Here’s some detail around their business and why they chose to work with member(dev).

Business name:
Front Row Dads

Industry / Niche:
Mastermind for Dads

Date founded:
October 2016

Mission statement / core value proposition:
Our mission is to create an intentional space where “family men with businesses” can build powerful RELATIONSHIPS, discover RESOURCES that serve your family, and deliver big RESULTS for generations to come.

Who is your membership for? (specific demographic)
Family Men with Businesses. Leaders in their space, Business owners, entrepreneurs or those with an “owners mindset”, Men who Want to put family first. Men who Believe they are worth this investment.

What makes your membership site stand out?
Our guys are badass leaders and hard charging dads who play to win. Owners of their life and experience. We offer high end deliverables, both online and in person. Our culture is unmatched and clearly modeled by each member.

What made your company decide to work with member(dev)?

A fellow Front Row Dad member, and Member(dev) Founder Ali Jafarian, not to mention the absolute perfect level of customization and incredible live support!

What words of advice do you have for those looking to grow and scale their online membership site?

Don’t lose sight or understanding of your avatar, ever. Source feedback often and empower members to be co-creators of the space.

What would you share with someone that is considering working with the member(dev) team?

I’d say congratulations! You happened upon a wonderful co-creation opportunity with an amazing team. This is your moment to get really clear on your company’s mission, avatar and product so that your relationship with Member(dev) can produce a quality, functional and meaningful members area.

MemberDev notes

We’re proud to support thought leaders and mission orientated organizations like the Front Row Dads team. Through the member(dev) platform Front Row Dads offers a wealth of resources, tools, and support to empower men in their journey as fathers and husbands. Through a community of like-minded individuals, FRD provides a space for dads to connect, learn, and grow together.

Front Row Dads also hosts live events, retreats, and workshops where fathers can come together to learn from renowned speakers, participate in discussions, and form meaningful connections with fellow dads. These gatherings offer a supportive environment for personal growth, networking, and creating lasting memories with both peers and family.

Check out Front Row Dad’s success and see how you can thrive with a custom membership site platform.

Visit Front Row Dad’s Site

The post Featured Client: Front Row Dads appeared first on MemberDev.

Here’s some detail around their business and why they chose to work with member(dev).

Business name:
Boldheart

Industry / Niche:
Business Coaching

Date founded:
November 2016

Mission statement / core value proposition:
Home to ambitious women in business who want to have it all.

Who is your membership for? (specific demographic)
Women Entrepreneurs

What makes your membership site stand out?
Our signature program is where women come to transform overwhelm, get control of their business, scale elegantly to 6 figures, multiple 6 figures (eventually a million a year, if that’s what you dream of) the feminine way, with a high focus on quality of life.

What made your company decide to work with member(dev)?

Our founder saw the real case study of Front Row Dads and saw all that was possible.

What words of advice do you have for those looking to grow and scale their online membership site?

Keep it simple. Start simple. Ask your most valued members what they need – which is often different from what you think people will want.

What would you share with someone that is considering working with the member(dev) team?

They are excellent at seeing the vision, knowing the strategy to make it happen, and then the technical tactics to make it a reality. They care about the user experience as well as the behind-the-scenes technology to make it work.

MemberDev notes

The Boldheart team wanted a world class experience, and with our help, they were able to take their existing members site to the next level of growth. Inside their platform, they are now able to remove the unnecessary reliance on complex code or developers with a simple user-friendly interface for both team members and customers. Our hands-on team allows them to stay focused on creating long-term success for their coaching clients.

With a high level community, they can streamline their existing group coaching program, provide leveraged access to different training modules and lessons all in one spot based on customized training tracks and skills.

Community events are now easier to RSVP for mastermind group sessions, live training webinars, and other important virtual events. Did I mention, coaching clients can easily find lessons, handouts, and past webinar trainings all with an easy to use search window?

The Boldheart team knows how to create a quality, world class training experience for ambitious women entrepreneurs prepared to take their place  into the next stage of growth and profits.

Check out Boldheart’s success and see how you can thrive with a custom membership site platform.

Visit Boldheart’s site.

The post Featured Client: Boldheart appeared first on MemberDev.

Here’s some detail around their business and why they chose to work with member(dev).

Business name:
Chirag Shah Coaching

Industry / Niche:
Real Estate

Date founded:
2020

Mission statement / core value proposition:
We help people succeed on their terms, exactly as they were meant to do.

Who is your membership for? (specific demographic)
Real estate agents of all levels

What makes your membership site stand out?
Our platform really differentiates us! We make it easy by centralizing all of the resources and events in one place. We have a “do it for you” mentality. A typical coach tells you what to do, we tell you how to do it and give you actual resources to do so. We consider ourselves “coach-sultants” a mix between a coach and a business consultant.

What made your company decide to work with member(dev)?

Our founder had a great experience in a program that used MemberDev, and saw it as a potentially great solution for our business model as well.

What words of advice do you have for those looking to grow and scale their online membership site?

Think about your client experience in its current state AND where it needs to be in the future. The way you give access to your clients (users) in the platform needs to be able to scale with your product/service roadmap. We learned this the hard way! We made a ton of changes to how we map out our clients and we are able to confidently grow our product suite without having to do any funky workarounds.

What would you share with someone that is considering working with the member(dev) team?

Think outside of the box and be collaborative! The MemberDev team is full of wizards who can really make your dream a reality. They were able to customize so much more than we originally knew. They really care about your vision, so give them your wishlist and see what they can make happen.

MemberDev notes

The CSC Team has an incredible mission to help real estate agents find their unique position in the market and achieve their growth goals with the right tools and support. Our team has worked closely with the CSC team to achieve streamlined membership site platform that helps reach hundreds of members so they keep coming back for more.

Check out their membership site platform!

Visit the Chirag Shah Coaching Platform

The post Featured Client: Chirag Shah Coaching appeared first on MemberDev.

