How to Create Content Effectively for a Membership Program

Now, let’s create content since you have the foundation of your membership mapped out.

How?

You need a plan, a GREAT plan.

You can’t fly by the seat of your pants every month. This will doom your membership program before it barely gets started.

Your members have entrusted you with their monthly fee in return for excellent content. If you don’t deliver the content, they will rightly complain and cancel their membership. Plus, you’ll have to refund the fees if you didn’t provide the content. That’s not good for anybody.

If you are charging a monthly fee for access to your library of resources and there’s no promise of new monthly content, then you’re okay to release new content quarterly or to host a Q&A video chat every month. But if you promise to create content that is downloadable every month, you need a plan to deliver.

This is not as daunting a task as it may seem. So, let’s go back to basics and make your content creation as straightforward as possible.

Use what you already have!

Unless you have just started your business, you have to create content that can be repurposed and re-released in your membership. First, review your current content to find pieces related to the topic(s) you cover in the membership. Then, repurpose them by removing or adding content or transforming one type (video) into another (text).

Create New Premium Content

There is a lot of new content you can create–videos, text, recorded Lives, etc. It would be best to have an editorial calendar, so you’re not scrambling at the last minute for ideas. Once that stress sets in, you’re likely to create less-than-valuable content, which will cause members to complain.

If you have the budget to create content, outsource them to a team of experts. For example, a content writer and a graphic designer can handle the bulk of written content. If you add audio and/or video content, hand those recordings off to an audio/video editor to level out the sound, add a voice-over, or add background music.

Do your research but keep in mind that shiny tools won’t do the work for you. YOU still need to create the editorial calendar and create the content yourself.

If you delegate this process to others, you must stay on deadline and approve the content quality. If you deliver your content every month, and your quality is lacking, that will cost you members, too.

Plan Your New Content for 3 Months in Advance

Did you decide to create content one piece every month? If so, document the topic and type of content you want to make in advance. Now put it on your editorial calendar to ensure you create it.

Batch days are handy, especially if you’re creating the content yourself. Simply block off days or hours in a day and focus solely on that content creation.

Video recording works well with batch days because you can set up your camera once and record many videos all in one day. If you take a few moments to change your shirt, no one will ever know you recorded them one right after the other.

An editorial calendar doesn’t have to be fancy, nor does it mean you have to buy into a new platform. Create a Google Calendar to start. Once you have the budget for a team, you can invest in a program like Basecamp, which allows you to share projects with other team members.

Another create content idea is to bundle similar pieces of content together into a series of videos, audios, or a short report. Create a workbook or checklist to bundle with an eBook. The possibilities are endless, and your VA can easily organize your different pieces of content, so it’s easy to manage.