226 - Biggest Takeaways from the Online Membership Industry Report

In our early days of working with memberships, we stumbled across an article that claimed that the average member only stays subscribed for a mere 3 months. You’ve probably heard this yourself. It’s a claim that’s been repeated and republished so much, that it became readily and widely accepted. But it’s nonsense. There’s not a single shred of data or evidence for that ‘3 month’ claim. No source data, report or study cited, anywhere. The fact that this claim persisted for so long is part of a larger problem. There is no reliable data available about the online membership industry. Truth is, this market is relatively tiny. It’s a niche, of a niche, of a niche. What data we do have comes from either the broader subscription industry, or from membership associations. Neither of which reflect the online membership world. We figured it was time to change that. It’s time for some real data and benchmarks for the online membership industry. So we’ve spent the past 4 months tapping into our audience of tens of thousands of membership business owners to identify how they’re performing, what challenges they’re facing and which benchmarks and trends are prevalent. And we've compiled those results into the very first Online Membership Industry Report In today's episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I talk about some of the biggest takeaways from this report and discuss which membership benchmarks surprised me, the trends to pay attention to and other interesting tidbits and insights taken from the survey results. In this episode... How this report obliterates two of the most common myths in the online membership space The definitive answer to the "Open vs Closed" membership debate What's the most worrying trend amongst membership site owners? Surprising insights around pricing, retention, team size and more...