Keeping track of enrollments, cancellations, member activity, and customer support can keep your business pulled in many directions making it easy for business decisions or goals to get lost in the shuffle. In this article, we highlight three essential metrics to track for membership success.

1. Monthly Recurring Revenue

Monthly recurring revenue refers to the total amount of money that comes in on a monthly basis from its members.

For membership owners, this metric is the most essential number to track for long term profitability.

Here are a few factors that contribute to your monthly recurring revenue.

• Monthly or annual subscription
• Tiered access based on product or program usage
• Seat based pricing

There are many variables that contribute to a membership’s overall monthly recurring revenue. The member(dev) team specializes in custom membership site platforms and strategic consulting by developing a long-term plan for membership site growth.

From start to finish, our team partners with mission driven organizations that build intentional online coaching communities. Through our custom membership site platform projects, our team partners with you as we co-create memorable membership site experiences, program customizations, and curated membership events for your business.

2. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

The term “customer lifetime value” describes the amount of revenue spent over the lifetime of a customer’s relationship to a business. In theory, the higher the customer lifetime value is, the more profitable a membership depending on your overhead expenses.

Customer Lifetime Value can be calculated as the amount of revenue a customer earns minus the cost of obtaining, also known as customer acquisition costs.

Increasing a membership customer lifetime value should be a top priority for membership owners . Here are just a few ways to increase your membership or organization’s CLV:

• Different pricing plans
• Providing additional services or benefits
• Creating loyalty incentives such as member discounts, merchandise, etc.

How to Calculate Customer Lifetime Value

One way to calculate customer lifetime value is average monthly revenue generated per member multiplied by the average expected lifetime of the member.

Example: If your average monthly revenue generated per member is $50 and your average expected lifetime of the member is 2 years then your customer lifetime value would be 50 X 24 months or $1,200.

Keep in mind there are many factors and variables that influence how to calculate your CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) and this is just one way to create an estimate. Identifying and tracking CLV metrics on a monthly or quarterly basis can help you see if your membership or association is on track to hit your revenue or annual recurring revenue goals.

Aligning Business Decisions Based on Customer Lifetime Value

Once you can calculate your customer lifetime value, this can guide data-driven marketing, membership enrollment and sales, as well as program development. Using this metric a company can effectively manage the marketing budget needed to spend to acquire a new member. This can be a powerful marketing tool for organizations that rely on recurring revenue and subscriptions. It gives them the ability to easily calculate the costs of customer acquisition and retention, as well as insight into which marketing channels are converting prospective members into customers.

Inside the member(dev) platform, tracking customer lifetime value is simple and effective. With our custom platform, you can also:

• Track customer lifetime value
• View revenue and sales reports
• View member activity such as logins, learning management, and course access
• Manage billing profiles
• Offer member support + communication

3. Retention Rate

Retention rate refers to the rate at which the proportion of subscribers consistently renew their membership subscriptions or dues.

A high retention rate is a sign that members are happy with their membership experience; on the other hand, a low retention rate may point to adjustments that are required to enhance the membership’s experience or value. The member(dev) platform allows you to see the current status of your members at all times such as active, cancelled, or paused subscriptions through our member dashboard which can be incredibly useful managing a large online community for coaches, staff members, or members.

Conclusion

Don’t leave important membership business decisions to guesswork or push it off entirely. Setting benchmarks and membership enrollment growth goals requires a key understanding of membership activity, data, and experience. The member(dev) platform can partner with you and your growing team to support memorable membership experiences that bring both revenue and your organization’s vision to scale.

Interested to learn more?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform and how we help membership owners with custom membership sites.

Free Platform Demo

The post 3 Essential Metrics to Track For Your Membership appeared first on MemberDev.

Here are three key signs it’s time to migrate your membership platform.

1. Content Flexibility

Once your membership site is up and running, there comes a time when your content library becomes so vast, that your members may struggle to find content. Not only can this cause a serious customer support backlog for you and your team, but it can be frustrating for members that need a simple way to visualize content within their membership platform.

This problem stems from the inability of most membership platforms to adequately categorize content libraries at scale. This challenge is one of the most frequent issues we see with scaling membership site owners, especially due to the vast amount of resources and information available to members.

Cultivate a better member experience by creating a streamlined content library that scales.

At member(dev), we’re experienced helping membership site owners with a large database of content, simplify their membership content library so members find exactly what they need to thrive and achieve their goals.

Some effective ways to improve your content library include:

• Create content categories with clear utility and access permissions.
• Provide advanced search and filtering for keyword focus.
• Organize content by topic, skill level, or content type such as articles, videos, pdf’s, and so much more.

Inside the member(dev) platform, membership site owners can leverage a wide variety of ways to organize curriculum, content, and resources. With our content library, creating content for a large audience is both simple and scalable.

Check out our full youtube video to see a full breakdown of content library included with our member(dev) platform. No matter what type of membership site you’re operating, we can support your team’s growing library of resources.

2. Lack of User Engagement

A lackluster member experience makes all the difference between cancelled members and those that stick around. Repeat members need a clear way to engage not only with curriculum and courses, but with other members via community features.

Cultivate a better member experience by building community.

As your membership site expands and grows, there are many important steps to keeping your members coming back for more each month. Building community is at the top of that list. Inside our related article 3 Stages of Growing an Online Membership Community, we outline the major milestones your membership site may experience as you build towards a true community.

With the member(dev) community platform, you can:

• Create and curate member groups with activity feeds.
• Easily organize forum topics so members discussions don’t get lost in an algorithm feed.
• Allow members to create profiles and save their favorite content.
• Review important member engagement metrics as an admin.
• And much more!

Building community is a key component to boost user engagement and realize sustainable revenue as a membership owner.

3. Course Customization

Course customization is often challenging when working with cookie cutter membership site platforms. There’s often a big gap between what membership site owners want to accomplish and what’s possible in terms of content design and functionality on a membership site platform.

