Behind The Scenes Of Successful Memberships with Jen Matichuk

Hey, hey, you're listening to the Level Up Creators Podcast. Amanda Northcutt here, founder and CEO. We help digital creators build thriving, sustainable businesses they love. We are so glad you're here. Welcome. Today I am joined by a very special guest with deep roots in very successful creator-first businesses and memberships in particular, Jen Matichuk. Welcome, Jen.

Hello. Thank you for having me.

I'm excited for our chat today. So a little more on Jen. Jen currently works as the Strategic Partnerships Manager at Memberful. Helping their biggest clients launch and succeed with their white-labeled membership product. Before this, she worked at Mythical Entertainment for 6 years, first building and running their social media and brand presence, and then building out their custom membership program on Memberful. Today, Jen and I are going to get specific in talking about some really successful online membership communities and what goes on behind the scenes that sustains them year over year and positions them for growth and success while of course providing a tremendous amount of value to their own members. But first, Jen, you have a really You have a really interesting background and have worked on some incredible projects over the years. Would you mind sharing a little bit more about your background and the path that led you to become the Strategic Partnerships Manager at Memberful?

Yes, absolutely. I do have an interesting background. I feel like not a lot of people share the path that I've taken to get where I'm at, which is fun, fun and fun and fun and fun. But basically, I started working for these guys named Rhett and Link back in 2013, so I had I had just graduated from college. I studied film in college, so I was like, you know, it feels like a natural progression to move to LA and try and work in the industry. But I landed in digital media, which is awesome. I mean, it really started off my career in a fun way, and I knew a lot about YouTube to begin with. So I worked for them for a while building their social. I was their 5th employee, and now they have over 100. Wow. Which is fun. But yeah, I was hired to build out their social presence. Like, I started their Instagram. I, you know, solidified their presence on the internet, obviously outside of YouTube, 'cause they already had started that presence. But then at the, like, my 5th year there, I was there for 6 years, they wanted to dive into the membership space. And obviously me having been so closely connected with their fans, It felt like a natural progression to put me in charge of building out this very fan-centric space. And we built up their membership on Memberful, as you said. And it was really fun to try and figure out what makes sense for a membership, how to price the membership, what people want. And so I've kind of gone through all of that from a creator side. And it felt like once things started flowing on the Mythical Society side of things with Rhett and Link, that when Memberful had a job opportunity, I kind of jumped on over into it. And so my experience with building this on my own and being on the creator side has really lended itself well to helping people, first of all, understand what membership is and how it can be great for what they're doing, and also find out who could possibly benefit the most from membership. So I help people build, launch, and then grow all of their memberships. So I wear a lot of hats within the Memberful world. But yeah, that's, that's a little background on what, what I'm doing.

Super interesting. I have so many questions already, but we talk a lot about nonlinear paths here and how creators typically end up where they are in a way that they never could have possibly anticipated. And so, uh, it's always kind of fascinating to hear the journeys that people take to get to where they are today, creators or not. Everybody has an interesting story, I think. So that's cool. That you went to LA and set out for maybe one path and then in this very much like what sounds like a full circle moment to me are now working at Memberful helping their biggest clients leverage what they already have going. So, I think that is interesting. Did you ever see yourself in this kind of a role?

No, definitely not. I didn't see myself ever working for a tech company. I studied film in college, so I was like, I'm going to make movies. I'm still planning to do that. But I'm on the tech path right now. But I, yeah, I never, I never saw myself helping people build their memberships. But it's still really fun to be within a creative community and helping people push their businesses to the next level because they want to create full time, whether that's like videos or podcasts or writing or Whatever the membership is, it's still fun to be on that creative side and see people grow within that.

Yeah, I imagine that's quite gratifying as well, that you're able to go in and be so impactful for so many different businesses and creators. So I think that's awesome.

Yeah, and I get to meet fun people too.

Yeah, yeah, I hope so, man. You should for sure. Well, like I said in the intro, we're going to do a bit of a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of a handful of really successful membership programs and our goal for this episode is for you to understand the journeys that these now successful creators took to get where they are. So of course, no one started out there. I don't believe in overnight successes. And, you know, a lot of the time people rise to the top of what feels like overnight when you're, when you're not on the inside, but I wanna hear the nuts and bolts of how people are getting to what looks like that overnight success level. So what we're gonna do here is break down 3 specific memberships and we will help you avoid costly mistakes, give you fresh ideas to take forward. And most importantly, We want you to know that you do have what it takes to have a 7 or 8-figure creator business. And, uh, we're going to teach you how to get there. So let's get into it. Um, Jen, let's kick off with Mythical Society since you know that one backwards and forwards like the back of your hand, I'm sure. And, uh, for those who are not familiar with Mythical Society, can you give us a little bit of background on how they got started, where they are now, and then we'll kind of zoom in on some of the intricacies and challenges over the years.

