Brief Overview

Using this marketing strategy for the first time can be VERY scary. But it works like crazy because of the psychology behind it.

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Big Ideas

The Problem with an Open Marketing Plan [00:40]

Many years ago, I had a membership site with New York Times Bestselling author Michael Hyatt. We had thousands of members in it. And it was set up so that people could join at any point in time. And since it was open at all times, we had to promote it at all times.

Now, when you have an open marketing plan with your membership site, one of the things that you have to do, is give people a reason to sign up today. The problem with an open marketing plan is that there’s no sense of urgency. So, typically what will happen is people will come to a site, love what they see, but then they’ll say to themselves “I’ll save this for later” – which is the kiss of death to anybody trying to sell something.   

The Fear of Cutting Back on Your Promotional Schedule [02:20]

So, Michael and I would run a promotion every single month in order to create a sense of urgency. Basically, we’d create a new bonus, feature that bonus in the promotion, and that would drive people to want to register before a certain date so they could get that bonus. But here’s the challenge with that. When you run promotions all of the time, you not only wear yourself out, but you also wear out your audience.

Michael and I started to feel the weight of our promotional schedule. And we wanted to cut back on the number of promotions, because we wanted more room to be able to do other stuff that would bring value to our members. So there was a strong desire to cut back on the promotions, but this certainly created a bit of fear for both of us. Initially, we decided to go from being open all the time and running 12 promotions per year, to cutting back to 4 promotions per year.

The Unbelievable Results! [04:30]

The results were very interesting. When we were open all the time, we would add anywhere between 75 to 125 new members per month. But once we cut it down to 4 promotions per year, each promotion would add between 600 and 800 members (or 200-260+ members per month). So we were literally generating more members, with a quarter of the effort.

Then we got a crazy idea. What if we cut it down to 2 promotions per year? So we decided to test it out and here’s what happened. We went from adding 600 to 800 members with a quarterly promotion to adding between 1500 to 3000 members with a bi-annual promotion.

Less effort = More Members [07:00]

Why does this work? Well, simply put, you as the entrepreneur have WAY more bandwidth to create more compelling marketing promotions. So, promotions you do create, can make a much bigger impact.  

Since we decided to “close the door”, there was a natural sense of urgency for people to join the membership. Because they knew if they didn’t do it then, it would be another several months before they got another chance.

Serve Your Audience at a Much Higher Level! [12:06]

When you create that sense of urgency, you’ve done a HUGE service to your audience, because you’ve given them a reason to finally make a decision. And guess what? Now you finally have the time to serve them on a much higher level. And that above all, is the best retention and marketing strategy that anybody with a membership site can utilize.

Memorable Quotes

“In marketing, you have to give people a reason to buy TODAY.” – Stu McLaren

“More members, less effort.” – Stu McLaren

Resources

MembershipStories.com

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