Terms

"You have to know the people who will be your customers before you can build the membership-based business" begins Matt Hardigree, publisher of The Autopian. "I have seen problems where people have just hopefully assumed there would be readers that exists. It's a math problem however, it's not difficult. It is possible to use any information you've got."

If you're already writing for the site, you should look into the number of readers you've got. "If I'm on a site with 10 other writers and three of us want to begin something, what are our readerships? Do we make up 15% of the website's traffic? That's not a lot. Do we constitute more than 80% of all the websites' users?"

In the past, The Autopian founders David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky made up 50% of Jalopnik's traffic. "They would have thought 'We can start something - you can make this happen'," continues Matt. "What's fascinating is that David and Jason aren't affluent in social followings, which seems to be the most obvious method to convert into readers. But they didn't have to get that, since they already had readers.

In the days before the launch, The Autopian did a review of the competition in the motor industry and the media. "We are aware of how many automobile people visit these websites. Do the math: once you have figured out the cost What do we require in order to be successful? You then ask yourself, where do those individuals originate from?  What percentage of them are aware of who we are?' and 'What percentage of those do we need for us to achieve an objective in sustainability?' and  in terms of membership what are we going to charge ?'."

He continues: "You can make some guesses - you don't have to be right however, you must be able to access the data points. When you've started with the data, you'll be able to plug in these data points to discover where you're not right and then make changes. If there's no information and are guessing at it, you have to do the maths and figure out.

Matt admits that when you've done your homework, you will have the 'wait and see' moment "In the first hour or two of launching membership, I was a mess! I was thinking, 'What's going to take place? Once those memberships started coming in, I felt good! But we're still doing analyses of data and are always looking at what is doing well and what's not."

Engagement strategies and ways to grow

"I consider that we're about 10% of the way to where our members could be," Matt continues. "We've been successful, we've had plenty of members, however those first 10 percent of members are the easiest to get. The the last 10% of members are going to be the hardest. Each tranche will be tougher than the tranche prior to it; we'll be able to come up with a solution."

Matt believes 10x growth in five years is definitely a target for the next five years. "If we are able to reach 50% of the goal, we are almost entirely sustained at the current level with members. If we can get to 100% we're far more sustained through our membership, or making profits from membership alone It would be great to get to that point."

Matt Hardigree, The Autopian

The team's plans to get there? What do they offer now in terms of membership advantages and how they make use of this to draw the members?

Matt responds: "It's a balance because it's a journalistic and an enthusiast endeavor. We see it as three buckets of how we encourage people to join as well as to remain members by making The Autopian feel valuable."

Strategy 1: Content

Matt states that the first bucket is content. "We must write something that is good enough and interesting enough to be distinct enough from the content is available elsewhere and 'I'm only able to read this on the Autopian. You must be an official member of The Autopian if I want this to exist.'

"You're not paying to gain access to it, because there's no paywalled access to it. You're paying because you want it in the world." Matt confirms that it will continue to the Autopian's most valuable proposition: "You need this thing to exist so badly, it will cost you $4 a month, $10 monthly, or $85 a month, for some."

Strategy 2: Benefits

The bucket two is a representation of the things a member receives, such as Discord access, clothes including T-shirts, invitations to events including trivia nights along with other items such as stickers or badges.

"We provide a wide range of items you'll receive as if you're purchasing an automobile. At the bottom is cloth ($70/year) followed by vinyl ($100/year), then Velour, which is $250 per year, and the most expensive level is Corinthian leather, which is $1,000/year. There have been far more customers use leather and velour than I'd expect!"

"One one of the gifts you get is a birthday card: one of our co-founders has a talent as an artist. We didn't expect to have numerous drawings and he's been doing a lot greater birthday sketches than we expected - we're just getting caught up!"

A monthly rate of $1000 seems to be a lot of work, but it was a suggestion from an established media firm Defector. Defector told Matt they had more clients who could afford $1000 than they expected. "I thought to myself, 'I don't know how much, but $1,000?' they replied"Do it!" Matt laughs.

"They were also saying that they wish they could have a middle level, because they have two levels lower and one higher," he continues. "We went back and forth over it before settling to go with $250 per year. It was the perfect number because there are so many velour members and [this year] we saw more people move up from vinyl to the velour and later down to vinyl. More than 100 people moved from 250 than did they go from 100 to 250. That makes me think we're doing it right!"

The Autopian team has also discovered that the behind-the-scenes content is popular. They post procedural content like the way they came up with a headline, and they do "Tales from Slack". Matt explains: "We have our internal Slack. It's clearly not meant for consumption by the general public."

"People make up ridiculous, absurd, hilarious things!" Matt smiles. "Our chief editor David isn't a pop-culture awareness so he's constantly getting things confused. He believed Ronan was Serpico; he thought the Al Pacino movie set in the 70s was a Robert De Niro movie from the 1990s!"

Strategy 3: Fear of missing out (FOMO)

"The third category of content - and the one that does really well, and that people probably underestimate - is FOMO. We don't want people to be missing out on things," Matt continues.

"We are a discord, with weekly column of advice. Our Discord is completely free and accessible, however there's a section for members," he adds. "I would like members to post pictures in the general chatroom: 'Here's me wearing my shirt' or 'Here's me with my badge', and I hope that people want to be part of that."

Matt states that the process of attracting new members is a great idea as long as the message is in line with the kinds of content you write. "Every once in a while, we'll make a 'Here's what you'll get' appeal. It's as a reminder of the benefits that members get from membership."

More regularly they will acknowledge their communities: "We love our commenters - you make us great. If you're not an active member, we are understanding. Some people don't have enough money. If you're a student, whatever that is, we understand. If you're not able to afford the money, just be a reader. We want you here; we want you as part of our community. But, if you love this kind of thing, there's a way to be a member of it."

But then we'll do the FOMO posting where Jason will write 'Here's all my birthday sketches I created in the month of March!' the people who see them will be like 'God! I'd love to do that.'

It seems like building communities can come in a variety of shapes and sizes - even birthday celebrations for car lovers.

More information

To find out more about the Autopian and join The Autopian, go to theautopian.com.