming increasingly important – especially when it comes to things like digital products and memberships. 

Being transparent is one way to do this. Showing potential members who you are builds your credibility and legitimacy as a business, and helps customers feel confident in giving you their money.

Building trust is especially important if you want to build your industry authority, which is one of the best ways to support your membership site. If your members don’t know who you are, and why your advice is credible, they won’t necessarily have the confidence to pay for your site every month.

6. Making big changes too frequently

Let’s face it – there will always be some new trend, topic, or method to incorporate into your membership site. But, you don’t want to change things so frequently that members either miss out, or get confused and disoriented.

It’s generally a good approach to keep things as consistent as possible, so develop a standard style and process and stick to it. Make changes when they’re needed, just try not to overhaul things too often so your members know what to expect.

7. Spamming members

You’ll be hard-pressed to find people who love receiving 5-10 emails per day from one company – they just don’t exist. And the last thing you want to do is annoy your members so much with over-zealous communication that they end up wanting to cancel!

This applies in particular to upsells. As a rule, keep them reasonable, and keep them relevant! Remember, your members are already paying (with their money or their contact details) to be a part of your site, and spamming them with constant offers communicates that they are just dollar signs to you.

8. Giving sub-par customer service

Customer service is quite simply one of the most important aspects of running a membership business, but the truth is that it can be hard to come by. Overlooking the importance of good customer service can turn potential members off at best, and get you bad reviews and reputation damage at worst.

Being combative with customers is a surefire way to make them want to cancel their memberships or not sign up in the first place. Nobody wants to give their money to someone who they perceive to be negative or difficult.

Along the same lines, you want your memberships to be easy to cancel. This doesn’t mean you’re encouraging members to cancel. It just means that you respect your members and their money enough to make it easy for them to do so if they choose.

9. Not surveying your members

You want running your membership site to be enjoyable and rewarding, and that includes creating content that you find personally compelling. However, there’s a difference between that and creating content with blinders on.

In order to maximize your membership revenue, you need to deliver content that people actually want. You’re not entirely at the whims of your members, but you should be paying attention to what your community is asking for (and responding to)! Make sure to regularly survey members, analyze the results, and work the insights you get into the customer experience you provide.

10. Reinventing the wheel

Just because you don’t want to compromise the quality of your content doesn’t mean that you can’t repurpose it to create new content. 

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. There are all kinds of derivative content and products to be created using existing content as a foundation. That means you can free up valuable time and spend it elsewhere, like improving your site design or working on marketing campaigns.

Mistakes are going to happen

Ultimately, memberships require a lot of trial and error to find out what your members want, what content performs best, and more, so mistakes will happen! But knowing some of the common things to watch out for can help you avoid tripping up where other site owners have.

Have you started your own membership site yet? Are you looking for a new platform? MemberDash is the best solution to build, manage, and grow membership sites. It has all the features you need, like easy content restriction, flexible memberships, multiple payment gateways and more. Check it out for free in the MemberDash demo.