Welcome to The Publisher Newsletter, by Media Voices.

This feature has been written in partnership with Memberful. Hear more in our interview with Jen Matichuk, Strategic Partnerships Manager at Memberful, discussing how membership programmes can bring publishers reliable recurring revenues and audience connections.

What makes membership models successful for publishers? Tips from Memberful

With advertising revenue shrinking and audience behaviours constantly shifting, publishers are increasingly exploring new ways to generate sustainable income, often turning to memberships as a solution. But what makes the membership model so compelling for publishers?

According to Jen Matichuk, Strategic Partnerships Manager at membership platform Memberful, the core advantage for publishers developing membership programmes is revenue diversification. She says, in a world where advertising dollars can dry up overnight or algorithm changes slash traffic, reader revenue models provide stability.

Whether publishers talk about subscriptions, memberships, or paid content, the overarching idea is to generate income from readers. “You want some reliable, recurring revenue to come in,” she explains.

Jen describes Memberful as a tool to help publishers start building memberships on their own sites, and then to manage and grow from free programmes to paid. “We try to make it as simple as possible,” she says.

Direct connections

Relationships are the foundation of any reader revenue play and Jen says the success of the membership models lies in its ability to foster a direct connection between publisher and audience. “People don’t want to just pay for something that they don’t feel is returning value beyond just a few pieces of content. They’re not going to pay for it over and over and over again without some sort of connection.”

Memberful, like its parent company Patreon, integrates directly with platforms like Discord and Discourse, allowing publishers to embed community functionality into their membership offerings. She says publishers are also building their own integrations to reach their audiences where they are active: “They’re meeting their audience where they’re at so that they can feel out these connections, create deeper connections and retain these folks for longer.”

Too many publishers pay lip service to the idea of community and Jen says the only real measure of a successful community is broad interaction.She explains that your audience need to be talking to you but also to each other, creating conversations based on what they’ve subscribed to.

“You’re building out something that is building loyalty,” she says. “It’s building high retention because they know that if they left that community, they wouldn’t be able to have those conversations.”

The shift from content delivery to community host may feel unfamiliar to publishers, but it’s central to building sustainable memberships and Jen says that’s where the real transformation happens.

Community ‘chatter’ becomes your daily content, keeping people engaged between your regular publishing schedule, giving your audience a reason to come back every day. “You’re still moderating the conversation, like a panel at a conference,” says Jen, “but you don’t have to drive the narrative.”

Keep it simple

Tiered memberships are a common feature in memberships, but Jen says it’s OK for publishers to start out with a simpler single-tier offer to avoid overwhelming the audience with choices. “I don’t think tiers are necessarily for everybody,” she says. “If you can’t figure out a way to differentiate between several different tiers, that’s a very obvious thing – you should probably only do one tier.”

However, as a membership programme matures, tiers can offer readers a reason to upgrade. Where lower-tier membership might just provide access to a community forum, a mid-tier offer could unlock exclusive content and newsletters, and a top-tier might include access to premium events or even input into editorial decisions.

Jen says the key is delivering value. However, that isn’t necessarily about a direct exchange of goods and in some cases, a mission-based approach to membership yields higher retention than more transactional models.

Citing the example of Vox, she spotlights membership models built on contributions made to support the publisher mission. “They were our client for four years and they built their entire membership on contributions. They just said contributing to us helps us keep our explanatory journalism free for everybody.”

Jen acknowledges that converting any free reader into a paying member is a challenge, but says the first step is to get them to give you something, specifically an email address in exchange for site access. “Giving you something shows that they have one foot in the door,” she explains.

At this point, you can begin to better understand user behaviour and refine your offering based on what drives interest and value. Jen says Memberful clients often use custom sign-up questions to learn why people join. “If you have 100 people sign up and 99 of them said they’re becoming a member because of the Discord, it’s pretty obvious that you should be sharing a lot about the Discord.”

Evolving memberships

Jen points out that it is important for publishers to evolve their membership offerings over time; adding new tiers, experimenting with formats, or introducing value-added perks like niche newsletters or premium events.

While the first six to twelve months of a membership programme will be focused on growth, there is a risk that could plateau as early members start to churn. “Once you’re past that year mark, you’re going to have to start to think about what value did I offer, how can I continue to offer that value, and how can I expand on that value?”

In this sense, product development can be a powerful retention strategy, but Jen says it can also support acquisition. “Product development can help acquisition and retention at the exact same time”, she says, “building out your product based on what people are already saying, but at the same time you finally launched something that [people] are going to convert for.”

While there is no magic formula for membership, Jen believes in a membership mindset focused on ‘guessing and checking’. She says, “Not everything you launch immediately is going to be successful. You have to give it the runway to get to the place where it can take off. You have to try new things until it feels like, OK, that’s sticking.”

For Jen, publishers considering the introduction of memberships should be thinking about more than revenue; building something your audience wants to be part of is a key part of any membership strategy.

“Memberful is a great platform for a lot of publishers to build off. We plug in directly with websites and you own all your own content. We just help protect it, sitting in the background doing all the hard stuff while you’re building out a successful membership.”

This edition of The Publisher Podcast & Newsletter is sponsored by Memberful. 

Memberful is a best-in-class membership solution trusted by some of the web’s most prominent journalists, independent publishers, podcasters, reporters, and bloggers. 

Whether you are looking to diversify your revenue, operate with editorial independence, or build a deeper relationship with your audience, Memberful provides exactly what you need to protect your content and offer exclusive membership perks to your loyal followers. 

Plus, getting started is simple with Memberful’s built-in features and seamless integrations with WordPress, MailChimp, Discord, and all of your favorite tools. 

Interested in exploring membership but not sure where to begin? 

Let us help guide you through the process.

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