Today you’re gonna hear my conversation with Travis Northcutt, the man behind MemberUp.co. Travis’s been a long time an expert and consultant in all things membership sites. Also, Travis is an WordPress consultant, and specializes setting up membership sites on WordPress. I’ve been thinking about doing for the Productized community, so I asked Travis all about the various tools, practices and best strategies one may use if that is something you’re thinking about doing.

Travis is also working on a book when it comes to launching, managing and growing your membership site, so that’s definitely something you wanna check out.

Special Deal for Travis’s book just for Productize podcast listeners:

• https://memberup.co/productize

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

[5:10] Travis beginnings as a WordPress web developer. How he transitioned to the membership site model niche. Sending daily emails to his audience. Getting referral clients from plug-ins developers. Specialists’ vs generalists’ marketing.

• “Once you become known for it, just a little bit, then it builds on itself so much.”
• “[With marketing] we are kind of starting almost at the finish line, because it just clicks with people.”

[17:27] Travis new project: a SaaS product to measure member engagement to increase up-sales and reduce churn in membership sites. Communities as a way to reduce churn and extend the lifetime of customers.

• “A SaaS integrates in your workflow. But with membership sites, the barrier to cancel subscription is much lower.”
• “The community thing is something they [the members] can interact with long-term, and it’s also something that people can build an emotional connection to.”

[22:58] Churn, causes and tips to reduce it. Pricing and packaging tips. Dripping the content vs giving it all. Facebook, Slack, Discourse vs own platform. Best community engagement practices.

• “If people are not engaged with your site and what they are paying for, then at some point they will make the emotional decision like “OK this isn’t worth it for me anymore”.”
• “Don’t let a question go unanswered more than one day.”

[37:44] Tools and plug-ins. Issues when migrating platforms.

• “Eventually, almost inevitably, people want a custom functionality.”
• “It’s risky. You’re gonna lose people [when migrating]”

Links

Travis Northcutt on Twitter

Travis Northcutt’s company, MemberUp.co

Member Up book

Membership sites mentioned

• CG Cookie
• Member Site Academy
• Mixergy
• Dynamite Circle
• Kelby One Photography
• Lynda.com
• Fizzle

Plug-ins and services mentioned

• Restricted Content Pro
• Kajabi
• Squarespace
• MemberPress
• Memberful
• WooCommerce
• Stripe
• Braintree
• Authorize.Net
• Discourse
• SlackPass.io

People mentioned

• Phillip Morgan – on the Productized Podcast – Book
• Brennan Dunn