That’s because standard course platforms aren’t built for customization. This causes a challenge for seasoned membership site owners who want greater flexibility in their membership site experience, and know the vision they want to deliver with their course and training content.

Cultivate a better member experience with advanced course customization.

Course customization requires the right platform and team to build out an intentional design. This starts with considering what is important to your members and how you want to serve them. Some effective ways to customize your course content include:

• Offer an easy and intuitive catalog of courses with clear access permissions.
• Integrate your course curriculum with live training and other member events.
• Allow members to track progress, save relevant resources and get curated content highlighted inside of a private members dashboard.

We highlight several membership dashboard design best practices in this article to support a more customized experience. Check out our course platform features for more options and features.

Conclusion

Delivering a unique experience for your members is a top priority for your membership platform. If you’re struggling to fit your ideas, content, and courses into a platform that isn’t built for scale, it may be time to reconsider how to invest in a solution built for long-term scalability. The member(dev) team has helped support startups and million dollar businesses create tailored membership experiences for their clients since 2012.

Interested to learn more?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform and how we help membership owners with custom membership sites.

Free Platform Demo

The post 3 Signs It’s Time to Migrate Your Membership Platform appeared first on MemberDev.

1. Highlight Member Success Stories

2. Share Behind The Scenes Exclusives

Have a team holiday party or planning new membership feature rollouts for the beginning of the year? Send an exclusive email newsletter or video highlighting member events or provide an exclusive sneak peek to the new features being worked on behind the scenes for the membership. If you offer ways for members to submit content or feature requests, this is a simple way to remind members to feel invested in the overall growth and trajectory of the membership

3. Send Digital or Physical Thank You Card

At times, you may consider sending digital or physical thank you cards to members to show gratitude for their time inside the membership. Digital ecards are a simply way to personalize and nurture relationships, especially when dealing with a high number of members. Companies like Punchbowl, JibJab, and American Greetings offer a variety of animated and humorous seasonal digital cards which can be send to multiple individuals or contacts. Physical cards can be a thoughtful way to share gratitude, especially when managing a smaller membership or for members that you’ve developed a strong personal or professional relationship with. Handywrytten provides a way to personalize digitized handwritten cards which can come handy for small teams that want to send a significant number of cards without losing a personalized touch.

Interested to learn more?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform and how we help membership owners with custom membership sites.

Free Platform Demo

4. Promote a Customer Loyalty Program

5. Personalized Gifts

Showing your members appreciation sets your membership apart, deepens connection, and can increase your overall membership satisfaction and customer lifetime value. If you need custom support to take your membership into the next stage of growth and profits, create a platform demo account or fill out a project proposal request. We’ll reach out to let you know how we can support your membership growth and income goals with our streamlined customizable membership site platform and project support team.

Want to scale your membership site?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform so we can support your membership site growth!

Free Platform Demo

The post 8 Ways to Show Members Appreciation appeared first on MemberDev.

In this article, we highlight five reasons to run a holiday sale to drive member engagement, enrollments, and increase your recurring revenue in your membership site.

1. Increase Customer Lifetime Value

2. Drive Annual Membership Sales

Increase membership commitments and engagement by promoting an annual savings on membership or providing access to holiday exclusive bonuses. Annual membership sales also increase your Q4 earnings and help pave the way for a higher level of commitment from previous monthly subscribers or prospective members.

Planning an annual membership sales campaign is a great way to forecast and plan for what Q1 support will look like, who to hire (if you’re planning for team growth), as well as secure additional financial cash flow into your business. Annual membership sales are often attract a sense or urgency for higher quality prospective members, over other alternative methods such as free trials or monthly subscriptions.

3. Presell Virtual and In-Person Events

If events are a key aspect of your membership, pre-selling individual events as an upsell for existing members or bundling these events as part of an annual or higher priced plan can help increase new membership sales. Offering holiday specific discounts such as coupon codes or special pricing for a number of seats can be a great way to boost revenue from ticket sales, especially if an event is brand new.

Keeping your membership top of mind during the busy holiday season encourages prospective members to review your other plans and pricing to prepare financially for their commitments.

Interested to learn more?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform LMS features and our course design offerings!

Free Platform Demo

4. Incentivize New Member Enrollments

5. Highlight Member Success

In conclusion, holiday sales can increase income for both existing and future members. If you’re planning on migrating your membership site (or starting a new membership) and you have a clear vision for supporting long-term growth and want step by step help, check out our free platform demo. We’ve helped multiple membership site owners develop a truly customized and unique experience for long-term membership site growth.

Want to scale your membership site?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform!

Free Platform Demo

The post 5 Reasons To Run a Holiday Sale for Your Membership appeared first on MemberDev.

All-in-one platforms have gained lots of popularity over the last few years, especially when it comes to online course platforms and online community platforms. But when it comes to building your business, there are significant benefits of leveraging tools that are the best at revenue generating activities in their respective fields. The majority of communities in growth stages will require these tools:

1. CRM (Customer Relationship Manager)

2. LMS / and or Knowledgebase

A learning management system (LMS) is used to deliver member content and training. Knowledge bases generally allow you to host customer support articles and video resources to guide the member to troubleshoot common questions or challenges. Both an LMS and a knowledge base can serve either members or internal customers such as employees or contractors depending on an organization’s need.

There are a wide variety of learning management systems with differences in price and functionality. The key considerations for choosing an LMS or Knowledge base is easy organization of content, categorization of content type such as videos, text, and media, as well as searchability for members to find relevant details. We recommend trying out the member(dev) platform by creating a free account and checking out our demo.

3. Cart or Sales Funnel Software

Online cart systems serve to initiate payment details such as member contact information like name, email address, as well as payment details such as credit card and billing address. Great sales funnel software allows businesses to design and publish landing pages such as sales pages and host lead magnet forms for acquiring and landing prospective member information and sales.