Yeah, absolutely. And I will say a fun, I think the biggest theme across like the couple of folks that we're gonna talk about is all of them are very longstanding creators/businesses. So to go off your point about overnight success, I think that that's gonna be a really key thing to talk about here is because all of them started a long time ago. And only in the last few years has membership been a super viable option for them. So I think that's one thing to start off with. But Mythical, um, speaking of longstanding, um, they started their company back in early days of YouTube. So 2006, they've been around. They're called the— Rhett and Link are called the grandfathers of YouTube. They started off— Truly. They started off. By basically just talking to a camera, like vlogs. And it evolved into making their own raps, and it evolved into making local commercials for various businesses around the US, which got them a TV show at ITV. And that's what moved them over to LA. And that's what started them to like start building out everything. They, from that, realized that they needed something that was more recurring and they could replicate easily. So they did a morning show called Good Mythical Morning, and that's where they really took off. They're on their, I don't want to get this wrong, like, I want to say like 19th or 20th season of Good Mythical Morning, maybe more at this point. They've done a lot of seasons of it. And so as you can see, 2006 until now, 2023, that's a lot of years. And they've been basically just growing their audience. So they do morning shows. Good Mythical Morning is kind of their claim to fame. It's a long way to say what they do, but they are YouTubers. And video content is their thing. So yeah.

Okay, cool. That's a great intro. So what revenue streams existed for them before the membership? How was the decision made to launch a membership product? What's the value prop? Tell us a little bit about that.

Absolutely. Well, before they launched the membership, I would say that their main revenue streams, as with a lot of YouTubers, are YouTube AdSense. So they were part of, or they are part of the YouTube Partner Program and brand deals. So whether that's within videos or elsewhere, solidifying those brand deals. And when they started this membership program, their merch business was also taking off on the side as well. So they have a pretty strong merch business on the side. I mean, of course there are other revenue streams that are coming in that maybe are a smaller piece of the pie, but I think those are the main 3. And then when they started the membership, it wasn't necessarily to be like, we need to diversify revenue because I think they were doing well. Mm-hmm. That was, of course, that's a driver, you know, having your different pots. But it was more for how can we really keep our fan base engaged and excited about the content that we're putting out and a place where, you know, we can grow that deep core of Rhett and Link fans because they used to have an online community that they nurtured called the Rhett and Link Community. It started with a K because it ended in Link. Um, and it was on some forum site, and it's so janky. It's just like, it was a bad experience.

It's like arcane at this point.

Yes. Yeah, it's very old, and I don't know if they even still have it, but, um, that was where these core group of people were hanging out. They weren't necessarily on— I mean, they were on social media, But that's where like the biggest fans were hanging out. And so the Mythical Society felt like a big progression to first of all, get those folks to come on in. And they started with like a Discord and all of that good stuff. And then, um, you know, it brought in everybody else that was new. So that's kind of how they decided to push into the membership. Um, But yeah.

Okay. And so what was that process like of like, this is, you know, a bit of a hop, skip, and a jump here. So we've got YouTube YouTubers with a morning show and, you know, kind of like gained popularity and taken a super nonlinear path, speaking of which, to kind of get to this fork in the road where they decided that a membership product was the right way to go. Obviously, like the YouTube AdSense revenue, brand deals, merch. Super dialed in, you know, for, uh, monetization pathways for creators to take. And so was the membership their first digital product? Like no course, no nothing, you know, kind of before this?

Yeah. Yes, I believe so that this is their first intro into that because Previously, they had done a YouTube Red show, which I don't know if you recall YouTube Red, but it was basically paid YouTube to get, um, TV show level content. Um, and for that, people had to pay a subscription, but it was never to Rhett and Link directly, obviously.

Right.

They negotiated a deal with YouTube to get whatever money from it, but That probably would be the first digital product. And I don't think that necessarily pushed the needle on whether they wanted to launch this or not. But yeah, so this membership was the first digital product that they started to sell.

That's interesting. And it's also really rare. Okay. So what was the initial value? I mean, typically we see some kind of digital offering, even if it's an ebook or a mini course or a masterclass. Class or workshops or something like that. But this is kind of an interesting pivot for like what started as more of like an entertainment-based creator, but now we've got a really unique value proposition to bring people over and started creating MRR, monthly recurring revenue. So, okay, the decision was made that a membership is the right thing to do. How many employees were there at this point?

I think there was somewhere in the Like maybe 60 to 80 at that point.

Okay.

Quite a lot.

Yeah.

So they were big already.

Yep.

Um, and this was in 2019. So, uh, well, we started thinking about the membership in 2018 and it probably took about 8 to 10 months to build it and, you know, conceptualize it. It was Not a process that anybody took lightly. A lot of thought went into it and it was like a 10-month process. And that was to, first of all, decide what the product was. And I think this is common across a lot of the people that I work with is I'll talk to them in November of last year and they'll launch this past October. It's a year-long process of first of all figuring out, okay, what do we want to do? And then figuring out, okay, how do we want to present this to people and when? And the biggest thing that always comes with it is how do we price this? Because I know you're saying a lot of folks that you've worked with or interacted with have you know, sold courses or, um, had like an ebook or something. Not a lot of the people I work with have done that. Um, interesting. So they do not know how to price something that when traditionally they've been giving a lot of content away for free. So that's the biggest conversation that we often have.

Interesting. Okay, well, let's dive into that in a second. First, let's talk about What was the, what are the key selling points, or at least at launch, what were they? What was going to move people over from, you know, being very used to free content on YouTube to paying a monthly or annual fee? Yeah. What was the enticing offer to get them to pop over?

