How To Build a Community and Get Subscriptions

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Transform your membership site into a thriving community with actionable insights from my personal journey. Discover the secret weapon that took my Patreon from five members to 100 members. By offering something of real value, I was able to attract and retain members, setting an ambitious goal of reaching 500 members. Learn how an irresistible lead magnet can be the game-changer you've been searching for.

Follow Dr. Sheena Howards' socials:
@drsheenahoward | Power Your Research

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A lead magnet is like bait.
It's the thing that getssomebody to pay attention and
say, oh, I want that and I'mwilling to join the membership
site to get it.
I'm willing to give the emailaddress to get it.
And so if you want somebody tojoin your paid membership site,
you have to give them somethingof value.
I don't want my work to bestuck behind an academic paywall

(00:33):
.
I want to leave a legacy, Iwant to reach my potential and I
want to change lives.
This podcast, power yourResearch, is my attempt to help
the smartest people in the worlddo that very thing.
My hope is that you use thelessons I share to make more
money than what your higher edjob can ever pay you.
I've done it, my clients havedone it and so can you.

(00:56):
My hope is that you'll applywhat you learn here and one day
join the Power your Researchprogram where you can work with
me one-on-one.
For all of you out there thatyou're thinking about starting a

(01:19):
membership site because youthink it's going to be passive,
consistent income, or you have amembership site and you're
trying to get more paidsubscribers and members into to
this site, I learned somethingthis year that really, really
really increased the subscribers.
I got to my membership site.
So I have a membership site onpatreoncom and I'm finishing out

(01:39):
the year with about 65 peopleon my membership site, and last
year at this time I'd had likefive.
And so I'm going to be scalingup this system next year so that
I can eventually get to athousand members.
And I want to share with youwhat I learned, because I spent
years trying to figure out howto get people into my membership

(02:00):
site and I had a lot of falsestarts, a lot of things that
didn't work.
But you know what you watergrows.
And so here's what I figuredout for me, and it seems so
simple because people talk aboutthis all the time and I guess
you just have to have the rightlead magnet.
A lead magnet is like bait.
It's the thing that getssomebody to pay attention and

(02:22):
say, oh, I want that and I'mwilling to join the membership
site to get it, I'm willing togive the email address to get it
.
And so if you want somebody tojoin your paid membership site,
you have to give them somethingof value.
And so for me I figured outafter a bunch of trial and error
is that if I give my whyWakanda Matters book autographed

(02:43):
to everybody that joins a paidtier of my Patreon.
People want to sign up becausethey want that book and they
want it autographed, and there'sliterally nowhere else to get
an autographed book from mebesides joining my Patreon, or
or that's pretty much it, unlessI do a special thing throughout
the year where you can get anautographed book from me, which

(03:04):
I very rarely do.
Hey, everyone, real quick.
I don't run any ads on thispodcast, so I have to rely on
word of mouth.
If this podcast has helped youin any way, please share it with
a friend and follow me, drSheena Howard, on LinkedIn,
where I give more free contenton building your brand as an
academic.
If you tell me you came to myLinkedIn from the podcast, I'll

(03:28):
make sure I accept your request,and so this is something that
people can't get anywhere else,and so if they like my work and
they want this book and this isone of my favorite books they're
willing to join the Patreonsite for $7 a month or $12 a
month, because they'll get thebook mailed to them in a few
weeks.
Now, once you get them in there, obviously they're waiting for

(03:48):
this book and they might leaveafter they get the book.
So then the next trick is tomake sure that you're giving
them so much value inside themembership site that they want
to stay.
So for me, once people get in,they're going to get the book.
The book takes like three weeksto come because I got to get
them, order them, ship them allthat stuff.
But if they stay on for threemonths they get free merch.

(04:09):
It's not free, they're paidmembers.
They'll get merch.
So, like this shirt that I wear,I don't sell this on any shop.
You literally can only get it ifyou're a member of my Patreon,
and you can get mugs and allthose types of things, but only
my members can get them, so itis exclusive to them, and so I
wear my merch in a lot of myvideos.

(04:31):
People always ask me you knowhow do I get that shirt?
And the answer is on Patreon.
So as you create engaging,amazing content, you can prompt
people to DM you if they wantthe free lead magnet and tell
them hey, you join Patreon, youget the free lead magnet and
then make your stuff so valuableinside of the membership

(04:51):
program that they will want tostay.
You know, by creating engagingcontent and talking to your
audience, asking them what theywant, paying attention to the
things that they keep asking youfor over and, over and over
again, you'll get a sense andfeel for what they actually want
, and so I hope this helpssomebody out there.
And again, my name is Dr SheenaHoward.
I'm the founder of Power, yourResearch, an academic branding

(05:14):
company, and I hope you have anamazing day you.