Some popular choices for funnel building softwares include the free or premium version of the WordPress Plugin Elementor which allows you to design beautiful landing pages, as well as Clickfunnels, and Leadpages. The primary consideration for selecting a cart or sales funnel software is choosing a secure website and choosing one that allows you to select from a variety of design templates.

To keep your member site secure, the member(dev) platform utilizes an SSL certificate to ensure that payments are securely received and processed through their respective payment processors such as Stripe and Paypal.

Interested to learn more?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform LMS features and our course design offerings!

Free Platform Demo

4. Community Engagement Tools

5. Event Calendar

6. Email Marketing Software

Conclusion

In conclusion, there is not a one size fits all for selecting a software to meet your community and business growth goals. When you work with member(dev), we create custom recommendations for systems that will help you scale your membership, coaching program, or online learning management system so you’ll never get an out of the box recommendation.

Need help with your course design?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform LMS features and our course design offerings!

Free Platform Demo

The post The Myth of an All-in-One Platform appeared first on MemberDev.

We’ve helped a variety of coaches, educators and thought leaders build membership communities of different types and sizes. During this time we’ve learned a lot about the different stages of growth and their respective strategies.

Here are 3 clear stages to help you on your journey.

1. Creator stage

The “Creator” stage is generally the first step of building an online community. This generally involves your initial content offering and membership model.

Some common strategies for growth in this stage include:

• Creating unique content
• Modeling your membership
• Driving early revenue
• Getting early feedback from members

Most creators can get their community off the ground via online courses, member-only content, one-on-one engagements, or other quick revenue generators. At this stage you are experimenting and failing to see what works and what doesn’t.

2. Group stage

Next is the “Group” stage where you’re building revenue and momentum around group focused engagements. This helps creators get out of the grind and allow for group activity to influence growth.

Some common strategies for growth in this stage include:

• Curating group engagements and discovery
• Offering “LIVE” content
• Building member-to-member networking opportunities
• Leveraging supplementary content

This group stage can be a breath of fresh air for solo founders who are looking to free up time and let other voices contribute to the membership value. At this stage you are creating the foundations for your community.

3. Community stage

The final “Community” stage is where you’re allowing the community to grow itself. This is the ultimate goal for most organizations and thought leaders who wish to build something that can run without them being heavily involved.

Some common strategies for growth in this stage include:

• Creating and managing culture
• Leveraging systems and automations to scale
• Building member created content engines
• Driving value through connection and community

There’s a great saying in the community world – “People come for the content, but stay for the community.” You will realize that at this stage. In other words, if you’ve built a true community that can grow itself the content will become secondary. At this stage you have created something that will evolve into its own thing far beyond what you initially created.

Summary

There are certainly micro stages within each of these 3 stages, and each membership community certainly has its own unique needs. However, hopefully this post provides you with a high level overview of helpful insight and strategies.

Planning a membership community?

Get a free platform demo and strategy session with our team!

Get Started

The post 3 Stages of Growing an Online Membership Community appeared first on MemberDev.

Well-designed courses help meet the needs of their students by focusing on learning activities that support members goals. By creating clear learning outcomes, you can structure your coaching to guide them to their end goal. In this article, we will highlight several strategies to create effective course curriculum design for your coaching program, membership, or mastermind.

1. Start With The End In Mind

As you plan out your lessons and coaching curriculum, consider your audience and their learning needs. Identify the end result your students need to achieve and map out the key building blocks of your course. Once the end goal is clearly defined, you can create a roadmap that supports a member’s learning from basic knowledge to higher levels of understanding and application. Consider that each lesson builds off of the previous concepts until you ultimately examine more advanced concepts. 

With member(dev), you can attribute specific course tags such as beginner, intermediate, or advanced to indicate the level of skill or difficulty or organize your courses by topic. This makes learning simple and effective for members to engage with your courses and achieve their goals. Members can also save and favorite specific content so they take action. Sell courses a la carte or bundle them inside of a membership with our sleek and secure cart checkout system. Integrate with Paypal, Stripe, and more within our platform. Take a look at our full breakdown of features and benefits in this review of the Top 5 Online Course Platforms for Coaches. 

2. Structure Your Lessons

When creating your lessons, start by identifying the topics that will be covered. Keep lessons to the point and avoid extraneous information. Ideally, your lesson duration should be short to support student’s end goals. Try to use a variety of different types of media to support your lesson such as videos, podcasts, and text lessons. For example, a combination of video and an associated activity can be used to demonstrate and reinforce the concepts that are being discussed in the lesson. 

Member(dev) allows you to embed video content, Soundcloud audio clips, text, and photos for your course lessons. Add learning activities like PDF documents, related videos, or other related files for students to engage with the learning material. Members can track lesson progress and admins have the ability to access and review member engagement within the platform. Course lessons can be shared in one click using permalinks making it simple to support student learning. 

3. Design for Engagement

Course engagement starts with great membership dashboard design. Avoid overwhelming your members with too much information. Create a way for members to stay engaged with your courses by making it easy to access. With member(dev), members can search for courses with our search bar. Easily allow members to engage with your latest content using the member(dev) dashboard. Once members login, they’ll be able to see and access the new content in a click. 

Centralize social conversations with members with associated groups and forums. By adding discussions to your courses, you can help students work through topic related questions or provide additional resources to students. Community groups have long been a pivotal piece for coaching programs. With member(dev), we streamline online communities and courses in one centralized location inside the member dashboard. 

Interested to learn more?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform LMS features and our course design offerings!

Free Platform Demo

4. Create a Learning Path

5. Accountability

Keeping your members accountable with their goals is an important part of growing your membership. By actively getting members involved, you create a supportive learning environment to support the overall learning goals of the community. One way to keep members accountable is through milestones or checkpoints. Using gamification such as badges or a point system also encourages students to engage with the curriculum. 