So when we, we obviously did not know how it was going to go or how people were going to accept it or not, because Rhett and Link give away so much content for free. an inordinate amount of content for free. We had a focus group first. We talked to the folks who were moderating the old community about the new thing we were going to launch to get their thoughts on it, which was also helpful, I believe. But I still think that we didn't have the best idea of how it would go. So a Big thing is we put merch with it because we knew that merch did well and people are enticed by limited drops. Yep. So we put— we made this thing called the Society Chalice, which was just like this huge chalice that was absolutely ridiculous. And it had the Society emblem on it. And we said, okay, for the first people who sign up within the first 5— I can't remember the exact time period— the first 5 days, whoever signs up for 3rd degree, which was the top level, will get a limited edition Founder's Chalice. And, um, the 1st and 2nd degree, um, so 1st and 2nd tier, they would get a pin and a patch. Mm-hmm. And a handwritten letter that we enlisted a company to do that made handwritten letters easier to send out to large groups of folks. Yeah. So those were— that is how we kind of bridged the gap between what we were already doing online and what we were going to put out over there. We're like, okay, we'll bring them in with merch and then we'll show them like Okay, there's a Discord and it's so awesome. You get to talk with everybody. It's like the old Rhett and Link community. And there's a bunch of behind the scenes content and we're going to show you how we create, you know, these episodes that you love with Behind the Mythicality. So we started like building out little series that were going to go, um, on there. But I really think it was the merch because that chalice. We got more than we, more than we had prepared for and threw a wrench in those plans.

Okay, cool. So you already had like a well-established merchandise line. People are used to spending money with you that way. And so, and I saw today on the website that like, that is still a part of their offering. Like every quarter member, a member gets like a really unique little artifact, right, mailed to them. And so, you know, sort of using that heuristic of, okay, you're already used to buying physical goods from us, and so come over here and we'll give you something. Not only using like scarcity, exclusivity, and kind of those, um, psychological— not tricks, but it's just using psychology to sell stuff. That's good and that's fine.

Yeah.

Um, okay, cool. And so you've found a gathering place for people, you're like, this is gonna be awesome. Okay, so you were able to get your superfans over super easily. So, or because you listened to the moderators that y'all had, not like it was this super easy, magical thing that just appeared, but you did your research, you talked to customers first, you found sort of like not the pain points in the traditional sense, but you found where you could come in and provide value to the point where people are willing to pull out their credit cards for.

Yeah.

Right. And so what has happened Well, you got the tech set up, right? And then there's the ongoing value proposition, obviously, because this is, you know, you're exchanging money month over month or year over year. So how has the membership product evolved over the last like 4, now almost 5 years and what's worked and what has not worked?

Yeah, I mean, the evolution has been great to see. In the first year, it was just about trying things and seeing what sticks. So the TMV, what we call it, total membership volume or total monthly volume that was processed each month was kind of like a roller coaster in terms of who was joining when and what we were promoting and if people were excited about it. So that first year, and this is how I kind of describe membership to a lot of folks, the first year is you just trying things and you're probably not going to have a consistent stream. And the second year was looking back at everything that you did and trying to iterate on it. So one thing that they did the first year that then they were like, okay, this is not working for the second year is the first degree, they would send out the pin in the patch. And it just wasn't working in terms of Somebody's paying $5 a month and they're getting something that costs way more than that sent to their house and then they're churning out.

Right.

So the churn rate was high. And so they weren't getting the value out of those customers when, so they're losing money on that first degree.

Yeah.

So that was like the first thing they were like, okay, we need to take away merch from the first degree and we're going to kind of treat first degree as Folks who are hopping in to check out what it's all about. It's like a pretty accessible price point at $5 a month. And there's a lot of content in there and they can join the Discord and they can see what's, what's going on in there. Mm-hmm. And then, so then the second year was just testing out all of those things that had kind of done badly or done well and seeing what they could change or what they could make better. They also did a series on, um, the society where they brought in people from the cast or people from the crew, I guess. Uh, and the crew is a really big thing within Mythical. They are often on the show. Um, and people get to know them, fans get to know them, but they made the crew kind of have their own specials, their own episodes that Rhett and Link weren't in. And they didn't perform as well as what they expected. And when we went back to look at it, people were viewing the society as more access to Rhett and Link, not more access to the people who are surrounding them. So you kind of have to pivot on that and be like, okay, this can be a place where we're trying out content, but we still need to make sure that there's enough Rhett and Link-specific content that people are going to stick around for or join for. So it was like changing the content strategy of, okay, we need to find a series that is maybe a lower cost to produce, but really high payoff. So is that Rhett and Link vlogging in their car when they're driving to work? Sure. Easy for them to do. Easy for us to put out. Fans love it. So it was iterating on that and figuring out what made sense. And now they're in their 4th year and I think they're really hitting their stride in terms of finding out the balance of content. A lot of, a lot of it is still driven by these quarterly items that you brought up. People will join for those quarterly items because they're obviously limited drop. Uh, items.

Yep.

Sometimes they'll stay in past what we would expect them to, which would be 3 months. And that's great because they see maybe the next item and they're like, oh, I want to stay for that next item too. Um, but otherwise it's because they've hit a balance of bonus Rhett and Link content and crew content.

Mm-hmm.

And yeah, I think they're just going to keep going up because of that.

