How one Client Tripled Membership By Realigning With Member Needs

 

In the previous clip, we talked about a design studio owner turned professional educator who struggled with the community she built while following a popular blueprint. She’d poured time, effort, and financial resources into it. But despite a steady influx of new members of the community, wasn’t retaining them.

This situation wasn’t a product of poor execution. In fact, she’d followed instructions to a tee.

The real issue lay in the blueprint she was following. It was designed for a different kind of business, which meant it had different resource needs and a different target audience.

Here’s what we did to turn the tides.

Before making any changes, we needed to define exactly what made this community valuable in the eyes of its members. So, we conducted in-depth interviews to understand why they joined what gaps they saw, what challenges they faced, and what journey they went through. As they tried to learn and grow within the community.

As we spoke with members, we found that our community was filled with aspiring professionals and entrepreneurs. They were coming in as beginners and we wanted them to leave as successful business owners or employees. To achieve this, they needed to learn new skills, gain relevant professional experience, understand the business side of design work, and build their network within the industry.

These insights were invaluable. They helped us identify what our members needed at each step so that we could offer a truly aligned experience.

Armed with a clearer picture of our ideal members and their needs, we turned our insights into six key initiatives:

1) We curated and reorganized the large collection of standalone courses into clear and searchable topic categories.

2) We built custom learning paths that help members focus on the courses that are most relevant to the stage they’re in.

3) We created study groups and a schedule to help members better digest existing courses, rather than getting lost in new content launches every month.

4) We created a mentorship program that would provide hands-on professional experience for members and commission-based sales for the business.

5) My client and her team negotiated subscription access to industry publications that members had trouble affording on their own.

6) We created optional chat channels that married members, stages of business, and special interests to allow for a more tailored networking experience.

The community website then got to makeover. It turned into a sleek user-friendly and easy-to-navigate space with clear sections for every feature that made this community amazing.

Fast forward three years and this creative business community has now tripled in size while maintenance time and marketing budgets have been slashed in half.

The community is now a highly engaged source of artistic growth and inspiration, which has led to several high-value partnerships as revenue opportunities.

So what changed the game here?

Tailoring the community to the real needs of her members. No more maze-like platforms or confusing, unrelated courses.

Instead, we focused on what the community actually needed to grow and thrive: clear learning paths, mentorship, and even special access to industry resources.