Additionally, you can allow students to track their own progress inside of courses and lessons. With member(dev), admins can review analytics including student logins, page and content activity, order history allowing you to support students and create an incredible learning experience. Simple admin needs such as resetting passwords, member upgrades, and course enrollments are easy with our platform. Lastly, there’s something incredibly amazing about some 1:1 and community support. Receive feedback from members through our feedback form inside the platform and ask members questions inside our forum or online groups. Accountability is an effective strategy that pays you back with more repeat business. 

Conclusion

The options are infinite when it comes to designing effective courses that support member learning. At member(dev), we’ve helped dozens of membership owners create custom membership sites that engage and delight their members for years. Are you our next case study? Get started with a free platform demo – and you’ll be quick to see how simple it is to stay in your zone of genius while we develop the membership site you’ve always wanted. 

Need help with your course design?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team to learn about the member(dev) platform LMS features and our course design offerings!

Free Platform Demo

The post Effective Course Design for Coaches appeared first on MemberDev.

In this article, we highlight the best WordPress community plugins so you can choose the right one for your business.

What is a WordPress Community Plugin?

A WordPress community plugin allows members to share content with each other created and hosted on your WordPress website. Many businesses are choosing to use their websites as an alternative to Facebook groups (once the most popular community groups) as a means of communicating with their customers.

Private communities like memberships, masterminds, coaching programs, associations, or even chamber of commerce can benefit from interacting directly with paying customers in an easy to navigate and highly customizable website.

1. member(dev)

Member(dev) is an all-in-one platform that offers robust community features and capabilities. It’s far more than a plugin, but is built on WordPress and leverages plugin architecture to scale online communities. It’s also designed specifically for coaches, educators and thought leaders seeking to grow their online community.

Out of the box, member(dev) creates and hosts your custom membership platform. It incorporates online courses, a private content library, customizable event calendar, and powerful community plugin features, including:

• Member Profiles and Directory
• Groups and activity feeds
• Member Forums and Discussion threads
• And more

Member(dev) also comes with flexible customization features and access capabilities to help you grow your group coaching program. For example, if you sell a digital product, you can customize community group access based on product or subscription status. If you sell group coaching packages, you can provide an easy to manage way for members to post topics and ask questions within an online forum. Free and premium members can customize their profile image, name, and can be added to a private member directory.

You can also influence buying decisions by utilizing our restricted access messaging when free members or paying members with a lower paying tier review premium features that require a higher level subscription. For instance, if a free user attempts to access a premium event or community group, they’ll receive a customized message which asks them to upgrade their subscription level. Customers can easily upgrade their membership status or subscription level by using our easy to use and secure checkout pages. In short, customizable community forums is of many reasons why over 20+ membership and coaching program owners choose member(dev) to create and host their custom membership site.

Interested to learn more?

Get a free platform demo for your online community!

Free Platform Demo

2. BuddyBoss

BuddyBoss is an online community plugin built on WordPress that allows you to host private member content. The community dashboard allows members to customize their profiles, post photos, message members, follow “friends”, and like and comment on posts creating a very similar experience to the Facebook newsfeed and groups.

BuddyBoss also allows you to host and sell courses and setup membership and subscription access. The BuddyBoss Platform Pro plugin is sold along with their BuddyBoss website theme and licensing is offered per site. Mobile application is also sold as a separate product subscription.

3. Peepso

Peepso is a free and premium WordPress community plugin. Similar to Buddyboss, Peepso’s community dashboard is reminiscent of a Facebook newsfeed look and feel. Members can customize their profile and cover photos, customize their notifications, post, comment, and reply to other members. You can also send and receive direct messages. Community topics are also organized by hashtags which you can customize at any time. Wordfilter also allows you to censor or prevent unwanted language within a community. Peepso does not offer course or membership hosting which makes this a primarily social or community based plugin.

4. BuddyPress

BuddyPress, not to be confused with BuddyBoss, is a community plugin that allows user to create, comment, and reply to posts and topics. BuddyPress’s plugin utilizes the bbPress forum features, so you’ll see many similarities in terms of the look and feel for community forum posts. Unlike other community plugins, BuddyPress plugin does not offer private course or host content outside of forum posts, so it may not be the right option if you are looking for a customizable course platform.

5. bbPress

If you’re looking for a free and simple community plugin, bbPress allows members to post, comment and reply to topics. Users can customize their avatar image before publishing topics. While simplicity is key with this open source plugin, the downside is that many of these forum features lack an modern and sleek interface making it appear outdated. bbPress’ website also appears to lack recent activity on their own forums so plugins appear less frequent which may be a concern if you need continued plugin support.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are countless WordPress community plugins free and paid. So if you are looking for a plugin that will make your website exactly what you want it to be, then reach out to us and inquire about a custom quote. The benefit of having a custom membership site is to allow you to create the type of online community and content library that drives engagement and an improved customer experience for your online membership, association, or group coaching program.

Need help deciding?

Schedule a free platform demo with our team! We’ll discuss your needs and establish if our platform is a good fit. If not, we’ll point you in the right direction

Free Platform Demo

The post Top Community Plugins for WordPress appeared first on MemberDev.

At member(dev) we’ve built a lot of dashboards with unique features and user experiences. We’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Here’s an overview of some membership dashboard design best practices.

First, what is a membership dashboard?

Membership dashboards are typically the starting point or “home page” for your membership experience. This is where users land after logging in to their membership. This is also arguably the most important page for any membership website or application.

Common examples:

• Member Dashboard for online learning site
• Member Dashboard for online community site
• Starting point for a media app (i.e. Netflix, Disney+, etc.)
• Starting point for social media app
• Account homepage for online banking
• etc.

Best Practices

Now let’s discuss some design best practices that help with usability and user experience.

1. Account personalization

One of the simplest and most important design elements is account personalization. This personalizes the experience and helps users identify with their membership. This can also be very subtle in terms of the user experience. It’s essential to include account personalization so your members feel welcome and recognized.

Common examples:

• Welcome greeting with name / photo personalization
• Account dropdown menu

2. Curated content

Curated content gives your dashboard some visual appeal and focus. It’s essential as a means to guide your members to important content, especially early on in their user experience.

