Terms

"For us, membership is an integral part of what we do. You can't just moonlight as a membership; it has been a primary focus" starts Dan Carson, our Head of Product. "If there's a serious intention to pursue establishing a membership We believe that this is the greatest combination of features. While we started with WordPress as our primary access point for those capabilities, this isn't the case."

Dan clarifies that we're not taking away any of 's original capabilities, such as integrating with WordPress: "If that's how one wants to create their member-only site, it's as possible as it was prior to us - we're simply offering an easier on-ramp now."

Streamlining the navigation

"There are a bunch of users making use of third-party software However, it's not always just because they'd like to. It's because that felt like the only option available," Dan adds. "People maybe are using WordPress, but they've just built a simple website or have MailChimp and don't utilize 50% of its options."

These people simply need a method to make people sign up and then be able to email them, without the fluff a cloud enterprise version. "Maybe they signed up with Mailchimp in 2014 and so they still use it because that's where they are. Are they really an ideal target for the direction Mailchimp will go?"

"We consider there to be people that, if it was easy enough, could combine all of these instruments into one place and then have it well-integrated - so the tool still does everything they required to perform," Dan says.

Our email software will come with all the features that you need. The author adds: "We're not trying to serve enterprise marketing teams. We're trying to serve those who are looking for a low-cost and simple way to communicate and distribute content to their target audience."

For us, it's more about what products you're selling, and more about the things you're striving to achieve. If you'd like people to be able to sign up to a newsletter, we can simplify and make it cheaper since you no longer need to purchase additional tools.

It's dependent on everyone's individual use case, of course. Some people want the ability to connect multiple integrations but others worry that it's costly and difficult to control, particularly as only one company. "Previously we were kind of only creating for one of the organizations. Now we're building for both groups," Dan says.

The management of access rights for members on Posts and Pages

For a certain type of customer that you are, the version 2014 of MailChimp will be what you want; that's the one you fell in the love. "If I'm looking for a basic website, I may not want to use WordPress. It's true that Squarespace could be too much to run a subscription-based site. And it's not tightly linked to membership in the basis," Dan adds. So we thought, 'What could you do if you created an entire product built around this idea?'.

This is our approach to podcasting or online communities too. "We're not creating a brand new Libsyn. We'll be building an easy version to operate and can do 80percent of the things you need, along with all your other stuff, in one place for similar prices," Dan believes.

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

This isn't necessarily bad, but it becomes an issue for the customers if the target customer the company is building it to isn't you anymore. "People are hungry for products that do exactly what they require and doesn't seeking to do greater than this. In jazz, often it's not the notes you play!" Dan laughs.

Making something simple is actually very difficult. Dan agrees: "It's about paring down to what's important in. It's easy for us to do is add everything to the site and then make it a setting and customers can find it in the settings section somewhere." But we aren't sure that's the kind of thing customers want. Instead, we want to bring together all of our knowledge gained over the past decade of building membership software, taking customer feedback, and distill that down to simple-to-use tools.

"It's easy to overlook the importance of tools that are simple. Being easy to use is an underserved need. The majority of things are much more complicated 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. Instead of having each option visible at the top level, with the capabilities separated by feature, we stepped back and asked, "Why not orient everything around what you're trying to do in the moment?'.

The new dashboard

Based on our own experience and talking with people that run membership companies, you're usually doing something which falls under one of four jobs: building and designing your site, publishing exclusive content and managing your members or generating more the revenue. Dan explains: "Everything you're doing as a member-based business is bound to be in the four categories. We thought it was an appropriate method of organizing the functions of ."

Website

This is for those who wish to develop a membership-based website. In the past, you might have had to make use of WordPress or a customized. Now you can utilize our website builder natively. This first section is for designing the site initially, customizing how it looks. as well as setting up your public-facing content. "You're setting up the space for people to go to," adds Dan.

Content

Another task involves publishing the content. A modern-day membership business usually entails publishing exclusive content for members such as emails post, articles, downloads as well as podcasts. "The other aspect is to create content or sharing exclusive benefits. It's all about creating value that your customers get out of your membership," Dan explains.

Members

The last task involves managing your membership. "Part of managing a profitable membership is to have a close connection to your members and that's a big motive for why they're supportive of you," says Dan.

Members management - download invoices

"You have to be able provide excellent the best customer service for these individuals by understanding their background with you, and troubleshooting if things aren't working correctly," he adds.

Revenue

"If you're building a membership site, you're trying to create revenue and there's an array of things that go into the process of setting up your plans, understanding what to charge as well as monitoring the health of your company to determine the things that are working," says Dan. This section includes discounting to boost retention, and running acquisition campaigns, plus referral programs.

"We've developed a number of new features throughout the years. The lack of organization made it difficult to find the right things, especially those who were new. We wanted to reduce the learning curve," concludes Dan. This will provide a solid foundation for us going forward as we add more exciting features. We'll be able to more easily place things. This makes it much easier for users to locate and explore these additions so you can gain value from the features right away.

Builder for websites

The second big development this quarter was around the website builder. "We'd started to build the new tools in 2011 and we were trying to get the needle moving towards introducing this new capability, without affecting the existing ways of using ," says Dan. "We put ourselves in the position of a person who is looking to build the membership-based website."

In the present, enrolling and joining the service is much quicker and we offer an advanced start place, including the default options, plans for membership already created and the structure of your website designed. What you need to do is create your Stripe account, and then you can begin your website within minutes.

The website builder

Today, the editor experience is that of contemporary WYSIWYG (What you see Is What You Get) web-based builder that is connecting directly to your website for membership. "You can directly type on the page, move elements around, and hide or show elements, and you are able to see the layout at a moment's notice," says Dan.

Dan states that this is just the beginning of future website builder developments: "We had to redo the foundation of everything in this manner, and Now we're able to kick off the gas to begin developing the latest features."

We've discussed the idea of blocks, which are essentially content modules. Right now we have the basic block of content and a title banner block which could be textual or an image accompanied by a button. The framework is now in place, we're working on a new blocks, and creating various types of content to be displayed on the page. You will be able to place them in the right order on the page, and can customize who can see them based on what subscription plan the user is signed up to.

J4UXZCXXXVRVFxqRpCLFE Blocks to build with

Dan states: "It's everything you need to build a full-featured subscription site. And it's all connected to subscriptions. Membership is the heart of the whole." The result is a site-building experience that's easier to start with as well as more user-friendly and is more in tune with what the modern consumer expects.

Final: A fresh way to utilize

"We have described in the past that adhesive that keeps your members to one another," recalls Dan. "But in the event that an equipment is essential to your business and has parts that are glued isn't always something positive. Sometimes you want that they are welded just like steel. But you need it to be the same component, and not two pieces glued together," says Dan. Two pieces were built simultaneously: membership was integral at the start.

If you're a person with a thriving WordPress website, or even a million members in your MailChimp list and you want to create subscriptions, rather than starting again, that's still perfectly feasible. There's still a tool available to drop in, to put it all together. We don't believe it's the only option people have to construct anymore.

" is for people seeking a platform where their members can come together, and a place for their audience and their users. Nowadays, everything you would need, including creating a look that reflects your brand and having all of your content all in one place, is what you can build with this software ," Dan concludes.