Terms

"You have to know the people who will be your customers before you can build a membership business," says Matt Hardigree, publisher of The Autopian. "I have had issues in which people just believed that there was an audience that exists. The math is hard however, it's not difficult. You are able to make use of all the facts you've gathered."

He says that if you're already writing for an online platform, take a look at the number of readers you've got. "If I'm on a site together with 10 other authors and 3 of us are looking to begin something, what is our combined readership? Are we fifteen percent website's visitors? This isn't a huge amount. Or do we make up more than 80% of all the websites' visitors?"

At some point, The Autopian founders David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky made up 50 percent of Jalopnik's traffic. "They might have believed "We have the potential to start something and we can do this'," continues Matt. "What's fascinating is that David and Jason do not have massive numbers of followers on social networks, which appears like the obvious way to translate into readership. They didn't have to get that, since they already had readers.

Prior to launching, The Autopian did a study of the competitive landscape in the automotive industry and the media. "We are aware of how many automobile fans visit these sites. Consider the following: after we take out the costs, what do we need in order to be successful? Then you ask, 'Where are those people going to be from? 'What percentage have some awareness of who we are?' and  what percentage of those do we need to reach the criteria that is sustainable?'  in terms of membership how much will we cost? ?'."

He adds: "You can make some predictions - and you don't have to be correct however, you must have those information points. After you've begun making your predictions, you'll have the ability to connect these data points to find out where you're off and make adjustments. If you don't have any data or you're guessing that you're guessing, then do the math, and work out.

Matt admits that after you've conducted your own research, there will be a 'hold your breath"' moment "In the very first one or two hours of beginning my membership, I was an absolute mess! I thought, "What's going to happen? Once those memberships started coming in, I felt amazing! We're also still performing data analysis and still constantly looking at what is doing well and what's not."

Growth and engagement strategies

"I consider that we're about 10% of the way to where our members could be," Matt continues. "We've been successful, we've had a lot of members, but those first 10 percent is most easy to acquire. Those the last 10% of members will be the most difficult. Each tranche will be more difficult than the one before; we're going to have to be clever."

Matt thinks that 10x growth is probably a five-year target for the next five years. "If we are able to reach 50% of that goal, we are almost completely sustained at our current levels of members. If we are able to reach 100% we are 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 plans to get there? What are they offering now in terms of membership perks and how do they use this to attract members?

Matt replies: "It's a balance because The Autopian is a journalism venture and an activity for fans. We look at it as three distinct buckets in how we encourage people to join and then to keep them as members by giving The Autopian feel valuable."

Strategy 1: Content

Matt claims that the primary bucket is the content. "We must write something that is good enough and exciting enough and different enough from what you can get everywhere else I can only see this on the Autopian. It is my obligation to become an official member of The Autopian if I want the Autopian to have this.'

"You're not paying to gain access to this content because it's not paywalled. It's because you'd like it in the world." Matt confirms that it will continue to the Autopian's most valuable proposition: "You need this thing to be there so desperately, you will part with $4 a month, $10 a month, $85 a month for some people."

Strategy 2: Benefits

The bucket two is a representation of the things that members get for free, like Discord access, clothing including T-shirts, access to various events, such as trivia nights along with other items such as stickers or badges.

"We have a whole suite of products you can choose from that's similar to buying a car. It starts with cloth ($70/year) and then vinyl ($100/year) and finally Velour for $250/year. Finally, the top level is rich Corinthian leather that costs $1000 per year. There are more people who use leather and velour than I'd imagine!"

"One one of the gifts you receive is a birthday sketch One of our co-founders has a talent as an artist. We weren't expecting to get as many drawings, therefore he's drawing more birthday drawings than we expected - We're not even done!"

A monthly rate of $1000 seems as a big ask, however it was a suggestion from the well-established company in media Defector. They informed Matt they had many more clients with $1000 in their accounts than was anticipated. "I thought to myself"I don't even know how much, but $1,000?' they said"Do it!"" Matt laughs.

"They were also saying that they wish they had a middle tier one, as they currently have two levels lower as well as a higher one," he continues. "We debated over it before settling to go with $250 per year. It was the ideal number since we have so many Velour members, and this year] more people moved up from vinyl to Velour, and then from velour down to vinyl - more than 100 people moved from 250 than those who went from 250 to 100. I think that we're getting it right!"

Autopian's Autopian team also has discovered that the behind-the-scenes content has become popular. They also share procedural material, for example, the way they came up with a headline, and also "Tales from the Slack". Matt explains: "We have our internal Slack. It's clearly not for public consumption."

"People make up ridiculous, absurd and hilarious things!" Matt smiles. "Our chief editor David isn't a pop-culture awareness so he's constantly 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 movie in the 90s!"

Strategy 3. Fear of Missing out (FOMO)

"The third bucket of content which does really well, and that many people overlook is FOMO. The people don't want to miss out on important information," Matt continues.

"We have a Discord that has daily column of advice. Our Discord is completely free and open, but there is a membership section," he adds. "I encourage members to share pictures in the general chat: 'Here's my picture with my shirt Here's me wearing my badge' and people are eager to participate in this."

Matt concludes attracting members is a great idea when the appeal aligns with your content types you publish. "Every now and then we'll run a 'Here's all you receive' appeal, an opportunity to remind people of the benefits 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 can't be a member, we understand. Not everyone has the money. If you're a student whatever that is, we understand. If you're not able to afford the funds, you can just be a reader. We'd like to welcome you; we'd like you to be part of our community. If you're a fan of this kind of thing, there's an opportunity to become a member of it."

We'll then do an FOMO blog post in which Jason will say 'Here are all the birthday drawings I created during the month!' and the people who see them will be like 'God! I want to do that.'

It's apparent that building communities come in many shapes and sizes - even birthday drawings for car enthusiasts.

Additional information

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