Terms

"You need to be aware of the people that will become your clients before you can establish an organization based on participation," starts Matt Hardigree the publisher of The Autopian. "I have encountered instances where people assumed that there would be readers. There aren't. This is a mathematical issue, but it's certainly not difficult. It is possible to make use of every bit of information available."

If you're writing on an online platform, take a look at the amount of visitors that you have. "If you're on a website alongside 10 other authors and we want to write something, what is our combined readership? Do we make up 15% of users on the site? This isn't a huge amount. Or do we make up 80% of the website's visitors?"

In the beginning, The Autopian founders David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky made up 50 percent of the traffic on Jalopnik. "They might have believed that 'We can start something - you can make this happen'" continues Matt. "What's fascinating is that David and Jason don't have huge social followings, which seems like the obvious method to convert into readers. They didn't have to have that because they already had followers.

Before launching, The Autopian did a review of the competition in the automobile industry and in the press. "We are aware of how many car fans who check these various sites. Calculate: Once we take off the cost, what are we require in order to achieve success? Then, you must ask yourself: which country do these people come from? and 'What percentage have some consciousness of who we are What percentage of them are aware? What percentage do we require in order to achieve a goal which is sustainable? regarding membership fees, how much are we planning to be charging? ? '."

The author continues: "You can make some forecasts - but you don't have to be right But, you must be armed with the necessary information. Once you start making your predictions, you'll have the capability of connecting these data points to see the areas where you're off and adjust your predictions. If you're not able to access any data or you're guessing it's time to do the maths and work out.

Matt admits that when you've completed your research, there will be the 'hold your breath' moment "In the first two hours after joining I was a complete chaos! I was thinking, 'What's going to take place? When the memberships began coming in, I was thrilled! We're also conducting analyses of data and are constantly analyzing what's working and what's not."

Engagement strategies and ways to grow

"I consider that we're less than 10% of what the number of members could be."" Matt continues. "We've achieved our goals and have had plenty of members. However, the first 10% of members are the most easy to get. The remaining 10% of members will prove to be the toughest. Each tranche is expected to be more difficult than the one prior to it. So, we'll need to come up with a solution."

Matt believes 10x growth is definitely a five-year objective for five years. "If we are able to reach 50% of this goal, we'll be almost 100% sustainable at this level with our members. If we manage to reach 100% we are more than sustaining by the cost of membership or making money from membership alone and I'd like to see us reach that goal."

Matt Hardigree, The Autopian

How do they achieve this goal? What do they offer currently regarding benefits for members and how could they leverage this to lure the members?

Matt responds: "It's a balance because The Autopian is a journalism business and a passion project. It's like having three buckets to encourage people to join and then to keep the members as long as possible - through creating The Autopian feel valuable."

Strategy 1: Content

Matt says that the main bucket of content is the first. "We have to write content that's good enough, exciting enough, and different enough from material you can find elsewhere I can only read this only on the Autopian. It must be a valid participant in The Autopian if I want to allow the Autopian to have this.'

"You're not paying for access to the content since it's not paid-for. It's a cost to allow it accessible to everyone." Matt confirms that it will continue to be the most important value offering "You want this product to come into existence so urgently, you'll pay four dollars per month, ten dollars per month or $85 monthly, for some."

Strategie 2: Rewards

The Bucket 2 is the name given to the items the members can get such as Discord access, clothes including T-shirts, access to various activities, including trivia nights as well as merchandise such badges and stickers.

"We provide a range of products that you can avail as when you purchase a vehicle. The first is cloth ($70/year) then vinyl ($100/year) and then Velour, which is $225 per year. the top of the line is Corinthian leather which costs 1000 dollars each year. It's been a lot more use leather and velour than I'd ever imagined!"

"One of the things that you get is a birthday greeting card: one of our co-founders is a talent as an artist. We hadn't anticipated many drawings, so he's drawing far more birthday-themed sketches than we anticipated - and we're still catching up!"

A monthly amount of $1000 seems like a huge ask but this was the advice of an established company in the field of media Defector. They informed Matt that they may be able to have more customers having $1000 on their account than they anticipated. "I thought to myself"I do not even know what the amount, but $1,000?' and they were like"Do it!"" Matt laughs.

"They were also saying that they'd like to have an intermediate tier, because they're at a lower than a higher one," he continues. "We were bouncing around on the idea and settled on a figure of $250 per year. This is the best number since We have many Velour-loving members. This year] we saw greater numbers of members move from velour, vinyl before moving back to vinyl. There were more people who went from 100-250 than went from 200 to 250. This makes me believe we're doing it right!"

Autopian's Autopian team has also recognized that the behind-the-scenes content has become popular. They also post procedural materials, like what they used in generating the title and also "Tales from Slack'. Matt adds: "We have our internal Slack. This is clearly not meant for the public to use."

"People say stupid, ridiculous and hilarious things!" Matt smiles. "Our director of editing David does not have any pop culture expertise, and is always having trouble understanding certain things. He thought Ronan was a Serpico and believed that it was an Al Pacino movie set in the 1970s was a Robert De Niro movie released in the 1990s!"

Strategy 3. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

"The third category of content that performs really well and many people overlook is FOMO. We don't want people to miss any content," Matt continues.

"We have a discord that has regular advice columns. The Discord we use is free and public, but there is a section for members," he adds. "I recommend that members share images in chatrooms that are general to everyone"Here's me in my shirt and I'm proudly wearing my badge' and I hope that people will be eager to join in this."

Matt concludes attracting members can be extremely effective so when the content is in line with your type of content you create. "Every once in a while we'll make a 'Here's everything you'll get' type of appeal. This serves as a reminder of the advantages that members enjoy."

In the future, they'll be grateful to their readers: "We love our commenters - you make us great. If you're not an active member of our community Sorry. There are many who don't have the funds. If you're a student, no matter what you're doing, we'll accept that. If you're not in the financial position to have money it's possible to become a reader. We'd love to have you as a reader to be one of us. However, if you are a lover of this idea, then here's your possibility to become a part of it."

But then we'll do the FOMO blog where Jason writes 'Here's every birthday drawing I did this month!' the people who see them will consider 'God, I'd really like this.'

Communities come in a myriad of sizes and shapes - even birthday drawings to car lovers.

More details

To learn more about the Autopian and to become a member the Autopian, visit The Autopian, go to theautopian.com.

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