Terms

"You must know the audience you are targeting before creating the membership-based business" starts Matt Hardigree, publisher of The Autopian. "I have encountered issues that have been solved by people who just assumed there would be a readership that exists. The math is hard, but not impossible. It is possible to use any data that you have."

He says that if you're writing on a site, look at the amount of readers you've. "If you're on a website together with 10 other authors and we all want to start something, what do we have in common? Do we make up 15percent of website's visitors? This isn't a huge amount. Or do we make up 80percent of the site's users?"

At some point, The Autopian founders David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky made up 50% of Jalopnik's traffic. "They would have thought "We could start something, you can make this happen'," continues Matt. "What's interesting is David and Jason don't have huge numbers of followers on social networks, which appears to be the most obvious method to turn into readers. However, they didn't need to get that, since they already had readers.

Prior to launching, The Autopian did a review of the competition in the motor industry and the media. "We know how many car enthusiasts read these different sites. Calculate: Once we have taken out the expenses then what are we going to need in order to be successful? Then you ask, 'Where will those individuals come from?' and  what percentage are aware of who we are?' and 'What proportion of those do we need for us to achieve a point in sustainability?'  In terms of membership fees, what are we going to charge ?'."

The author continues: "You can make some guesses - you don't have to be correct However, you need to possess the relevant information points. Once you start making your predictions, you'll have the ability to connect those data points and see where you're wrong and then make changes. If you don't have any data and you're just guessing then you'll need to perform the math and figure it out.

Matt admits that after you've conducted your own research, there will be an 'in your mind' moment "In the initial hour or two of launching the membership, I was a wreck! I thought, "What's going to take place? Once those memberships started coming in, it felt amazing! But we're still doing the analysis of data, and we're always looking at what is working and what isn't."

Growth and engagement strategies

"I consider that we're just 10% of what our membership can be," Matt continues. "We've been successful, we've had lots of members, but those first 10 percent of members are most easy to acquire. Those the last 10% of members are going to be the hardest. Every tranche is likely to be tougher than the tranche prior to it; we'll have to be clever."

Matt thinks that 10x growth is probably a five-year goal. "If we can get to 50% of the goal, we are almost entirely sustained at the current level with the membership. If we can get to 100%, we're more than sustained by the membership fee or are earning income from membership only and I'd love to reach that level."

Matt Hardigree, The Autopian

What are their goals to reach them? What are they offering now in terms of membership perks and how do they utilize this to lure members?

Matt responds: "It's a balance because we are a journalistic endeavor and an activity for fans. It's like having three distinct buckets in how we encourage people to join and then to keep them as members by making The Autopian feel valuable."

Strategy 1: Content

Matt claims that the primary bucket is content. "We have to write something that is good enough and exciting enough and distinctive enough to be different from what is available elsewhere - 'I can only read this on the Autopian. You must be an official member of The Autopian if I want this to be a reality.'

"You're not paying to gain access to this content because it's not a paywall. You're paying because you want it to be available everywhere." Matt confirms that the content will always the Autopian's most valuable offering: "You need this thing to be there so desperately, you'll pay the equivalent of $4 per month, $10 per month, and $85 per month for some people."

Strategy 2: Benefits

Bucket two represents the items members receive for free, like Discord access, clothing including T-shirts, entry to events including trivia nights along with other items such as stickers or badges.

"We offer a variety of items you'll receive as if you're purchasing a car. At the bottom is cloth ($70/year) and then vinyl ($100/year) followed by Velour for $250/year. Finally, the highest level is Corinthian leather, which is $1,000/year. There are more people who make use of leather and velour than I'd expect!"

"One of the things that you receive is a birthday sketch One of our co-founders has a talent as an artist. We weren't expecting to get numerous drawings therefore he's drawing greater birthday sketches than we thought he would - we're still catching up!"

A monthly rate of $1000 seems like a huge ask but this came as advice from well-established media company Defector. Defector told Matt they had many more people who could afford $1000 than they anticipated. "I thought"I don't even know the amount, what's $1,000?' they said"Do it!" Matt laughs.

"They have also expressed their wish that they could have a middle level, because they have two levels lower and one higher," he continues. "We debated over it before settling to go with $250 per year. It turned out to be the magic number: We have a lot of velour members and [this year] more people moved between vinyl and Velour, and then from velour down to vinyl - more individuals went from 100 to 250 than those who went between 250 and 100. I think that we're on the right track!"

The Autopian team has also realized that behind the scenes content is a hit. They post procedural content like the way they came to a headline and they do 'Tales from the Slack'. Matt says: "We have our internal Slack and obviously it's not for public consumption."

"People make up ridiculous, absurd, hilarious things!" Matt laughs. "Our editor-in-chief David isn't a pop-culture awareness so he's constantly being confused about things. He thought Ronan was a Serpico, he thought the Al Pacino movie set in the 1970s was a Robert De Niro movie that was released in the 90s!"

Strategy 3. Fear of Missing out (FOMO)

"The third content bucket - and the one that works really well and many people overlook is FOMO. The people don't want to miss out on important information," Matt continues.

"We have a Discord that has daily column of advice. Our Discord is free and open, but there's a section for members," he adds. "I encourage members to share photos in general chat: 'Here's me with my shirt I'm wearing my badge' and people want to be part of this."

Matt concludes attracting members can be very effective as long as the message is in line with the types of content that you create. "Every now and then we'll do a 'Here's everything you get' appeal - as a reminder of the benefits that the benefits of membership are."

More regularly they will thank their community: "We love our commenters - you make us great. If you're not an active member, we are understanding. Not everyone has the money. If you're a student, whatever that is, we understand. If you're not able to afford the cash, become a reader. We'd like to welcome you; we would like to have you as a an integral part of our community. However, if you are a lover of the idea, here's the opportunity to be member of this community."

But then we'll do a FOMO blog post in which Jason will write 'Here's all the birthday drawings I created during the month!' the people who see them will consider 'God, I'd like that.'

It's like forming communities can come in a variety of shapes and sizes - even birthday celebrations for car lovers.

More information

For more information and to be a part of The Autopian, go to theautopian.com.