Common examples:

• Foundational content
• Guided learning tracks
• Focus content and CTAs (call-to-actions)

3. Key quick links

Another important design element is key quick links. These are links to important areas in the user experience that members should be aware of. By adding these links you save them time and remove potential confusion.

Common examples:

• Start Here links
• Manage Account links
• Explore content links
• Popular links

4. New member onboarding

New member onboarding is a critical design element for any online membership or community. This provides clear direction and instructions for new members. A dedicated area for new member onboarding will boost engagement, retention and help new users feel welcome to your membership. This is a must have element for growing online communities.

Common examples:

• New Here area
• New Member Orientation area
• Getting Started area

5. Community metrics

If you’re membership experience aims to build community, displaying metrics can be a healthy way to support the growth strategy. Showing user activity and contributions will help members feel aligned and recognized with their membership.

Common examples:

• Membership stats
• Referral leaderboards
• Top contributors

6. Latest and Greatest

Another helpful design element is showing the latest and greatest content or activity in your user experience. This gives your members quick access to recently published content without them needing to hunt for it. It also reinforces the value you’re creating every time they log in. As your community grows you can also start to display the most popular content to encourage engagement.

Common examples:

• Latest articles and resources
• Latest member activity
• Latest videos
• Most popular content

7. Easy Access to Help & Support

A final design element is easy access to help and support. This might seem obvious but you’d be surprised how hard some digital experiences make it to find help and support. Give your member a quick and easy way to find help when they need it.

Common examples:

• Prominent Help & Support link
• Member Feedback form
• Chat with Us widget

Here are a few great examples of membership dashboard designs from member(dev) clients.

Piano With Jonny

Online piano membership (Education)

Key Features:

• Personalization
• Quick links
• New here onboarding
• User progress (advanced feature)
• Upcoming events
• Latest content

Front Row Dads

Digital membership experience (Mastermind)

Key Features:

• Event CTA
• Curated content focus
• Community metrics
• User Leaderboard (advanced feature)
• Upcoming events
• Latest content

Backpacking Light

Online backpacking community (Education)

Key Features:

• Personalization
• Latest news / alerts
• Quick links
• Latest member activity
• Latest content

Hopefully that gives you a nice overview of effective membership dashboard designs.

Need some help?

Are you designing or creating a dashboard experience for your online membership? If so, check out our platform to get instant access to great design elements in this article!

Get Started

The post Membership Dashboard Design Best Practices appeared first on MemberDev.

The challenge can be ensuring your online learning platform provides immediate access to the right learning materials, community, video content, and events to your customers. Fortunately, we’ve created a review of these top online course platforms for coaches.

Online Learning Platforms for Coaches

1. member(dev)

Creating and selling online courses is simple and streamlined with our platform. As a customized done with you (or for you – depending on your needs) course website and learning platform, our platform provides the the advanced customization necessary to drive repeat course sales. We also provide some advanced community features that connect natively with your course and content offerings.

Best for Scaling Membership Site Owners & Business Coaches

If you’re tired of lackluster basic plans that don’t provide the type of customization needed for superior online teaching experiences – then, Member(dev) is the golden child of online course platforms. Here are some of our and our client’s favorite features.

• Advanced Content Library – Offer your students to search and filter past coaching sessions, handouts, or special sessions with subject matter experts. Your students won’t have to worry about where to find your most valuable online training lessons.
• Customized Event Access – Host online or in-person events and grant access to the right customers all in one place. If you have multiple tiers in your membership, mastermind, or subscription – you can simplify hosting all your events from one calendar. Limit access to customers based on their membership level or product purchase.
• Private Communities Features – If you have been wanting to move your community off of social media platforms like Facebook, you’re not alone. In one of our more recent articles, we discuss alternatives to hosting your community on FB groups. Our platform allows you to customize your community groups and topics by membership level or tier. You can even host a free “membership” community and invite your prospective customers to start the conversation and access curriculum all in one place.
• Unlimited Courses & Students – Unlike some platforms which stifle creativity and coaches from monetizing their knowledge, we don’t charge per student or number of courses. We’ve helped hundreds of membership site owners scale with unlimited courses and content resulting in thousands of impacted students over the globe. The possibilities are endless with the flexibility of our platform.
• Simplified Landing Pages – Our simple salespage templates allow you to plug and play all the features and benefits of your membership site. If you use an external page builder like Clickfunnels, Leadpages, Showit, or Wix, you can easily connect up your funnels to our platform.

Interested to learn more?

Get a free platform quote for your coaching business!

Free Platform Quote

2. Teachable

Best for Beginner Course Creators

On their basic plan, Teachable offers course creators and unlimited courses and students.

• Basic course creation – Create courses, basic quizzes, and drip content over time. Teachable also offers course design templates in which you can customize your curriculum onto their platform. Common email integrations (Mailchimp, Sumo, Convertkit,etc.) are native to the platform, however more advanced integrations may require a higher tiered plan or utilizing Zapier.
• Premium Course Features – On their higher tiered plans, Teachable offers Zapier and other 3rd party integrations, course completion certificates, and upsells. Plans and pricing may vary based on the features you want to customize to your business. For a full comprehensive view on plans and pricing see Teachable’s website.

Seasoned course creators or business owners migrating to this course platform might find some of the advanced features lacking in terms of 1:1 ongoing support. For instance migrating students is only available on the highest tiered plan as well as Public API, advanced reporting, and developer customization.

While these advanced features may not be a large need for beginner course creators, established businesses may want to evaluate their systems and ongoing developer requirements before migrating course platforms or adding new courses into the course platform.

3. Kajabi

Best All-in-One Platform

ajabi’s basic plan offers an advanced landing page builder, course hosting platform, and simplistic email marketing options. Mobile apps are frequently a topic of interest for online course consumers and Kajabi does offer a responsive course platform through their marketplace app. Unfortunately, this app is not whitelabeled and you can’t utilize a custom domain or logo. Another downside is that each plan has course limitations. When you increase the number of offered courses, the monthly fee increases as you scale.