Nice. Yeah. Okay. So what I'm hearing you say is this launch year was approached with, okay, we're going to learn this year. We're going to test things. We're going to measure. We're going to iterate. And so I love that, like low-risk iterations that yield medium to high rewards. Like that's definitely a mental model and sort of decision-making framework that I'm big on. So I love that. I love both the qualitative and quantitative data gathering. Sounds like you guys pay very close attention to Quantitative metrics. I bet you know them backwards and forwards and upside and down, and you're making decisions based on that and user feedback. And you know, the churn number doesn't say like the churn percentage doesn't say why people are churning, right? And so you guys going in and determining that oh, people wanted more access, right, to the creator, you know, celebrities effectively. And that's that's a huge draw oftentimes to. Memberships for in creator-first businesses is that they get access to the creator influencer, uh, and feel very special, right?

Yep.

And so, okay, that's awesome. And then let's talk about pricing for a minute since you brought that up. So what, uh, was ultimately, how did you all ultimately decide on a price and then how has that been iterated upon over the last few years?

Well, when we were deciding on pricing, we were looking really closely at tons of different memberships on Patreon because it felt like the most applicable in terms of similarities of people who are building something similar to what we were building. And we tried to find out like-minded people who were pricing things and kind of based it off of that. And I wouldn't say it was necessarily the right choice to begin with because There are a lot of tiers on Mythical. There's a $5 tier, a $10 tier, a $20 tier, and then a quarterly for that $20 tier, and then a yearly for that $20 tier. So people go to that page and they could potentially be overwhelmed by the choices. Um, so like looking back on it, I don't think that launching with that many tiers was necessarily the right choice, but we thought that we were going to take, you know, the psychological trick of, okay, we mostly want people to be in the top tier and we know people are going to join in the bottom tier. What if we give a lot more in the top tier and only make it a $5 difference? So less people will actually join the middle tier because they see what a great deal they're getting in the top tier. So we tried that and I really think it actually did work because we had way more people join the top tier than we thought would ever happen, partially because of that limited chalice. Um, also partially because it was super close access to Rhett and Link, like live streams and stuff like that. Um, Since then, the pricing hasn't changed. And that's not to say that they might not change it in the future. Um, I could see them doing that for sure. But, um, I think a YouTube audience is really hard to raise pricing with, honestly, because like video, video creators in general. Mm-hmm. They have the hardest time with people justifying the content that they're putting out because they're— all of these members or potential members are comparing what they're getting to a Netflix or a Disney Plus or whatever. Mm-hmm. And these creators are very, um, aware of that. And so I think that creators are trying to put out way too much. And spreading themselves too thin and not putting out the quality over the quantity. Um, so a long-winded way to say their pricing hasn't changed. They've added a quarterly tier. That's the only thing that they've done in terms of, uh, pricing. I, I wouldn't be surprised if they upped the pricing in the next year.

Okay, cool. All right. Um, I just looked at the time. I feel like we could talk about Mythical Society all day and like every angle. But, um, let's talk about Comedy Bang Bang World and Stab Magazine, whichever one you want to start with. But yeah, let's make sure that we're able to cover— um, I'd love to talk about marketing for launches, evergreen marketing, uh, again, like common mistakes that were made and things like that. So

absolutely,

go for it.

Okay, so let's talk about Comedy Bang Bang World. So Like Mythical, they've been along or around for a very long time. Um, they started by this guy named Scott Aukerman, who, um, is big in the improv comedy world. And he started this show off of a live show that he had back in like, I don't know, what day was it? I think I wrote it down. Um, 2009, um, he formed Comedy Bang Bang, and it was a podcast. It started as a podcast. And what Comedy Bang Bang World is, is a, a group of podcasts, a network of podcasts. And they, um, primarily focus on improv comedy, but a lot of them are just— they've given voices to a lot of comedians in the podcast world, and comedy podcasts are top trending podcasts. So they do incredibly well in that way, where they have some of the most famous, most popular comedians, especially in the improv space, in the sketch comedy space, regularly on their show or on or hosting their own shows even. Um, so yeah, that's Comedy Bang Bang World. I started working with them 2 years ago now. My gosh. I think 2 years ago. Um, they launched in October and they launched fast. I will say they're the only people that— they're the only clients that I've worked with that knew exactly what they wanted coming into it. Knew what they were going to build and went for it. Their marketing in general for their launch was, I would say, pretty minimal in general because, and this is just like a common theme with the folks that I work with, they have built this dedicated, loyal audience over their years. that they really knew was gonna convert well because they were putting things that they've been asking for for years behind this paywall. And—

Okay.

It's also to do with the, the stream that they're in, which is comedy podcasting and comedians. Typically comedians aren't making a ton of money. They're really not. And the people consuming the content, are well aware of that discrepancy and want to support their favorite comedians. So it lends itself really well to having a membership because these members or potential members are excited to, you know, fund their favorite comedians and what they're doing.

Yeah.

