Terms

"You need to be aware of the people who will be your customers before you build a membership-based business" states Matt Hardigree, publisher of The Autopian. "I have had issues where the people just hoped there was a readership that exists. This is a mathematical issue, but it's not impossible. The solution is as simple as using all the data you have."

If you're writing content on the site, take a look at how many users are on your site. "If I'm on a website alongside 10 other authors and we all want to create something, how do we have in common? Are we fifteen percent website's visitors? It's not much. Are we the ones who comprise 80percent of the site's visitors?"

The past was when The Autopian founders David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky made up 50 percent of Jalopnik's traffic. "They might have believed "We can start something and it's possible'" continues Matt. "What's interesting is David and Jason don't have huge amounts of followers on their social media, which seems to be the most straightforward way to convert them into readers. They weren't required to have it because they already had readers.

In the days before the launch The Autopian did a study of the landscape of competition in the media and automotive industries. "We know how many automobile enthusiasts read the various websites. Take a look at the following scenario: when you've figured out the price, then what are you going to require to be successful? Consider asking yourself, what country are these individuals from?' and What percentage of them are aware of our identity?' And what percentage will we require to achieve an objective that is sustainable?' In terms of membership how much will we be able to afford? ? '."

The article adds: "You can make some assumptions - but you do not have to prove it. However it is essential to have those data. After you've gotten the information, you'll be able to add those points to the data and discover the areas you're wrong and adjust. If you don't have any data or are guessing, you'll need to perform math to find what the answer is.

Matt acknowledges that after you've done your homework you'll have"in your brain" feeling "In the initial one-half hour or so beginning the membership, I was a wreck! I thought, "What's going to happen? When the memberships began coming in, I was amazed! We're also still performing the analysis of information, and we're always looking at the things that are working well as well as the areas that aren't."

Engagement strategies and ways to grow

"I consider that we're just 10% of what we could have a membership of around 10,"" Matt continues. "We've reached our targets and have had a lot of members, however that first 10 percent are the easiest to get. The last 10% of the members will be the hardest. Every tranche is going to be tougher than the one before it. "We'll have to be thinking a lot."

Matt believes that 10x growth is certainly an achievable goal for the next five years. "If we manage to reach 50% of the amount, then we're nearly entirely sustained at the current level with members. If we manage to achieve 100%, we're much more than sustained by the cost of membership or making money from membership fees alone. It would be great for us to reach that goal."

Matt Hardigree, The Autopian

What are their tactics to reach this goal? What do they offer members as benefits and how do they utilize this to gain new members?

Matt answers: "It's a balance because The Autopian is a journalism project in addition to an enthusiast-driven endeavor. We see it as three different buckets that encourage members to join and also to be as members by making The Autopian feel valuable."

Strategy 1: Content

Matt mentions that the first bucket is content. "We need to create something that is good enough and exciting enough and distinct enough in comparison to the material you see elsewhere. I will only access this in the Autopian. It is essential that you are part of The Autopian if I want it to become a reality.'

"You're not paying for access to the content, as there's no paywalled access to it. This is because you want it to be available everywhere." Matt says that content will continue to be the primary benefit "You want this to come into existence so urgently that you'll be paying approximately the equivalent of $4 per month, 10 per month, or $85 per month for certain people."

Strategy 2: The Benefits

The Bucket 2 represents the goods that members get like Discord access, clothing such as T-shirts, access to trivia nights and other events and other things like badges or stickers.

"We offer a broad range of goods that's similar to buying the vehicle. At the bottom is cloth ($70/year) followed by vinyl ($100/year) and finally Velour for $250/year. In the end, the most expensive level is Corinthian leather which costs $1000 annually. There are a lot more people who utilize velour and leather that I'd imagine!"

"One among the items you will receive is a birthday card: one of our co-founders is an artist. We hadn't anticipated receiving so many of them and he's been doing a lot greater birthday sketches than we anticipated. We're still getting to know him!"

The monthly cost of $1000 may seem like an enormous amount, but this was the advice of well-established media company Defector. Defector told Matt that there were more customers who could pay the $1000 they anticipated. "I was thinking to myself"I do not even know what's the sum, how much is $1,000?' They were like"Do it!" Matt smiles.

"They were also saying that they wish they had a middle tier stage since they have two levels lower in addition to a higher one," he adds. "We considered it for a while before settling on $250/year. This turned out to be the right amount because we are a large group of Velour members. This yearmore people shifted between vinyl and velour and later down to vinyl. In fact, more people were able to move from 100-250 more than those that went from 100 to 250. That makes me think we're getting it right!"

Autopian's Autopian team has also discovered that the behind-the-scenes content is popular. They also post procedural content including the process they used to come up with a headline, and they have "Tales from Slack". Matt states: "We have our internal Slack. It's clearly not intended for public use."

"People tend to say ridiculous, stupid and hilarious things!" Matt is smiling. "Our chief editor David doesn't have a sense of pop culture so he's constantly having trouble getting things right. He was convinced that Ronan was actually a Serpico, he thought the Al Pacino movie set in the 70s wasn't actually a Robert de Niro film which was released in the 90s!"

Strategy 3. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)

"The third content bucket which is extremely effective and which often gets overlooked is FOMO. People don't want to miss out on content," Matt continues.

"We have a Discord with daily columns of advice. Discord chat is free and accessible with the option of joining," he adds. "I recommend that members share photos in general chatroom"Here's me with my shirt, I'm sporting my badge' and I hope that people will be eager to join with us in this."

Matt states that getting members is an approach which can prove very successful within the context of your type of content you produce. "Every once in a while, we'll run"Here's everything you'll get' campaign to remind people of the benefits the advantages of joining."

In the future, they'll recognize their communities by saying: "We love our commenters and you're the reason we're so great. If you're not able to be a member, we understand. Certain people do not have enough money. If you're a student, what ever that means, we understand. If you're struggling to afford the cash then read. We're here for you, we'd like to make you an integral component of our family. However, if you are a fan of this sort of stuff, there's a method to become a member of the community."

However, we'll then do a FOMO blog where Jason will post 'Here's the complete list of my birthday sketches I did this month!' And people will look at the sketches and say 'God, I want this.'

The communities that are built can be found in all sorts of dimensions. There are even birthday cards to car lovers.

More details

For more information details about Autopian and join the Autopian of The Autopian, go to theautopian.com.

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