Terms

"You must know the people who will be your customers before you can build the membership-based business" says Matt Hardigree, publisher of The Autopian. "I have had issues where people have just hopefully thought there'd be a readership that exists. It's a math problem but it's not impossible. You can use all the information you've got."

If you're writing on the site, you should look into how many readers you have. "If I'm at a site together with 10 other authors and three of us want to create something, how do we have in common? Are we fifteen percent website's traffic? That's not a lot. Are we the ones who make up 80% of the website's traffic?"

In the past, The Autopian founders David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky made up 50 percent of Jalopnik's traffic. "They might have believed "We could start something, it's possible'," continues Matt. "What's interesting is David and Jason do not have massive numbers of followers on social networks, which appears to be the most obvious method to translate into readers. They didn't have to be able to do that since they already had readers.

In the days before the launch, The Autopian did a study of the competitive landscape in the automotive industry and media. "We are aware of how many automobile enthusiasts read these different sites. Consider the following: after you have figured out the cost then what are we going to need to succeed? You then ask yourself, where do those individuals come from?' and  What percentage of them are aware of our identity?' and  what percentage of those do we need for us to achieve an objective that is sustainable?' and  in terms of membership how much will we cost? ?'."

The author continues: "You can make some guesses - you don't have to be right However, you need to possess the relevant numbers. Once you start with the data, you'll be able to plug in those data points and discover where you're not right and make adjustments. If you have no data or you're guessing then you'll need to perform the maths and figure out the answer.

Matt admits that when you've done your homework, there will be an 'in your mind"' moment "In the very first half hour or so of starting the membership, I was a wreck! I thought, "What's going to happen? Once those memberships started coming in, I felt amazing! We're also still performing the analysis of data, and we're always looking at what is doing well and what's not."

Growth and engagement strategies

"I think that we are at 10% of where the membership could be,"" Matt continues. "We've achieved our goals, and we've had plenty of members, however the first 10% are most easy to acquire. The last 10% of members will be the toughest. Every tranche is going to be harder than the tranche prior to it; we'll need to think a lot."

Matt believes that 10x growth is certainly a five-year goal. "If we are able to reach 50% of the target, then we're almost completely sustained at our current level with members. If we are able to reach 100% we're more than sustained by the membership fee or are earning money just on membership It would be great to see us reach that goal."

Matt Hardigree, The Autopian

So what are the team's strategies to achieve this goal? What do they offer as a member perks and how do they utilize this to lure new members?

Matt replies: "It's a balance because The Autopian is a journalism venture as well as an enthusiast-driven endeavor. We see it as three different buckets to encourage people to join as well as to remain members by giving The Autopian feel valuable."

Strategy 1: Content

Matt states that the first bucket is the content. "We must write something that is good enough and exciting enough and distinct enough from the content you will find elsewhere - 'I can only be able to read this through the Autopian. You must be part of The Autopian if I want this to be a reality.'

"You're not paying for access to the content, as there's no paywalled access to it. It's because you'd like it to be available everywhere." Matt confirms that content is always going to be the most important value offer: "You need this thing to exist so badly, you'll pay the equivalent of $4 per month, $10 per month, and $85 per month for certain people."

Strategy 2: The Benefits

Bucket 2 represents the goods that members get like Discord access, clothes including T-shirts, entry to events including trivia nights along with other items such as stickers or badges.

"We provide a wide range of items you'll receive that's similar to buying the car. At the bottom is cloth ($70/year), then vinyl ($100/year) and finally Velour for $250/year. Finally, the highest level is Corinthian leather, which is $1000 per year. We've had way more people use leather and velour than I would expect!"

"One of the things that you get is a birthday card: one of our co-founders is an artist. We weren't expecting to get so many of them and he's been doing a lot greater birthday sketches than we thought he would - we're still catching up!"

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

"They also said they wished they had a middle tier stage, since they've got two lower levels as well as a higher one," he continues. "We debated over it before settling on $250/year. This turned out to be the perfect number because We have a lot of Velour members, and this year] more people moved up from vinyl to the velour and later down to vinyl - more individuals went from 100 to 250 than those who went from 100 to 250. That makes me think we're getting it right!"

Autopian's Autopian team has also discovered that the behind-the-scenes content is a hit. They also share procedural material, such as how they came up with a headline, and they do "Tales from Slack". Matt says: "We have our internal Slack. It's clearly not intended for the public to use."

"People are prone to saying ridiculous, stupid and hilarious things!" Matt is laughing. "Our editor-in-chief David isn't a pop-culture awareness so he's constantly having trouble understanding things. He believed Ronan was a Serpico, he thought the Al Pacino movie set in the 70s was actually a Robert De Niro film that was released in the 90s!"

Strategy 3. Fear of Missing out (FOMO)

"The third content bucket which is extremely effective and which many people overlook is FOMO. People don't want to miss out on stuff," Matt continues.

"We have a Discord with daily advice columns. Our Discord is free and accessible, however there is a membership section," he adds. "I recommend that members share photos in general chatroom: 'Here's me wearing my shirt I'm wearing my badge', and I hope that people are eager to participate in this."

Matt says that attracting members is a process that can be very effective in the context of your content types that you create. "Every once in a while, we'll run a 'Here's all you get' appeal - an opportunity to remind people of the benefits the benefits of membership are."

In the future, they'll acknowledge their communities: "We love our commenters - you make us great. If you can't be a member, we understand. Some people don't have enough money. If you're in school, whatever that is, we understand. If you're not able to afford the cash, read. We're here for you, we want you as an integral part of our community. However, if you are a lover of this kind of thing, there's a way to be a part of it."

But then we'll do the FOMO post where Jason will write 'Here's all my birthday sketches I did this month!' and people will see them and think 'God, I want this.'

It's apparent that building communities come in many forms and sizes. There are even birthday cards for car enthusiasts.

More details

To find out more about the Autopian and become a member of The Autopian, go to theautopian.com.