So

yeah, and there's a lot of research that's coming out. I feel like Everywhere I look, there's a new creator economy report. One of them, I can't remember which, in recent months cited a statistic about like how likely your followers are to buy from you. They really, really, really like you. They feel like, you know, they know you personally and they are so much more inclined to purchase from you than they are big, giant global legacy brands. And so like creators in this instance too, like that is such a great example of a place to monetize for a creator who typically, yeah, doesn't, doesn't make bank, right? Like there's comedians or there's a lot of them. And so the monetization model is really tough. You know, you can only do so many gigs, right? So having like a recurring revenue model here through podcasting is super interesting. And I love that they kind of— it sounds like kind of held their cards close to their chest, if you will. Like, okay, we've been holding back all these features and cool things that you've been asking for, but now we're putting them all behind the paywall. So it sounds like they really had a very well-thought-out value proposition, had been listening for a very long time, and came out of the gate, you know, swinging, right?

They really did. They had a big launch that did incredibly well, and their retention is off the charts. Like these folks, yeah, they're joining and they are sticking around, and it's really, really, really cool to see. Especially because I'm also a fan and have been a fan of their content for a long time. So, but yeah, when they were coming to Memberful, they came off of another platform and with that platform they had been using Stitcher Premium. So they kind of had an understanding more of what fans would want based off of their, what they're releasing with Stitcher Premium. And so that made it easier to be like, okay, we know that they want a bonus podcast. We know that they want a longer episode. We know that they want, um, the archive of these podcasts that are no longer running.

Mm-hmm.

And we know that they want these new podcasts. They literally put brand new podcasts behind the paywall. That no one had heard, but they were so excited to hear it because it was all these comedians that they've never heard together before. So altogether, it was a true recipe for success on their launch, and they've done really well since. Actually, they just raised their prices this past month in October, and they had their biggest month ever. So.

Nice. Nice. Yeah, that's a huge lever that you can pull. And when you're that sticky, like if their churn rate is Very, very, very low. I mean, the odds that people are going to drop off for a price increase are also very low. So, um, that's awesome. So it sounds like they did launch really strong and like have been doing well since they launched their, their Memberful membership, but that was a years in the making product. They had their ear to the ground for a long time. Uh, and so they knew how to make it awesome.

Yeah, is that fair? Exactly.

Cool. Cool. And then, um, I guess for any of these, Mythical Society, Comedy Bang Bang World, or Stab Magazine, can you speak to launch marketing and then evergreen marketing? Because obviously the big trick with membership is churn is a thing, right? People are going to cancel for one reason or another, and you have to keep the pipeline full to not only replace the members who churn, but add additional ones so you actually grow and make more money over time. So how's that addressed at these 3 memberships?

Yeah, I mean, I think that launch marketing for all 3 of these ones is a little bit different than a smaller creator in that they, when they launch, they're probably going to get a lot of people joining no matter what. It's just like how they launch and how they present it is going to determine what that amount of a lot of people is. Yeah. And for that reason, A lot of these memberships vary with how they're launching. Like Comedy Bang Bang, for instance, when they launched, they, like I said, it was just like a, hey, we launched this thing, check it out right here. Mythical did like a whole video and launched it on their main channel and linked to it and followed up with that launch marketing for several weeks on Their main channels and on their socials. It was a whole plan of rolling out. Stab Magazine, they, I believe, was similar to what Comedy Bang Bang did and was like, okay, let's just roll this out and here it is. Hope you join kind of thing. I mean, not to say that that's. one way or the other is better or worse. I think it all depends on your audience and how they're going to receive it.

Yeah.

And like Stab Magazine, we haven't talked about them yet, but for instance, they're, they're a surfing magazine. So their audience is far different from, um, people who listen to comedy podcasts as their main source of interest. Um, so surfers are going to receive a paid membership launch marketing plan in a far different way because they're— I would say they're consuming internet less than folks who are watching YouTube consistently.

Yeah.

But with all that being said, they also have, like you said, marketing in between to keep that pipeline full. And Each of them varies on that. All of them are using some form of paid marketing. And I think that a lot of them should be using paid marketing. A lot of memberships should be because the membership world, or not the membership, the creator world is oversaturated, not in a bad way. I'm so happy there's a lot of creators. That's awesome. But the social media side of things is oversaturated and you need to stick out. You need to find the right cohort of people to target. And paid marketing is very helpful for that. But outside of that, it's more just using their other channels of free content to push the memberships. Those are their biggest sources of, okay, we need to hit these people, Use the theory of account-based marketing and we need to hit them 7 or 8 times before they finally convert. So we need to find them in all the different places that they are. And hopefully at one point they're going to finally convert or at least sign up for the free membership where then we can hit them a few more times to upsell them. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And for those who don't know what account-based marketing is, it's basically a sales motion or sales strategy where you're hitting people in different places at different times over time. And so you might do LinkedIn ad, Facebook or Meta ads, you know, so you're on Facebook and Instagram. I don't know if WhatsApp has ads or not, but that's kind of in that ecosystem. Google ads, you might do a mailer. Like just any kind of things. And so you want to, and retargeting is big too. If someone visits your website and doesn't convert, you want to show them an ad served up by Google, you know, the next day or something like that to try and drive traffic back to your website. Have there been any particular paid marketing plays that have been just like wildly successful for any of these 3? Or is it always that multifaceted, more ABM type approach?

I would say that not specifically, not that I can think of. I also don't have really specific access into their paid marketing, so I wish I could talk more to it.

Let's go here. That's okay.

Yeah. I do think that with paid marketing, the agency that you work with If you're a big company and you're using an agency, is like a make or break situation. You have to find an agency that understands the content and understands your audience. And I've seen other clients use an agency that just didn't get it. Yeah.

