Community Zen

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Finding and recruiting new members is the first step in growing your membership website. Without new members, your membership will quickly stagnate, resulting in loss of current members, and loss of income and profits for you. What are some of the best ways to find and recruit new members?

Know your target audience. Consider exactly what types of members you need—don’t just randomly seek out people, this is a waste of time and valuable resources. And, some call it spamming. Go to the sources where you’re most likely to find people interested in what you have to offer.

Set your sights on those targets! Once you’ve identified what types of people you need, what types of entrepreneurs, what niches, and so on, you will need to do some direct marketing and advertising to those people. You can often put posts on relevant blogs with links to your site, buy banner space on other relevant sites selling ad spots, and develop email mailing lists from other memberships. Targeting directly makes the most of your advertising time and energy—and advertising dollars.

Use current members. Your current satisfied members are a very, very valuable resource. Not only do they keep you in business, they are pivotal in recruiting others. Happy members have big mouths (or fast fingers, in Internet-speak). Get your members talking in other blogs and forums, spreading the good word about your membership and all of the great things you have to offer.

Have online meetings. When you’ve developed your membership, keep in touch with your members. Offering weekly online chat discussions (today’s version of the conference call) is a fantastic way to keep people interested. Again, those happy, interested people will invite like-minded friends who may be interested in joining your membership. Aim to impress at all times.

These are just a few simple ways that you can boost your membership recruitment and keep your members happy. Most membership websites lose members as quickly as they can sign them up. What are your special tricks for recruiting and retaining members? How do you beat the odds?

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Related posts:

1. Retention Plan
2. Which Kind of Member Are You?