Terms

"For us, the concept of membership sits an integral part of what we do. You can't just moonlight as a membership; it has become a priority," starts Dan Carson, our Head of Product. "If you're serious about establishing a membership We believe that this is the greatest combination of options. While we started with WordPress as the only access point for those features, that's no longer an option."

Dan explains we're not removing any of 's original capabilities including integration to WordPress: "If that's how someone wants to build their membership site, it's just the same as in the past - we're giving them a more straightforward on-ramp."

Streamlining navigation

"There are many users employing third-party applications However, it's not always just because they'd like to. It's because they felt that it was the only choice," Dan adds. "People maybe are using WordPress, but they've just created a basic site or use MailChimp and don't utilize 50% of its features."

These people simply need a method to make people sign up and then be able email them without all the faff of a cloud enterprise version. "Maybe they signed up with Mailchimp in 2014 and they are still using it as it's what they use. Are they really the target market for where Mailchimp is headed?"

"We believe there are some out there who would, if they could do it easily enough, could reduce all the tools into a single place and then have it well-integrated - so the tool still does all the things they needed it to accomplish," Dan says.

Our email software will come with the functionality you want. He adds: "We're not trying to help enterprise marketing teams. We're trying serve the those who are looking for a low-cost and easy way to reach out and distribute content to their followers."

It's for us less about the products you have, and more about what you are striving to achieve. If you want customers to join a newsletter, we can make that easier and cheaper since you no longer require the expense of additional tools.

It's dependent on everyone's individual use case, of course. Some people want the ability to piece together several integrations but others worry that it's expensive and more difficult to control, particularly as only one company. "Previously we'd exclusively developing for one of these organizations. Now we're building for both groups," Dan says.

The management of access rights for members on Posts and Pages

If you're a particular type of client, the 2014 version of MailChimp is what you need; that's the version you fell in over. "If I want a simple site, I might prefer not to utilize WordPress. It's true that Squarespace could be too much for a subscription-based website. The site isn't tightly linked to membership in the base," Dan adds. Then we asked ourselves: 'What could you do if you created a product that was entirely built around this?'.

That's our mindset for podcasting, and for online communities too. "We're not creating a brand new Libsyn. We're going to be building the first version, which is simple to operate and can do the majority of what you want, and is integrated with your other tools and all at the same price," Dan believes.

It seems to be a law of nature that the longer software is in existence, the more it wants to expand. It would like to be more complicated and complex.

The addition of new features isn't necessarily bad However, it is a bad thing for customers when the person they are building for is no longer you. "People are hungry for applications that can do what they need and isn't seeking to do more than this. In jazz, often it's the notes you don't play!" Dan laughs.

Making something simple is actually very difficult. Dan says: "It's about paring down to what's important in. The easy thing for us to do is simply put everything in there and create an element and then customers could locate it on a settings panel somewhere." But we aren't sure that's the kind of thing our clients are searching for. Instead, we want to synthesize all of our experience over a decade of building the tools for membership, including customer feedback and distill it to simple-to-use tools.

"It's easy to overlook the value of simple tools. Easy to use tools are an underserved need. Many things are more complex than they need to be." Dan adds.

The brand new dashboard

One of the most noticeable changes this quarter is the way we've organized the dashboard. Rather than having every option available at the top, with the capabilities divided by feature, we stepped back and thought, "Why not orient everything around what you're trying to do in the moment?'.

The brand new dashboard

Based on our own experience as well as talking to people who run membership businesses generally, your work is something which falls under one of the following four areas that include designing and building your site or publishing exclusive content and managing your members or growing revenues. Dan explains: "Everything you're doing as a membership operator is going to fall into one of those four buckets. Therefore, we decided that this was an appropriate way to organize the features of ."

Website

This is for those who wish to build a membership website. Historically you may have needed to use WordPress or a specific to. You can now utilize our website builder natively. The first area is dedicated to creating the website in the first place, customizing how it looks. and setting up your public-facing content. "You're creating the place that your viewers can go to," adds Dan.

Content

The second task is publishing content. Modern-day membership businesses typically includes publishing exclusive content to members. This includes emails post, articles, downloads as well as podcasts. "The next step is to develop content or sharing exclusive benefits. It's all about creating value that your the members receive from joining your club," Dan explains.

Members

The third task is managing the members. "Part of managing a profitable membership is having a really close connection to your members - that's part of the motive for why they're supportive of the organization," says Dan.

Member management - downloading invoices

"You have to be able to provide customers with customer support and also understand their past together, as well as diagnosing issues if something isn't going in a way that is correct," he adds.

Revenue

"If you're creating a membership website with , you're looking to generate revenue, and there are a million things involved in this: setting up your plans and determining what you should charge as well as monitoring the health of your company to determine what's working," says Dan. The section on discounting is in order to increase retention and run acquisition campaigns, plus referral programs.

"We've developed a number of new features throughout the years. The lack of organization was making it too hard to locate things, particularly those who were new. We wanted to reduce the time to learn," concludes Dan. This provides a better framework to us in the future as we develop exciting features. We'll find more intuitive ways to put things - this allows users to locate and explore the new features, so that you can benefit from the features right away.

Builder for websites

The second big development this quarter revolved around the website builder. "We'd started to build these new tools last year and wanted to get the needle moving towards the new capabilities, however, we didn't want to disrupt existing ways of using ," says Dan. "We placed ourselves in the shoes of a person who is wanting to develop a membership website."

The process of enrolling and joining the product is much faster We offer you with a more sophisticated starting position, with default options, plans for membership already made and the design of your website designed. All you have to do is set up your Stripe account and you could launch your website in only a couple of minutes.

The creator of the website

The editing process is like contemporary WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Receive) web-based builder that is connecting directly to your website for membership. "You can type directly on the screen, drag objects around, conceal and reveal elements, and then you will be able to view what the page looks like immediately," says Dan.

Dan explains that this is merely the beginning of future website builder enhancements: "We had to redo the foundation of everything in this way, Now we're able to kick off the accelerator in terms of developing the latest capabilities."

We've introduced the concept of blocks. Blocks are in essence content modules. Right now we have the basic block of content as well as a banner title block that can be text or an image accompanied by a button. The framework is now in place, we're working on a new block types and putting different types of content to be displayed on the page. You will be able to organize them on the page and you will be able to customize who is able to view them based on what subscription plan the user is paying for.

J4UXZCXXXVRVFxqRpCLFE Blocks to build with

Dan adds: "It's everything you need for a complete subscription site. It's also integrated with subscriptions. The membership component is the basis of the whole." The end result is a web-building experience that's simpler to begin with easier to navigate, a lot more intuitive and is more in tune with what people nowadays expect.

Final: A fresh way to utilize

"We previously described the past that glue that holds your members in place," recalls Dan. "But in the event that an equipment is essential to your company and has parts that are glued isn't always something positive. In some cases, you'd like that they are welded, like steel - you need that it be one component, and not two pieces joined," adds Dan. These two pieces that have been built simultaneously: membership was integral at the start.

If you have an incredibly successful WordPress website or millions of people who are on your MailChimp list that you'd like to use to simply create subscriptions, rather than starting over, it's feasible. There's still a tool available that allows you to plug in and connect it. We don't believe it's the only option people have to build any more.

" is for people seeking a platform for their community to gather together, and a place for their followers and members. Today, anything you could like, from creating a look that reflects your brand and having all of your content all at one location and accessible to all, is what you could make with it ," Dan concludes.