And

they had such poor performing ads that the moment they switched over, they increased their sales by like 100%. to a new company that got it, that understood where to go and how to target. And so it's being really specific about who you're working with to build out your paid ads because the difference can be very different.

Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like it. So the takeaway there is if you are working with an outside party, whether that's like a single-person contractor doing your meta ads or a full-blown agency and make sure that they have like a demonstrable track record of success in your niche. And they like get it truly, truly get it. Who exactly your audience is, what the value is that you're offering, and how to connect the dots on those two and lead those prospective customers kind of on this journey toward purchase, right? Do any of these three memberships use lead magnets or marketing automation, or is it really, really, really just heavy on paid ads?

Not that I, I mean, they might. I would say the person or the company that's most likely to would be Mythical.

Yeah.

Because they do have folks that are focused specifically on growth. Like that's their whole Their whole gig is to dive into that side of things. So I wouldn't be surprised. But is that a popular thing amongst folks that you've been working with?

Oh, like massive. Yeah. I mean, we're typically working with subject matter experts, right? So their thought leadership content marketing motion is kind of like the drill. And so marketing automation is a massive, massive part of that. You know, you treat social media as top of the funnel, next step step down, get people on your email list through, uh, join my newsletter with a value proposition, or grab this piece of content that solves a specific problem for you. And then they get a nurture sequence that, um, you know, gets them to like a tripwire or a loss leader type product, you know, like a one-off digital product initial purchase, kind of get people spending money with you, demonstrate that you have awesome stuff, and then, um, offer like a recurring revenue product would typically be the next in the play. And that could be You know, a mid-dollar membership. It could be a more like a higher ticket group coaching kind of cohort or something like that with a smaller group where you get more access to the creator celebrity person and learning directly from them. And so that's kind of like the typical customer journey within the subject matter expert businesses, like creator businesses. But this is so interesting because you were talking largely about entertainment-based Surfing Magazine, you know, kind of like really different types of creator businesses. And so it's so interesting to hear from that POV, right? And what works and what doesn't work and how things are thought about, how decisions are made, who's in charge, you know, all that kind of stuff is really, really fascinating. And I think there's learnings for all types of creators, you know, within this podcast. And there's things that you can take and test and see if they work in your specific business or not. And if they don't, no harm, no foul, you move on to the next thing. But then when you find the thing that works, you pour a lot of gasoline on it, right?

Yep.

And so if you can find a paid acquisition funnel that works well consistently, dump a ton of money into it. You know, that's like a no-brainer. So I think that's something that is not often considered of like super high importance for subject matter expert creators or creator educators. So I think this is super interesting, you know, to learn about. Another path that, that works, right?

Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's not to say that each of these creators doesn't have some sort of funnel of folks who are coming through.

Yeah.

Um,

mm-hmm.

They're just not, I would say, as in-depth as the, the specific funnel that you just outlined. And I think that, yeah, the difference between somebody who's like a subject matter expert and you know, the top of their field in that regard and more entertainment-based creators is that people want to know more about that subject once they see a little bit. Whereas like entertainment-based creators, you kind of already get what they've got in terms of, you know, this is who they are. This is the content that they put out. Mm-hmm. And you can tease them with content, but a lot of that is happening on social first. And if they're getting them onto their email list, the conversion is not necessarily— I wouldn't say it's as high as putting out a clip on social and saying, hey, go join. Whereas it's just a completely different audience. It's so interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, in some ways it's like building memberships and entertainment-based creator-first businesses. Like it's more challenging on some level because like, like you're saying, getting that value proposition right, getting the pricing nailed. Again, the like marrying of the merchandise line with, you know, the exclusivity and scarcity and stuff like that. That is, I think it's really, really fascinating. So I'm super glad we're having this conversation. And one thing I want to go back to is actually the Comedy Bang Bang world switching platforms. And, you know, I feel like the theme that I'm hearing there is they wanted to own their own work. They didn't want to be on somebody else's platform. They wanted to do their own thing. And they said, hey, we're going to step out. We feel like we can do this thing. We're going to go full bore toward it and we're going to own the whole deal, right? Yeah. Do you know anything about like kind of the mindset that went into that like platform switch and, you know, kind of, hey, this is mine, I created it, I'm going to own the whole deal?

Yeah, I think that that was generally the main thought about it. It was the ownership and also finding something that worked really— finding a product that worked really well for how they wanted to offer it. Basically, they were creating a podcast network that was going to house tons and tons of different podcasts that they all wanted to have the branding that they wanted to have and live on the same website and be able to communicate with these members in a way that was specific to how maybe they would communicate via the podcast. Mm-hmm. So jumping onto Memberful for them was a no-brainer and why they launched so quickly because it allowed them to, first of all, use the hosting provider that they wanted to use and push it through Memberful and not have to use something that they've been told that they have to use. And they also wanted to have their own website with their own presence that all of these could be presented in the way that they wanted it to be presented. So yeah, the ownership, the communication, the ease of use, I think, is what went into the thought behind the move.