• Basic Course Plan – On Kajabi’s basic course plan, you’re limited to 3 courses but do have access to unlimited landing page and marketing emails. The number of active members (such as subscribers on a membership, admin, or course) and contacts (such as customers and prospective leads) are limited based on which plan you select.
• Landing Page Builder– Kajabi offers a comprehensive landing page builder and website templates for membership site owners. More experienced website designers might find their templates and page builder restrictive, however those without a comprehensive website design or building background will find the the templates helpful to begin the design process. You can review full details about pricing plans on this Kajabi’s website.

Some challenges with Kajabi include limitations on products (even the highest tiered plan is limited to 100 products). Contact size is also limited to 100,000- so if you’re looking for an enterprise solution this may not be a match for your organization or team. Support for Kajabi at the highest tier only provides 1 “Activation” call which will provide you with an overview of how to find success using their platform and ongoing chat and ticket support after that.

4. Thinkific

Best for Certificate Programs

Thinkific offers some essential core features including unlimited courses, students, and quiz creation. When it comes to creating curriculum and lesson types, Thinkific is a great starting point for providing a unique customer experience.

• Basic Course Plan – On their lowest paid plan you can embed video content and text lessons as well as host downloadable content such as PDF files or workbooks. Courses are organized in course library and can be customized based on pre-designed visual templates. The Thinkific Marketplace also offers supplementary 3rd party integrations and subscription services from other softwares that complement Thinkific’s subscription.
• Course Certificates & SCORM Compliance– On the higher paid plans, Thinkific offers custom certificates based on course, advanced graded quizzes, and legally compliant course hosting or SCORM so you can host curriculum created on Captivate, Articulate, and more.

The con of using Thinkific is that the pricing plans are complex and features are not as clear. For a full breakdown of pricing and plans, see Thinkfic’s website. One example of this is “unlimited students”. While you may be able to host unlimited students, Thinkific charges a flat fee once you surpass a certain number of students over 1,000 under their “Growth Plan Add-on”. Thinkific also charges a sales tax fee based on your existing state or country, which can add up over time.

Thinkific’s landing page builder also lacks the type of customization elements that experienced website designers use such as not having Google font integration, limited color palettes, and limited ability to customize the look and feel of the course library and student dashboard.

5. Podia

Best for Bloggers & Affiliate Marketing

Podia’s simple user interface makes it a popular affordable choice for bloggers and content creators. The biggest benefit for bloggers is the ability to leverage revenue share through their affiliate option (available on their highest paid tier). This makes the most sense for content creators that want to sell simple digital products and online courses to their online audience without the highly advanced features of other platforms.

• Basic Course Plan – Sell courses, bundles, and memberships with their basic plan. Though some might find the lesson format and course layout a bit simplistic, if you want to create a new course from scratch quickly Podia makes it easy. While there are some limitations on the look and feel of the lesson structure, you do have options such as video hosting and hosting PDF files, HTML embeds, and PDF downloads. Landing page customizations are more robust including Google Font integration, more customizable color choices, and simplistic block format layouts (if you want to build a landing page from scratch). For a comprehensive pricing breakdown, review Podia’s site.
• Affiliate marketing– Payout processes can be a pain if you don’t have an automated way to send payments to partners, influencers, or affiliates. With the higher tiered plans, you can customize invitations to your affiliates and payouts happen automatically once setup.

If you’re looking for a simple setup for your course content or membership site, Podia is a great startup option. Some of the features that Podia is lacking are event hosting, especially for those that offer a large number of virtual or in person events. You may want to consider using a software that allows you to showcase your calendar events all in one place.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many different considerations to use when it comes to choosing or migrating to a new course platform including pricing, video content hosting options, landing page building design, and community and event access. If you’re looking for customized and development support for your membership or coaching program, check out our free content library and signup for quote to determine your needs.

The post Top 5 Online Course Platforms for Coaches appeared first on MemberDev.

Masterminds generally offer an exclusive group of people private access to information, knowledge and other people (connections). Membership platforms are a perfect compliment to your mastermind, whether it’s online or offline.

A well architected membership platform can help with:

• Value perception
• New member onboarding
• Billing and membership payments
• Content and knowledge sharing
• Event calendar and registration
• Private community groups, forums and messaging
• And much more…

In fact, an online portal or members area is becoming a default expectation for most modern day masterminds.  As technology continues to evolve, so does the need to give your members robust membership tools.

Normal vs Custom Platforms

There are different ways to build a membership platform.  Two common paths include:

DIY platforms

Do-it-yourself platforms offer you prebuilt tools and features to build a membership platform.  They typically have limited features and a monthly fee for use of their platform.  DIY platforms are a great option for people just getting started in the online world.

DIY is ideal if:

• You’re new to online memberships and communities
• Your business is in the early stages
• You are a solo team

Custom platforms

Custom platforms offer you a lot of the same tools and features as a DIY platform, but with more flexibility and options.  They typically provide more advanced features and variable pricing models.  Custom platforms are a great option for more established businesses.

Custom is ideal if:

• You have experience with memberships and communities
• Your business is in the growth stages
• You have a team greater than one

Advantages of Custom Platforms

Building a custom membership platform offers some unique advantages that normal platforms cannot offer.  These advantages can create a lot of extra value for mastermind groups and more niche communities.

Below are some of the key selling points.

Unique User Experience

The main selling point is to give your members a unique user experience.  Basically, an online experience that represents your brand in a professional and intuitive way.  This will set you apart from your competition and help with member retention and engagement.

For example, you might want to offer some unique features around member onboarding that DIY platforms cannot offer.  This type of user experience can be vital to your retention and engagement metrics as you grow.

Ownership of Data / Content

The next selling point is having ownership of your data and content.  Many DIY platforms control all the data and content that flows through their platform.  You are essentially leasing their technology and trusting that they will make the data accessible to you.

