Terms

"For us, the concept of membership sits an integral part of what we do. You can't just moonlight as an individual member; it needs been a primary focus" starts Dan Carson, our Head of Product. "If you're serious about joining, we think has the greatest combination of features. We started out with WordPress as the only entry point to those options, this is no longer the case."

Dan explains we're not removing the original features of the software for example, like integration with WordPress: "If that's how someone wants to build their website for membership, it's as feasible as it was prior to us - we're simply offering an easier on-ramp now."

Streamlining the navigation

"There are lots of individuals using third-party tools however, not simply because they'd like. This is because it was the only option available," Dan adds. "People might already have WordPress however they've built a simple website, or they have MailChimp but they don't even make use of 50% of the functions."

These people simply need a method to make people sign up and then be able to send them emails with no nonsense cloud enterprise edition. "Maybe you signed them up to Mailchimp in 2014, and they continue to use it since this is where they are. Are they really the primary market to which Mailchimp will be going?"

"We think there are people out there who, if it was easy enough, would be able to simplify all these different applications into a single location and then have it tightly integrated - as the tool still does all the things they needed it to accomplish," Dan says.

Our email tools will have the functionality you require. He adds: "We're not trying to provide enterprise-level marketing departments with tools. We're trying to serve authors who need a cost-effective and simple way to communicate and share content with their followers."

For us, it's less about the products that you're using, but much more about what you're doing. If you're looking for customers to sign up to a newsletter, we can help you make it easier and less expensive as you do not have to pay for other tools.

This is dependent on the individual usage scenario, naturally. Some people want the ability to integrate multiple Integrations, but some worry it's costly and difficult to handle, particularly when it's only one operator. "Previously we were kind of only creating for one of the groupings. Now we're building for both," Dan says.

The management of access rights for members for Posts and Pages

For a certain type of customer, the 2014 version of MailChimp will be what you want; that's the version you fell in the love. "If I'm in the market for a straightforward site, I might not want to use WordPress. In fact, Squarespace isn't the best choice to run a subscription-based site. It's also not fully linked to membership in the basis," Dan adds. We thought to ourselves, "What would happen if there was an entire product built around this idea?'.

We're the same way about podcasting, and for online communities too. "We're not going to be building a new version of Libsyn. We'll be building an easy version to operate and can do 80% of what you want, and is integrated with everything else, in one place for similar prices," Dan believes.

It is the law of nature that the longer software exists and the longer it is in existence, the more it would like to grow. It wants to become increasingly complex and complicated.

The addition of new features isn't necessarily bad However, it is a bad thing for clients if the customer they are building for has changed and is not you. "People are hungry for applications that can do what they require and doesn't trying to be any more than this. As with jazz, there are times when it's not the notes you have to play!" Dan laughs.

Making something simple is actually very difficult. Dan says: "It's about paring down to the essence of something. One of the easiest things for us to do is simply put everything in there and create an element and then customers could find it in the settings section somewhere." However, we aren't sure that's the kind of thing customers want. Instead, we'd like to bring together all of our experiences over the last decade of developing membership tools, incorporating the feedback from our customers, and distill that down into simple tools.

"It's easy to overlook the importance of tools that are simple. Being easy to use is an unmet need. Most things are more complicated than they ought to be." Dan adds.

The new dashboard

One of the most noticeable changes this quarter is the way we have reorganized the dashboard. Rather than having every option accessible at the top and the options divided by feature, we stepped back and said, 'Why not arrange everything around the things you're trying to accomplish at any given time?'.

The dashboard has been updated.

Based on our own experience and speaking with those who run membership businesses typically, you're doing work that is a part of one of the following four areas including designing and building your website, publishing exclusive content, managing your members, or increasing revenue. Dan says: "Everything you're doing as an operator of membership is likely be categorized into one of these four buckets. So we thought that was an appropriate way to organize the features of ."

Website

It is designed for users who would like to create a membership site. It was common to use WordPress or something specific to. You can now utilize our website builder natively. The first part is about designing the site in the first place as well as customizing the appearance. as well as setting up your public-facing information. "You're making a place for your audience to go to," adds Dan.

Content

The second task is publishing content. A modern-day membership business usually includes publishing exclusive content to members, such as emails or posts, downloads, and even podcasts. "The other aspect is to create contents or sharing special benefits. It's all about creating value that your the members receive from joining your club," Dan explains.

Members

The third task is managing your membership. "Part of managing a profitable membership is having a really intimate relationship with your customers - that's part of the motive for why they're supportive of the organization," says Dan.

Management of members - download 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 member-based site, you're trying to create revenue and there's a million things involved in that: setting up your plans knowing what charges to make, and monitoring the health of your organization to find what's working," says Dan. This is a section that covers discounting for retention and run acquisition campaigns and referral programs.

"We've developed a number of new features throughout the years. Not having them organized was making it too hard to find the right things, especially those who were new. We wanted to lessen the amount of learning required," concludes Dan. This will provide a solid foundation that we can build upon when we introduce exciting features. We'll be able to more easily put things - this will make it easier for you to find and discover these additions so you can benefit from these features immediately.

Web Builder

Another major development in this quarter was around the website builder. "We'd begun to develop the new tools in 2011 and we were trying to thread the needle of the new capabilities, however, we didn't want to disrupt existing methods of use ," says Dan. "We placed ourselves in the position of a person who is wanting to develop the membership-based website."

Now, the process of enrolling and joining the program is much more efficient; we provide you with a more sophisticated starting location, complete with basic configurations, membership plans that have been made and the design of your website designed. What you need to do is create your Stripe account and start your site in a matter of just a few minutes.

IFtWQKYe3Vls3PTpn6KK The creator of the website

Today, the editor user experience is similar to the modern WYSIWYG (What you see Is What You get) web-based builder that is connecting directly to your website for membership. "You can directly type onto the webpage, change things around, hide and display elements and will be able to view what the page looks as soon as you open it," says Dan.

Dan explains that this is merely the beginning of future website builder improvements: "We had to redo the base of everything this way, now we can step on the gas in terms of adding the new capabilities."

We've discussed the idea of blocks. They are basically content modules. At present, we've got an element of content that is basic as well as a banner title block that can be text or an image accompanied by a button. This framework is in use, and 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 arrange those on the page and you can customize who can see these based on the subscription plan the user is paying for.

J4UXZCXXVRVFxqRpCLFE Building using blocks

Dan states: "It's everything you need to build a full-featured membership site. And it's all integrated with subscriptions. The membership component is the basis of it all." What you get is a website-building experience that's easier to begin with as well as more user-friendly and in line with what the modern consumer expects.

Conclusion: A brand new method to use

"We have described it in the past as the adhesive that keeps your group together," recalls Dan. "But if an equipment is essential to the business you run, having parts glued together does not always seem like something positive. Sometimes you want them to be welded together just like steel. But you want that it be one part, not two parts that are glued together" says Dan. The two parts were constructed at the same time: membership was integral since the very beginning.

If you're a person with an established WordPress website or millions of members on your MailChimp list that you'd like to use to simply create subscriptions, rather than starting again, that's still perfectly achievable. We still offer the tool for you to add subscribers, and then put it all together. We don't believe it's the only way people want to construct anymore.

" is a place for those looking for a space for their community to gather together online, a hub to their customers and users. Nowadays, everything you would need, including designing it to look and feel like your company and putting all of your content all at one location and accessible to all, is what you could make with it ," Dan concludes.