Awesome. Okay. I think that's a really cool and important point for both entertainment-based and subject matter expert creators and influencers to think of. And a lot of times we run up against sort of like some, some mindset blockers with creators that we speak with. There's some resistance to charging people, like asking their followers for money for products. But again, citing that research earlier that's come out about people are so much more likely to buy from you than, than other brands. And so it's just, again, nailing whatever type of creator you are, whoever your followers are, it's, it's knowing them and putting together the right offer at the right time in the right way. Um, I mean, that's kind of the foundation of all of business, right? That's, that's really what it boils down to is you're solving problems for people. And whether they, that's, they want to laugh, you know, they want to know that they're going to laugh consistently and get enjoyment, um, out of like the Comedy Bang Bang world. I mean, that's like a really powerful value proposition. Um, and then you can, you know, swing the other way and to different subject matter experts who are creators, but it's like, it's okay to charge for your stuff.

Yeah.

People want to support you. They wouldn't follow you if you didn't have value to offer. And it is, Totally okay, healthy. And when you're not doing it in an icky marketing or icky sales way, like, sell your cool shit. People will buy it.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, put it out there, own it, build an empire. Yeah. Um, that's totally— well, let's kind of—

let me jump off of that because I have one more thing to say about that. I think that a lot of people are really hesitant to price their content or sell their content or their courses or whatever they're selling when they haven't yet talked to their audience. I think that's where they're really not sure. And that's where I'm talking to a lot of people. I'm like, have you spoken to your audience yet? Have you brought this up to anybody? Like, no. I'm like, you need to go talk to somebody. You need to Put on your stories, you need to put out a tweet or whatever, and just talk to your audience and put out feelers. And if you feel really confident in what you believe you're going to put out there, then they're going to sense that confidence and want to be a part of that. But if you are teetering on the edge of, I don't have that thing yet that I feel excited about, hold off. Brainstorm a little bit more. Let it bubble up and figure out the best thing to put out there as your membership or as your course or whatever. Because you can only really launch it once. So first of all, make sure your audience is excited about it and make sure that you're excited about it. And then the pricing is going to feel okay.

Yeah, that's such a good point. I'm so glad that you jumped in and said that because, you know, in social media you are talking to your audience, but that's a one-way street. That is a one-way conversation all day, every day. And so what Jen is saying, talk with your audience, like one-on-one, like the focus group, um, with the Mythical Society to, um, get that right. Or is it Mythical Society or Comedy Bang Bang?

Yeah, it was Mythical Society with the community.

Okay, that's cool. Yeah, awesome. So that level of conversation to better understand what they think of you, what they expect from you, what they like about you, what they want more of from you— super, super important. Like, yeah, just old school focus group level stuff. You can also do, you know, one-to-many surveys. Those are easy to deploy on whatever social media platform you're using. And again, like, you're trying to identify problems that you can solve for your audience and then The question then becomes like, how do you package that up in the right product or service? And then how do you demonstrate through marketing that you do in fact solve the problem that you say you are going to solve within this well-packaged product or service? And half of this podcast season is about, uh, we break down in a great amount of detail all of the ways that creators can make money online. And so that should give you kind of like infinite ideas for all the options available to you for how to package up your solutions. And we do talk a lot about How to speak to your audience and again make that right offer, right time, right person, right way. So okay, interesting. Well, let's let's talk specifically for a minute just about missteps or even failures that these successful creators have experienced, how they handled those challenges, whether that be through like getting back on their feet or working iteratively or making full-scale pivots because we really don't want people to leave here thinking that like you can have massive overnight success. That's just complete crap and everybody. has failures behind the scenes that they don't necessarily share publicly. So let's open up the—

Yeah.

A little bit on that.

Do we wanna say failures of the membership or just failures as a creator?

Hmm. Dealer's choice, whatever you wanna talk about that helps, uh, make these now super wildly successful creators feel a little bit more human to those who have not yet achieved that level of success.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that when we're talking about the membership specifically, it's hard to say, these are the mistakes that anybody could make. I mean, they technically are, but they're still like these big creators that have really big loyal audiences are still going to gain a lot of traction with their membership, even if they make a big mistake. And that's just how it is. And they've worked 15+ years to build that base of people to make sure that they're going to stick around through the mistakes that they make. And I think that's the first thing is that you have that loyal audience to help you through any missteps that you might go through and they're still going to be there. So that's going to be the first thing overall. In terms of specific mistakes, that have been made. I think I talked a little bit about Mythicals in terms of their revenue and how they were giving out those merch items for the first degree when they weren't going to break even. They were going to be negative on that. I think that was the first thing. And then in terms of other mistakes, let me think. There was also, there's also a lot of learning around those quarterly items. So when we first launched the quarterly items, we didn't really understand how to work with the merch company to build those up, to send them out at the right time. So there were times where there was massive delays and people were getting so upset. with the merch deliveries because we couldn't necessarily control it. And it's going, it's every 3 months. So, you know, the lead up to this, if there's one mistake, then it's going to push the merch. So getting to a place where you are planning incredibly well on things that are very finicky is probably the best option if you're going to launch with something really finicky. Yeah. Because, you know, People are going to be upset. I would say that those were the 2 biggest mistakes that I have seen come out of Mythical. They, I mean, they and many other creators make a lot of small mistakes along the way. Like, I don't know, posting something too late or— Yeah. Maybe not Committing to the promise of, you know, we're gonna do this thing quarterly. Those are probably the biggest things. There's never like a really big mistake because things are really thought out and planned. Yeah. With Comedy Bang Bang world specifically, theirs is also a little bit related to pricing, or not pricing, but like how they presented things on the internet. So their website, they launched, like I said, really quickly. And like, I didn't have a chance to review what they were putting out there. They just kind of launched with the site that they were excited about. And that's great. I'm so glad for them.

