The Membership Blast — 007
Top 3 Growth Priorities: Churn, Churn, Churn
Most membership business owners think growth is about getting more leads. And yes, more people in the funnel matters. But growth also has a leak most folks ignore: churn. Churn is the rate at which people leave or cancel your product. Retention is the flip side—the percentage of people who stay. Both matter, but this week, let’s focus on churn, because that’s where most membership businesses quietly lose steam.
Believe it or not, the easier part is getting people in the door. Offer something of real value for free, and they’ll show up. A lead magnet, a mini course, a one-time discount. These work. But the hard part is getting those same people to keep paying you month after month.
If your members are canceling in the first month or two, you don’t have a growth problem—you have a churn problem.
So what’s making people stick around? You need to know what value they’re actually getting.
- Maybe it’s education.
- Maybe it’s the accountability of coaching.
- Many times, in a remote and disconnected world, community alone is what people are really paying for.
But you don’t need to guess. You can just ask. If you’re not talking to your customers regularly, you’re just building in the dark.
Here’s why this matters: Acquiring a new customer can cost 5-7 times more than keeping an existing one (Forbes). When someone sticks around for six months, twelve months, two years, they don’t just become more profitable—they become advocates. They:
- Leave reviews
- Post in forums
- Tell their friends
- Help new members feel welcome
A lot of churn happens because people just don’t understand what they’re getting. They log in and feel overwhelmed or underwhelmed. The path to value isn’t clear. Or maybe they signed up for one thing, and now you’re emailing them about something totally different.
You don’t need to offer everything—you just need to consistently deliver the one or two things they care most about. And that only happens when you know what those things are.
So here’s what I’d challenge you to do this week:
- Talk to five active members. Ask them directly: “What’s been the most valuable part of your membership so far?”
- Take those answers and use them. Promote those elements on your site and in your marketing emails.
- Double down on improving them. Make them easier to access and harder to miss.
- Add a cancel survey. But don’t bury it in an email after someone cancels. Instead, redirect canceling members immediately to a short feedback form they can fill out right away.
- What was the main reason you decided to cancel today?
- What did you expect to get from this membership that you didn’t?
- Which feature or benefit did you use the most?
- What could we have done to make you stay?
- Would you consider coming back in the future?
You can use a tool like Google Forms to build this in minutes.
👉 Membership Cancellation Form — Free Template
Churn isn’t exciting. It doesn’t get the same attention as flashy growth hacks or landing page tweaks. But it’s quietly deciding whether your business is flatlining or scaling.
Plug the leak, and everything else becomes easier.
Marvin
Chief Growth Officer
MemberSpace
P.S. Did you know “The Windy City” nickname has nothing to do with the wind? It came from 19th-century newspaper editors who thought Chicago’s politicians and promoters were full of hot air, especially around the 1893 World’s Fair.