Incubators & Accelerators

5 Ways Your Entrepreneurial Support Organization Can Attract More Paying Members

Increasing the number of paying members in your Entrepreneurial Support Organization can be hard. But we have actionable tips to help you reach your goals.

By Phillip Russell

March 22, 2022

5 min read

Let’s not beat around the bush, attracting more people to join your entrepreneurial support organization is hard, and it can seem especially difficult if you’re asking them to pay for membership.


But get this, the price of your membership most likely isn’t the reason you’re community is experiencing a slump. While all communities are built differently and face their own unique problems, we have five actionable ways for you to attract more paying members to your entrepreneurial support organization.


Let’s get into it!


1. Less is more when it comes to integrations


Sorry, but no matter how valuable your community is, no one wants to spend their already complicated day navigating numerous platforms and integrations to interact in it.


In fact, on average entrepreneurial support organizations are utilizing 6 different platforms to manage and grow their communities. Not only is that a lot to manage, but it's also extremely costly.


On average ESOs must utilize 6 different platforms to manage their communities and 5 hours a day keeping up with all their integrations. This is extremely costly and hard to manage. It doesn't have to be this way.


Take the SUCCESS Achievers Community, for instance, they built their community on Mighty Pro which gave them access to white-labeled branded apps for iOS and Android devices on dope of features like online courses, virtual events, livestreaming, group chat, and more all in one place. Their community has grown to over 9,000 members, 77% of their members use the mobile apps to access SUCCESS, and over 85% of the posts within their community are member generated.


These incredible results are possible because the app SUCCESS built on Mighty Pro reduces the number of hurdles a member has to jump to engage with your content.


2. Let the numbers guide your decisions


Far too often when membership growth starts to stall the first thing people think is that something big needs to change. That’s not always the case!


A great way for you to decide if you should change course or double down is to analyze your community analytics. What are the numbers telling you? Sometimes the content we think is our best actually is being outperformed in ways you don’t expect.


3. Bring on the guests your members want to see


This may seem like a no-brainer, but if you want more paying members then you need to make your community the place to be for your industry’s best minds.


Work with thought leaders and experts that people in your community are interested in hearing from and have them check your community out. If you’re afraid that they might not be down to participate, consider giving these top professionals free memberships.


Show them that your community is a valuable place and their perspective would be welcomed with open arms. Great ways to do this are through an affiliate partnership, a guest speaking event, or a workshop.


A good example of a community that is leveraging the top minds to increase engagement in their network is .


The SU Global Community brings together a wide diversity of people passionate about exploring how these technological advancements will change the very nature of life on our planet. They’ve grown to over 37,000 members since their launch and believe a big reason for this growth is building branded mobile apps that can grow with their aspirations.


Chris Ewald their Director of Community told us, “First and foremost, choosing Mighty Pro was important for connectivity between our members. The Singularity Global Community is a crucial component of how we help leaders transform their thinking.” By bringing on influential guests, SU Global Community is helping shape the conversations around how the world talks about technology’s impact on our world today.


How do you figure out who your members want to see? If you aren’t sure, then ask! If people are paying for your service then they will certainly have opinions they want to share on how you can make it better for them.


4. Create a referral or affiliate program


Creating incentives for your current members to talk about you is a tried and true method to attract more paying members. Why else would you see referral programs in practically every successful subscription service out there? It works.


Referrals are a great way to reward loyal members for sticking around while also bringing in members that they already have a relationship with. Provide a small discount or another incentive for referring a friend.


Another option is an affiliates program. Partnering with influencers and industry professionals with followings that are relevant to your entrepreneurial support organization is a solid way to get more eyes on your community and boost the amount of paying members. Working with affiliates to write a review of your community or a blog post that acknowledges how awesome and valuable your community is for them.


5. Offer a virtual workshops and events


Sometimes people need a gateway into buying into your membership by showing them just how much value they are missing out on.


We’ve seen many successful communities utilize live events as a way to build interest in their community. Sadie Roberston Huff the successful creator of LO Sister a private paid membership for young women to grow in their faith has found immense success getting new paying members to join their community by hosting virtual conferences with important figures relevant to their audience.


Uncover how virtual events and branded apps can elevate your business


Sadie Roberston Huff created fully-branded apps for her Live Original brand for women to support each other on their faith journeys. Through harnessing the power of virtual events, she sold 1,100 tickets to her virtual conference and funneled many attendees to her LO Sister app in the process.

Read the case study →


One strategy working well is structuring their new member campaigns around the launch of workshops. They told us a bit about that, “Building new workshops has been a key strategy in us releasing new content that allows us to really encourage new members to join the app every six to eight weeks.” They went on to tell us that they sold 1,100 tickets to their virtual conference in 48 hours.


The same can be true for your entrepreneurial support community. If you don’t know where to start, look at the content you currently have, there’s probably something you’ve made that could be converted into a short event or workshop. Whatever you create, it doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel, all you need to do is provide valuable information for people and show your community in the best light possible.


Gaining more paying members for your entrepreneurial support community is possible, and these five tips are great, actionable things you can consider right now. All of the communities we featured in this article used Mighty Pro to build branded apps that they own and the results speak for themselves–their members love them.

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