Get your audience excited before you launch

As you scale your creative career, determined to grow your supporters and turn your passion into income, you may be excited to find out that an online membership can help you reach and in some cases exceed your goals!

But how do you help your supporters feel that same enthusiasm you have? It’s hard to go from freemium to paid content, but with the right strategies you can engage your audience and make your membership site launch a success.

Ready to move forward with your launch? Don’t be nervous. Here are a few marketing strategies that will help you generate buzz and get your audience ready to become members of your growing business!

Alert your supporters via your current platform

You have an audience, whether it’s on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch or your blog, and they support your work with each view and like. If you have an online tip jar and it rarely goes empty, it’s time to start teasing your audience that more content (and value!) is coming their way via a membership site.

Let them know across all platforms that you’ve been scheming for months to bring them more content and finally have a plan to do so. Don’t drop the membership bomb and walk away though.

Once you start talking about it, keep them informed on why you’re doing it, what they should expect, and that you’ll be sharing more details leading up to the launch.

Also, once you start teasing them, you can start posting a daily countdown with fun throwbacks of your content or by asking them what their favorite content has been so far. It will help them see how far you’ve come, give them a look at what’s to come, and gives you insight into what to do next.

Start sending a weekly newsletter

Build on those initial teases and countdowns through social media through your newsletter. Your subscriber list can be a valuable marketing tool. You can write behind-the-scenes sneak peeks of rewards and upcoming content and also start a countdown to the launch.

You can also tease out the rewards for each tier (if applicable) with fun photos or screenshots. This way your audience can see what they’re in for if they join your membership site and what to plan for budget-wise in advance.

Forming a community around your creative work will help you transition seamlessly into a paid model. A newsletter is a good way to ask for feedback — for example, what kind of rewards does your audience want once they sign up? what kind of content would they like to see? It’s all about making sure the audience feels involved and that you’re working on this together.

Go live for a Q&A

Once you’re a few days into your launch campaign and you have your audience excited about what’s to come, tell them to save the date for a live Q&A through Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. Depending on what platform your audience is in, you can either have them share the questions with you live via Instagram or leave comments under your video or post. Make sure to give them a deadline to submit them by so you have time to categorize them.

Once you’ve gathered all of them, take your time coming up with thoughtful answers and then go live on video to answer them. Providing them with live answers on their deepest concerns about value, your intentions behind transitioning your model, and why you’re re-examining your goals will help them feel heard.

At the end of the video, thank them for being engaged through the process and tell them how excited you are for this new chapter. You can also let them know you’ll be live on launch day to take them through the new site.

Give out promo codes or special swag

Reward early subscribers and those that have been loyal since the beginning by giving them special early access to the content and ask them to help you promote your new rewards and offerings via social media.

To gather even more buzz, offer a promo code or special swag for those who sign up for your site on the launch date. Having a limited-time deliverable or special discount will encourage potential subscribers to jump in and take advantage.

Don’t let your nerves cloud how much good work you’ve done preparing for launch day and putting together valuable content for your subscribers. You’ve been creating free content to this day and involving your loyal community in the process will help them feel engaged with your brand.

Conclusion: How to get people excited for your membership launch

Are you ready to move forward with your launch? Don’t be nervous. With the right strategies you can engage your audience and make your membership site launch a success. Let's do this!