We hit 100 members! [and lessons learned]

Phlywheel launched a few weeks ago (July 13, 2020) and we just hit 100 members! We are a paid DIY marketing platform for agile marketing teams. Our aim is to simplify the digital marketing landscape for marketers, providing them with the skills and tools needed to execute successful marketing strategies. We do this through a combination of community, content, and coaching, but in reality, the community is at the center of all of this.

Let me tell you...a paid community isn't easy to grow...even when you have a free trial period! It's even more challenging to grow when what you're offering is more of a "vitamin" than a "painkiller."

So, to fully disclose, not all 100 members are paid...there is a good portion that is from our beta group (they were offered free membership for the duration of 2020). But I'm 100% counting our beta group because they are largely engaged and incredibly important to the experience of our new members!

In order to achieve our longer-term goal of 1,500 paid members (monthly average) in 3 years, we will have to do a lot more to create the urgency for sign up.

Some of the things that we've learned in the 2.5 weeks we've been open are:

A. We need to create more urgency to move people from consideration to purchase

Lots of people love the idea of Phlywheel, but it isn't really a priority. We've heard that they want to join, but are waiting for the urgent need to arise. At least we have consideration!

To do next: experiment with creating some urgency on signing up. Right now, for instance, we're focused on selling the programming "months" as a package instead of the network as a whole - it's more limited time and it makes the offering look inexpensive... $39.99 for 4 webinars and coaching towards completion!? Nice!

B. Community is key to our best customer's heart (aka focus on this, not learning or coaching)

We don't want to waste our time on convincing people to join who aren't in our target audience. We had lots of signups from Product Hunt who came and poked around but never came back. They are likely to unsubscribe before their trial is up and this will affect our churn rate (which is pretty good right now).

Our target market? It's our most engaged community members: members who need the community of marketers to feel less alone in their roles. They come for the education and coaching, but they STAY for the community. They also bring enormous value for others and model the type of behavior we want!

To do next: focus our outbound efforts more on the community aspect and speak to the marketing teams of 1. We'll definitely need to adjust our landing pages for this audience and do some research on where to find them.

C. If we have to convince someone, it should be a hard "pass"

This seems counterintuitive to a marketing strategy, right? Aren't we marketers supposed to focus on changing the behaviors of others? Though convincing the unconvinced may be a decent future experiment, in the early stages, we need to focus on the people who GET IT RIGHT AWAY.

My response to anyone who questions what we're doing needs to be, "It doesn't look like it's for you. All good." and then I need to move on and find those who light up when I describe what we're doing.

It's pretty cool to see someone sign up and IMMEDIATELY engage enthusiastically. It's heartbreaking to see someone sign up, poke around, then never come back (and let their trial expire).

To do next: more research on profiling the person who gets it right away. Who are they? Where do they hang out? What are their jobs to be done? How can we stick up our hands and say, "Over here!"?

So, yeah...lots of work to do, but I'm excited!

Would love to get anyone's input/experience/feedback with any of these challenges.