Terms

"You must know the people who will be your customers before you can build a membership business," starts Matt Hardigree, publisher of The Autopian. "I have seen problems where people have just hopefully assumed there would be readers there. The math is hard however, it's not difficult. It is possible to use any facts you've gathered."

If you're writing on the site, you should look into how many readers you have. "If I'm on a site together with 10 other authors and three of us want to begin something, what is our combined readership? Are we 15% of the site's visitors? That's not a lot. Are we the ones who make up 80% of the website's traffic?"

At some point, The Autopian founders David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky made up 50 percent of the traffic on Jalopnik. "They might have believed "We could start something, it's possible'," continues Matt. "What's intriguing is David and Jason do not have massive followers on social media, which would seem as a natural way to turn into readers. However, they didn't need to have that because they already had readers.

Before launching, The Autopian did a competitive analysis of the motor industry as well as the media. "We have a good idea of the number of car enthusiasts read these different sites. Consider the following: after we have taken out the expenses, what do we need in order to be successful? You then ask yourself, where do those individuals be from?  What percentage of them are aware of our identity?' and  what percentage of these do we require in order to meet an objective of sustainability?'  In terms of membership fees, what are we going to charge ?'."

He continues: "You can make some guesses - you don't have to prove it, but you have to be able to access the data points. Once you start, you can plug in these data points to find out where you're off and then make changes. If you don't have any data or you're guessing that you're guessing, then do the maths and figure out the answer.

Matt acknowledges that even when you've done your homework, it's not uncommon to have the 'wait and see"' moment "In the first hour or two of launching my membership, I was an absolute complete wreck! I wondered, "What's going to take place? As memberships started to come in, it was great! We're also still performing data analysis and still constantly looking at what is working and what isn't."

Growth and engagement strategies

"I believe we're about 10% of the way to where our members could be," Matt continues. "We've been successful, we've had lots of members, but the first 10% of members are the most straightforward to obtain. That the last 10% of members are going to be the hardest. Every tranche is likely to be more difficult than the one that preceded it. We'll have to be clever."

Matt thinks that 10x growth is certainly a five-year objective for five years. "If we reach 50 percent of this target, then we're almost entirely sustained at the current stage with our membership. If we can get to 100% we're far more sustained through the membership fee or are earning income from membership only - I would love to get to that point."

Matt Hardigree, The Autopian

What are their strategies to achieve this goal? What can they provide as a member benefits and how can they make use of this to draw the members?

Matt responds: "It's a balance because The Autopian is a journalism venture and an enthusiast endeavor. We look at it as three different buckets to get people to become members and then to keep them as in the long run - through making The Autopian feel valuable."

Strategy 1: Content

Matt claims that the primary bucket is the content. "We need to create something that's interesting enough and interesting enough to be different enough from what you can get everywhere else - 'I can only be able to read this through the Autopian. I have to be an official member of The Autopian if I want this to be a reality.'

"You're not paying to get access to the content, as there's no paywalled access to it. You're paying because you want it in the world." Matt confirms that it will continue to be the most important value offering: "You need this thing to exist so badly, it will cost you four dollars a month, ten dollars per month, and $85 per month for some people."

Strategy 2: Benefits

The bucket two is a representation of the things members receive, such as Discord access, clothes including T-shirts, invitations to events including trivia nights as well as merchandise such as stickers and badges.

"We offer a variety of items you'll receive: it's like you're buying a car. It starts with cloth ($70/year) and then vinyl ($100/year) and finally Velour, which is $250 per year, and the highest level is Corinthian leather which costs $1,000/year. There are more people who do velour and leather than I'd expect!"

"One among the items you receive is a birthday sketch: one of our co-founders is an artist. We weren't expecting to get as many drawings, and he's been doing a lot more birthday drawings than we anticipated - and we're just getting caught up!"

The $1000 per month level sounds as a big ask, however this came as advice from the well-established company in media Defector. They told Matt they had many more people who could afford $1000 than they anticipated. "I was like, 'I don't know, $1,000?' and they said"Do it!"" Matt laughs.

"They have also expressed their wish that they had a middle tier one, as they currently have two levels lower as well as a higher one," he continues. "We debated on it and decided on $250/year. It turned out to be the perfect number because we have so many Velour-loving members. This year] we saw more people move between vinyl and the velour and later down to vinyl. In fact, more than 100 people moved from 250 than those who went between 250 and 100. This makes me believe we're getting it right!"

The Autopian team also has realized that behind the scenes content is popular. They share procedural content, such as the way they came to a headline and they do 'Tales from the Slack'. Matt clarifies: "We have our internal Slack. It's clearly not meant for consumption by the general public."

"People say stupid, ridiculous and hilarious things!" Matt laughs. "Our chief editor David has no pop culture knowledge, so he's always being confused about things. He was thinking Ronan was a Serpico, he believed that an Al Pacino movie set in the 70s was a Robert De Niro flick from the 90s!"

Strategy 3: Fear of missing out (FOMO)

"The third bucket of content which is extremely effective and which most people don't realize is FOMO. The people don't want to be missing out on things," Matt continues.

"We are a discord, with daily column of advice. Our Discord is completely free and open, but it has a member section," he adds. "I encourage members to share images in chat: 'Here's my picture with my shirt Here's me wearing my badge'. People want to be part of the group."

Matt states that the process of attracting new members works really well as long as the message is in line with the types of content that you create. "Every every now and again we'll make a 'Here's what you'll get' appeal. It's a reminder of what the benefits of membership are."

More regularly they will acknowledge their communities: "We love our commenters We are grateful to you for making us better. If you aren't an active member, we are understanding. There are many who don't have the funds. If you're a student, whatever, we get that. If you don't have the funds, you can just become a reader. We'd like to welcome you; we want you as part of our community. But, if you love this thing, here's a way to be a part of it."

We'll then do the FOMO posting where Jason will write 'Here's all the birthday drawings I made this month!' people will see them and think 'God, I'd like that.'

It's like forming a community comes in all shapes and sizes - even birthday celebrations for car lovers.

More details

To find out more about the Autopian and join The Autopian, go to theautopian.com.