Yeah.

But we saw pretty quickly in their first 3 to 6 months that people, when they looked at the site on mobile, Only saw the first 2 plans and didn't scroll down further to see the next 2 plans. And because of that, they were joining and then they thought they were going to get something that they weren't getting. And so they churned out.

Oh.

And they came back and they're like, I just heard the, you know, the marketing again. That people are getting this and I didn't get it. And so they come back and then they realize there's another plan that has the thing that they want. So they just didn't scroll down all the way. It wasn't immediately obvious that they could get that. So in the beginning, they had a lot of churn from those lower plans, but they also had a lot of movement from that plan. to the higher plan. So they eventually fixed that. And just now, 2 years later, things are starting to level out in terms of their retention percentages for that lower plan, which is crazy. Like one small thing at the very beginning has had a 2-year impact.

Wow. Yeah, that says a lot for— I mean, pricing page psychology is a whole discipline in and of itself, but And then you've got like the mobile optimization piece on top of that. That's a tough lesson to learn. So I'm glad that they're out of that at this point, but oof, that's, that one stings a little bit.

Yeah. I always tell folks, oh my gosh, like if you're not going to dive into the psychology of the pricing page, which a lot of people don't really actually wanna do, at least put the plan. No, they don't. Yeah. At least put the plan. that you want people to join at the top. If that, like, if that's, if, if there's anything to take away, just make it so the first thing they read is the thing that you want them to join. So.

Great. That's a good takeaway. That's a great learning. That's super actionable too. That's not a tough thing to implement. So anything else on that front, kind of failures or missteps or hard lessons?

Yeah, let me think. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab. Oh, okay. One thing that, one thing that Stab has done that they've learned since to change is they would launch their big series of content. All in one month. And like, it was a huge undertaking of like 8 episodes. And it's not like an ongoing thing, but they would launch it in one month. And so they would see people join and then churn out after because they consumed all the content and then they moved on.

Yeah.

And so what they have since learned is to, you know, span it or release it over several months, drip it out and give people a reason to stay. So it's a really, it was a really big learning and it's made a difference in terms of their retention from the months that they launched those big pieces of content to then the spanning of over 2 to 3 months. And they're still working on it. It's been 2 years with them now, 2 and a half years actually, and they're still working on it in terms of how do we launch this? How do we release this so that people are going to stick around and consume the content or so people don't see the content being released and then just join after the fact for a month and binge? Like, how do we figure that out? And I think that's an ongoing thing for them. Like, they're going to have the hardcores that join that want to be a part of the conversation while it's happening, and that's great. And then there's going to be the people that are going to join 2 or 3 months later that are going to ingest it all and then churn out. And it's kind of like having to come to terms with the fact that there is always going to be those 2 groups of people. Yeah. In terms of their content and the people that they are selling to. And it's trying to figure out how to retain the people who are there for the content drip out versus trying to retain the people who are never actually going to retain, because you're always going to have that group.

Yeah, that's a good lesson too, because when you're doing a membership site, again, you're asking for money from the same people over and over and over and over and over again. Over again, or at least that's most ideal, right? If they're still there, they're still—they still are receiving value, right? And so, but the work of a membership is just never done. You're constantly again taking that feedback and the quantitative data from your metrics dashboard and trying to make strategic decisions. You are listening to your customers. You're iterating because your customers' needs evolve as life evolves, and so you've got to evolve right along with them, and you can't do that if you're not. Paying attention to both sides of that, both sides of those datasets. So, that's super important. That's good to know. It's like, yeah, these people are successful, but they still have time, you know, they still have room to grow, right? There's always room to grow. And so, that's great that they're working hard to iterate. Well, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience with us today, Jen. I'm sure our listeners learned a lot and everyone's coming away with some actionable ideas to apply in their own business. And I hope that if recurring revenue wasn't on your mind before, listeners, that it very much is at this point. We believe that recurring revenue is a central piece of the puzzle to unlocking your full potential as a creator. Jen, do you have a quick parting shot and/or where can listeners find you online?

Yeah, my parting shot is be engaging with your audience. Always chat with them, always keep in touch with them. I think that's the biggest thing to building out your base and then building out your successful membership eventually when you get there. And then in terms of where you can find me, I'm on Instagram pretty, pretty consistently. It's just @jenmadachuk. I'm sure you can link to it somewhere. But yeah, I'm hanging out there for the most part. Not a lot of membership musings over there, though.

A little bit more fun.

Yeah.

Which is great. Thanks again, Jen. And we know that your time is precious. Thank you for sharing yours with us. Level Up Creators exists to amplify the voice, reach, and impact of creators making a positive impact on the world. With your expertise as our focus, our team of strategists, marketers, sales pros, product developers, administrators, and tech gurus handle the heavy lifting of building and optimizing a profitable business that will transform your life for good. Subscribe to the show and check out welevelupcreators.com to sign up for our newsletter where we share weekly actionable business tips for creators just like you. See you next time on the Level Up Creators Podcast.