Brief Overview

Jennifer Allwood shares behind the scenes of a marketing strategy that she was highly resistant to use… but she did it anyway and added more members in 4 days to her membership site than she had in 3 years!

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Q&A with Jennifer Allwood

Q: Let’s talk about your membership site. Can you tell us who you serve, where people can find out about it and all that kind of stuff? [03:27]

A:  Absolutely. So, my membership site is called The Inner Circle. It’s mostly for creative people. People that work with their hands, makers, DIYers, Etsy shop owners, artists, writers, and anybody else that considers themself a creative person – and the focus is on how to grow your social media platforms. Across my social media platforms, I have over half a million followers, so I did a good job of both growing my social media and then leveraging those followers to turn them into clients, so that’s what I teach in my membership site. I teach people how to grow a big audience and then be able to sell to that audience.

Q: Most people think when it comes to marketing a membership site, we should aim to be open 24/7 so anybody can join at any point in time. And this is what you were doing. You were open, and you had successfully grown your membership site. But during our mastermind, I suggested that you close your membership, which was completely counterintuitive to you. Can you talk about that? [01:47]

A: Sure. I’ve had a membership site for three years and I had it open the entire time. In the beginning I had 100 people, and then over the course of six months we jumped up to 300 people, and then I joined Tribe and we got it up to 700 people. But then I felt like I would get two, lose one, get three, lose one – and it just felt like we were growing at a snail’s pace. And so, I remember asking you in the mastermind, “How do I just go gangbusters here? I feel like I’m stuck at 700 and with the size of my social media audience, I should have so many more people than 700.”

You said, “Jennifer you need to close the cart. If you’ll just go ahead and close it, there’ll be that sense of urgency.”

Q: When we were having that conversation about closing the membership, you were a little gun shy about it. You were a little anxious about it. Some may say resistant, but open. Tell us about what happened when you decided to close it. [05:22]

A: Here’s what I was thinking in my head. “Okay, this seems really counterintuitive to what I want to do. However, I’ve been doing it my way the last three years and it’s just not seeing the results I want.”

I figured the worst case scenario is if I close it and it doesn’t work, I can always go back to making it an open model later on. I remember you pulled out your iPhone and you were like, “Okay, buddy, we’re going to pick a date in the month.” And I love that you held my feet to the fire. You gave me two weeks. You said, “At the end of January, why don’t you go ahead and close it?”

Q: One of the big things that you kept telling me was that you were going to be revamping the membership – which is a great reason to do a promotion (e.g. “Get in now while you can because we’re about to revamp it and upgrade it.”) And one of the things that you and I talked about is just keeping it super simple. So, talk to us about what you did during this promotion. [07:51]

A: We looked at that date on the calendar and I knew I had a couple of weeks and in typical creative fashion, we’re at the edge of it being too late. And so, I didn’t give it a ton of thought until the week that you’re like, “I want you to go ahead and close this.” So, I went on Facebook live which is my jam, my absolute favorite. I love using Facebook live for relationship building and then using it to sell as well. And so, I went on Facebook and I said, “Hey, we are going to be closing the membership site in the next couple of days. Join now.” I kind of did all the things that you told me to do. I answered some questions and got off of that Facebook live and had like 20 or 30 new people join at $47 a month. I thought to myself “Wow, now that was interesting.”

Over the course of four days I did seven Facebook lives answering questions about why we were closing, answering questions about what you get inside my inner circle, who this was a good fit for, what’s involved, and so on. I then sent out four emails over the course of about four days, and as you know, we had a huge response to that.

Over the course of those four days, we added over 1,100 new members at $47 a month which was more than what I had gotten in three years. I mean, it was crazy!

Q: What advice would you give for people who have a product, a service, or even like a membership where it would make sense to close it and do a little bit of promotion around a deadline… What advice would you give for those who are feeling reluctance and anxiety around it? [12:13]

A:  Yeah. So, I know it seems so counterintuitive to say “I want to grow, therefore I’m closing.” I know that’s a hard concept to wrap your mind around. Think about it this way… I personally love going to Hobby Lobby – but I know they’re also closed on Sundays. So, I make sure that I get everything I need for my crafting at Hobby Lobby before they’re closed on Sunday. It’s the same type of concept in a membership site. If people know you’re going to be closed, there’s a bigger sense of urgency to go ahead and get in. I actually had someone direct message me on Instagram and she said, “Thank you so much for giving us a deadline to join. I’ve been putting this off for a year and now I’m finally in.” And so, I helped them take action. And when people take action, then their business can change and when their business can change then their lives can change. So, if you’ve been wondering how you can get more people in quickly, I would go ahead close it.  

Secondly, when you close the doors, you can actually go much deeper with the people that you have in your membership site. You can actually focus all of your efforts on them instead of focusing on trying to sell every single day. I find I can go really deep with the people I’ve got and focus on loving them until we reopen in September.

Q: Where can people go to find out more about you and your membership? [16:12]

A: They can go to my website at JenniferAllwood.com. And if they go JenniferAllwood.com/InnerCircle they can find out about my membership site there. We reopen on September 24th.

Memorable Quote

“Over the course of four days, we added over 1,100 new members at $47 a month. This was more in four days than I had gotten in three years. I mean, it was crazy!” – Jennifer Allwood

“When people take action, then their business can change and when their businesses can change then their lives can change.” – Jennifer Allwood

Resources

JenniferAllwood.com
Jennifer Allwood’s Inner Circle
MYB #042: An Unusual Marketing Strategy with BIG TIME Results

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