Member newsletter guide

Easily set up a member newsletter using our hosted website feature. Get started quickly with our super-simple tools at no extra cost. Plus, explore our latest website-building feature to enhance your online presence and offer public or private content

How to build a member newsletter

1. Sign up for Memberful.
2. Create your plans.
3. Allow free registration.
4. Add paid plan purchase links to your website.
5. Create a members-only post.
6. Customize your branding.
7. Send your members-only newsletter.
8. Test the member experience.
9. Go live.

Sign up for Memberful

To get started, sign up for Memberful, which is free while you're in test mode.

Create your plans

You'll want to set up some membership plans that people can subscribe to.

Log in to your Memberful dashboard, navigate to the plans tab, and click New Plan. Fill in the details and settings for your plan and click Create Plan. Learn more about creating membership plans.

Thinking of selling multiple plans? Enable the upgrade/downgrade settings.

Allow free registration

Our free registration feature enables your members to sign up without any cost or obligation for a paid subscription.

To enable this feature, navigate to the customize tab in your Memberful dashboard, click Free registration and toggle on Allow free registration. Learn more about allowing free registration.

Add paid plan purchase links to your website

Copy the purchase link from the plan settings page in your Memberful dashboard and paste it on your website or use the button options provided by your website builder. Learn more about adding purchase links to your site.

(Optional) Create a custom landing page

To sell memberships to your audience without a website, you can create a customized landing page hosted by Memberful by navigating to Website → Settings.

Add a title and description to the page, select which options appear on the page, whether they're paid plans, standalone downloads, or free member registration. Customize their names and descriptions, and add additional content such as FAQs or testimonials.

Learn more about creating a custom landing page.

Create a members-only post

Posts can be used to share exclusive, dynamic content with your members. Think of a newsletter or blog post with embedded videos and beautiful visuals. To create a newsletter post, navigate to Website → Posts and click Create a post.

Add a title and content for your post. Use the icons at the top of the content editor to format your content and add elements like links and images.

Click Preview to see a preview of what this post will look like to your members.

Select an audience to target

Your posts can be sent out to All members (including free members), or send a targeted newsletter to Active members on all plans, Active members on select plans, or Free (and inactive) members.

When you choose to target only members of selected plans, you can select which plans should be included.

(Optional) Schedule the post

You can schedule your post to be published or sent sometime in the future. To do so, click Schedule for later and enter a date and time.

Customize your branding

Use our visual editor via Customize → Branding to customize the background and button colors, and upload your logo.

These customizations will be applied to your newsletter messages and published posts.

Learn more about customizing your branding.

Send your members-only newsletter

Click Save draft if you're not ready to publish your post but would like to save your work.

Once you're happy with your post, click the downward arrow button to display the options for sending.

Before you publish the post, click Send test email to see a preview of what your members will see in their inbox.

Click Publish once you're ready to send it.

(Optional) Publish messages to a Memberful-hosted website

Our posts feature is two features in one. It allows you to:

• Send posts via email — allowing you to send out a members-only newsletter.
• Publish posts to a Memberful-hosted website — allowing you to offer members-only content on a simple website that's automatically created and hosted for you by Memberful.

You can choose to deliver your posts via email, website, or both.

To publish your newsletter message to your Memberful-hosted website, enable the Show on member website toggle.

Test the member experience

While your Memberful account is in test mode, use Stripe’s test credit cards to complete example member purchases and recreate their onboarding experience. Make sure to sign up with a different email address than the one associated with your website and Memberful admin account as using the same email address can cause unexpected errors.

You can also view any published post, write comments, and delete abusive ones while you’re signed in to your Memberful dashboard as an admin. Select a post and click View Post to get access. Learn more about moderating post comments.

Additionally, you can use our visual editor in the Customize and Website tabs to see which features are customizable, how they interact, and what they’ll look like to your members across different views and devices.

Go live

When you’re ready to start processing orders, choose your currency and connect to your Stripe account via Account → Activate account. We will automatically delete all your test orders and member accounts when you switch to live payments.

Nice work connecting to Stripe! 🚀

Now you’re ready to start selling memberships to your audience. Here are a few ideas to make your launch a success:

• Announce the membership on your social media pages.
• Link to the membership sign-up page in your social media profiles and upload special banners for launch month.
• Send a membership-specific email blast and add a link to the membership signup page in your email signature.
• Host a livestream or post a video to announce the membership.