On the contrary, a custom platform will give you full access to the data, content and overall ownership rights.  This may be a big factor for your mastermind with evolving user privacy concerns and data protection.

Custom Integrations

A final selling point relates to the customization opportunities with other tools.  If you run a growing mastermind you’re probably using different services and apps to accommodate different needs.  A custom platform will generally provide you with more flexibility to integrate these tools, and then customize them as needed.

For example, we work with a lot of clients that are actively growing their coaching businesses.  These businesses rely on other tools like CRMs, email marketing platforms, Zapier, etc.  A custom platform will give you more flexibility to integrate and work with such tools as your needs evolve and become more specific.  Basic integrations are very different than custom integrations.

Built for Growth

Ultimately, most custom platforms are built for growth. They are designed with more advanced features that can help growth stage businesses get to 7-figure revenue and beyond. Basically, custom platforms will serve you well if you’re looking to scale.

How to Build a Custom Platform

Now that we understand some of the advantages of a custom platform, the next logical question is how to build one for your mastermind.  Here is a general overview of what to expect:

1) Plan

The first step is to establish a solid plan for your project.  This typically includes:

• Setting goals and objectives
• Deciding on your different membership levels, which should match a customer journey
• Mapping out all your feature requirements
• Creating a content production plan
• Creating a community management plan
• Deciding on a platform or team to help you

2) Develop

Next, it’s time to bring this new platform to life.  Here are some common things to expect when executing a new platform build:

• Member registration, checkout and onboarding
• Core feature development
• Content and community access
• Payment integration
• Email integration
• Other 3rd party integrations (i.e. Zapier)

3) Launch

Finally, it’s time to launch!  Here are some guidelines for launch best practices:

• Establish a pre-launch checklist
• Test your membership access and UX
• Create your launch timeline and promotion strategy
• Push the big red “LAUNCH” button! (or make equivalent DNS updates)
• Trigger email marketing campaigns

That’s the abbreviated version at least!  There are a lot of factors and decisions that go into building a custom membership platform, but this should point you in the right direction.

Need help?

If you haven’t figured it out by now, we just so happen to help people plan, develop and launch custom membership platforms.  If you’re a coach, educator or thought leader seeking to grow your mastermind get in touch!  We’d love to see if our platform and process would be a good fit.

Get Started

The post Grow Your Mastermind with a Custom Membership Platform appeared first on MemberDev.

We’ve developed a variety of online communities here at member(dev).  From private coaching groups to full blown passionate communities.  We’ve helped a variety of businesses and organizations plan, develop and launch their online community platforms.

Here’s a quick overview on the essential components to consider for your online membership community.

1. Content Library
2. Member Directory
3. Event Calendar
4. Groups & Activity Feeds
5. Forums
6. Courses
7. Affiliate Program
8. Private Podcast

Content Library

One of the most overlooked and critical features of an online membership community is a content library.  There is a saying in the business world:

“People come for the content, they stay for the community.”

This is why having a well designed content library is key for your initial member onboarding.  Every community has some type of content to share whether it’s Zoom call replays or advanced training material.  Giving your members easy access to community related content will add immediate value early on.

Key features and considerations:

• Simple and clear navigation
• Search and advanced filtering
• Content favoriting (bookmarking)

Member Directory

Most online membership communities will benefit from having a Member Directory.  This allows members and admins to find each other, network and communicate more effectively.  Giving your members a private directory adds to the “exclusivity” factor of the community your building.

Key features and considerations:

• Custom member profiles
• Directory search and filtering
• Private member-to-member messaging

Event Calendar

Another great component for your community is a member-only event calendar.  This can be used to display things like community events, workshops, group coaching calls, and much more.  Having a private calendar will be a huge value add for people looking to engage and interact in the community.

Key features and considerations:

• Add to calendar sync with Google/Outlook/iCal
• RSVP system for members
• Event resources and media

Groups & Activity Feeds

Member groups and activity feeds are another valuable asset for online membership communities.  This offers your members clear structure and organization for community interests and daily interaction.  It also allows you to grow from “network effects” as your community starts to drive itself through organic member engagement.

Key features and considerations:

• Commenting and notifications
• File / media sharing
• Access settings for public vs private groups

Forums

Forums are the last key component to consider for your community.  Not every online community will need these, but in general, forums are a great way to house evergreen topics and discussion threads.  These are different from dynamic activity feeds in the sense that they last or stay prioritized for important discussions.

Key features and considerations:

• Forum subscription / notification system
• Organized topic threads
• Moderation settings for admins and curators

Bonus Features

Here are some additional features that will add value and depth to your community as you grow.

Courses

Online courses are a great way to add curriculum based content to your community experience.  These can be used for things like certifications, member learning paths, and eventual gamification strategies.  Courses also provide you with new revenue opportunities and customer lifetime value growth.

Key features and considerations:

• Course progress tracking
• Downloads and resources
• Quizzes and smart forms

Affiliate Program

Offering an affiliate or ambassador program is a great way to reward your member referrals and incentivize organic marketing.  Affiliate programs can be a huge asset for member led communities that promote a mission-driven culture.  They can also serve as a primary growth channel for your business or organization.

Key features and considerations:

• Easy registration and approval process
• Affiliate dashboard and reporting
• Referral email notifications

Private Podcast

A new and upcoming component to consider is a private podcast.  Podcasts have exploded in the last decade and are quickly becoming a primary medium for how people consume information.  Offering a member-only podcast is a great way to diversify your content offerings.

Key features and considerations:

• Easy subscription / download access
• Protected podcast feed / URL
• Multi-channel distribution

Need some guidance / help?

Get in touch!  We offer a customized service to help you design, build and launch your own community platform.  This will give you the confidence, clarity and control to launch and grow your online community!

Get Started

The post Essential Features for Online Membership Communities appeared first on MemberDev.