Terms

"You have to know the people you are targeting before designing the membership-based business" starts Matt Hardigree, publisher of The Autopian. "I have encountered problems that have been solved through people thinking there would be an audience. It doesn't. existed. Math isn't easy, however it's not difficult. You can use whatever information you've learned."

If you're already writing on an online platform, examine how many readers you have. "If there's a site that has 10 writers, and three of us want to begin something What is our total number of readers? Is it 15 percent of your the site's visitors? This isn't much. Do we account for greater than 80percent of the websites' traffic?"

In the past, The Autopian founders David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky made up 50 percent of Jalopnik's traffic. "They could have thought "We could create something new, it's even possible"," continues Matt. "What's intriguing is David and Jason aren't affluent in following on social media platforms that would be the most obvious route to transform into the readership. But, they weren't required to be affluent, as they already had readers.

Prior to launching, The Autopian did a review of the competition in the automobile industry and the media. "We know how many car lovers read the various websites. Think about this: after we have the cost of repairs, and then consider what we are going to need for success? Consider asking yourself what is the place that these individuals are going to be coming from?  What percentage of them are aware of who we are?' What percentage do we require to reach the goal of sustainability?'  If we are talking about membership fees, how much do we plan to be charging? ? '."

The author continues: "You can make some assumptions - but you do not have to be right, but you must have these data points. After you've started with the data, you'll be capable of plugging in the data points and see the areas where you're off and adjust. If you don't have any information or are guessing that you don't have, then do the math and figure it out.

Matt acknowledges that even when you've completed your research, there will be an "in your mind" time "In the first 30 minutes or so of starting the membership, I was a mess! I thought, "What's going to happen? When memberships began to flow in, it was good! But, we're still doing the analysis of data, and we're constantly evaluating how effective we are and what's not."

Strategies to increase engagement and grow

"I consider that we're just 10 percent of what our membership could be," Matt continues. "We've had success, we've had a lot of members, however those initial 10 percent are the most straightforward to obtain. The last 10 percent of members are likely to be the most difficult. Every tranche is likely to be tougher than the tranche that preceded it. We'll need to think about a lot."

Matt believes that 10x growth could be a target for five years for the next five years. "If we can get to 50% of that amount then we're almost entirely sustainable at the current level with membership. If we reach 100% we're more than sustained by members or making profits solely from membership. I'd love to see us hit the goal."

Matt Hardigree, The Autopian

The team's plans to get there? What do they currently offer in terms of member benefits and what can they do to utilize this information in order to get new members?

Matt replies: "It's a balance because it's a journalistic and something that fans can enjoy. It's three distinct ways we aid people in becoming members and how to keep them as members by making The Autopian feel valuable."

Strategy 1: Content

Matt declares that the first bucket is that of content. "We need to create something intriguing enough, thrilling enough, and different enough to be different from the content you get everywhere else I can only view it on Autopian. It is essential to be part of The Autopian if I want the Autopian to continue.'

"You're not paying to gain access to this material because there's no paywall. You're just hoping to have it everywhere." Matt confirms that the material will remain the most important value offer: "You need this thing to be in your life so badly and it'll cost you four dollars a month, 10 dollars per month, and an average of $85 per month for a few users."

Strategy 2: The Benefits

The bucket 2 is a representation of the things that members get like Discord access, clothing including T-shirts, invitations to various events, such as trivia nights and merchandise such as stickers and badges.

"We offer a wide range of options to choose from, which is similar to purchasing an automobile. It starts with cloth ($70/year) and then vinyl ($100/year) followed by Velour which costs $250 per year, and the priceliest is Corinthian leather that costs $1000 per year. The number of customers make use of the leather and velour products than I'd imagine!"

"One among the items you'll receive is a birthday drawing. One of our co-founders has talent as an artist. We weren't expecting to receive many drawings, so he's drawing way greater birthday sketches than we expected - we're just taking a look!"

A monthly rate of $1000 is quite a bit of work but this was the advice of a well-known company called Media Defector. They informed Matt that they had more customers with $1000 per month than anticipated. "I thought"I do not know what, $1,000 is that much?' and they said"Do It!"" Matt smiles.

"They are also saying they would prefer the middle level since they have two lower levels as well as a more advanced level," he continues. "We debated on it and settled on a figure of $250 per year. It was the right amount as we have many Velour-loving members. In the year we witnessed greater numbers of people switch between vinyl and the velour and then back to vinyl. Over 100 people shifted from 250 compared to 100 to 250. We're sure is a good thing!"

The Autopian team has also discovered that behind-the-scenes material is popular. They share procedural content like how they came up with their headline, and also "Tales from Slack". Matt says: "We have our internal Slack. The Slack is not designed for the public to use."

"People say stupid, ridiculous funny things!" Matt is laughing. "Our chief editor David has no pop culture awareness so he's constantly having trouble understanding things. He thought Ronan was Serpico. He assumed it was an al Pacino film set in the 70s was actually a Robert de Niro film released in the 90s!"

Strategy 3. Fear of Missing out (FOMO)

"The third bucket of content that is highly efficient and that a lot of people aren't aware of is FOMO. We don't want anyone to be missing out on things," Matt continues.

"We are a discord, with daily columns of advice. Our Discord is completely open and free, however there is a section for members," he adds. "I suggest that users share pictures in chat, such as 'Here's me with my shirt Here's me wearing my badge'. I'd like people to want to join our group."

Matt says that attracting members is a process that is a great idea when the appeal aligns with your type of content you create. "Every now and then we'll make a 'Here's what you'll get' appeal as a reminder of the advantages members receive from membership."

The group will also say thank you to their followers: "We love our commenters - you make us great. If you're not an active user, we're ok. Some people don't have enough money. If you're a student whatever it is, then we're able to are aware. If you're not in a position of having funds it's possible to become the reader. We're here to help, we'd love to have you be an integral part of our community. If you're a fan of this idea, you have the chance to be a an integral part of it."

Then we'll do a FOMO post where Jason will post a message saying 'Here's my birthday drawing that I did this month!' people will see them and think 'God, I'd like to draw that.'

It's like forming communities come in many forms and sizes. You can even find birthday cards to car lovers.

More details

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

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