The quantity question

You may have noticed that, so far, my blogs in this series have focused very much on thinking about your members. That isn’t going to change. Online membership isn’t just about getting your ‘stuff’ out there, it is about creating an experience. That means that being in the head of your potential customer is crucial (frankly, it’s crucial in any type of content but that’s a different conversation).

There are some key considerations about other matters, however, and the ‘how much?’ question is the one that frequently comes up.

The quantity question has two strands:

• How much do I provide in any one ‘session’?
• How far ahead do I need to be in terms of developing the content?

How much in a session?

There are no hard and fast rules here. You see, to some degree it depends on what your service is for and the journey your members are on.

If, for example, you are publishing your animated cartoons to your fans (with a purpose of ‘entertainment’ and members consuming all the content on their phone) then one animation per week may be a good place to start. If, however, you are creating an online degree-level course in ancient history (with a purpose of ‘skills building’ and a member journey which includes a lot of self-study and reading) then one delivery of everything needed for a month may be more suitable.

Whatever the type and purpose of content, one aspect to be really aware of is the risk of ‘overwhelm.’ You are passionate about your subject and completely immersed in it – of course you are – but others may have more of a passing interest. So, while spending 10 hours a day on your topic may be wonderful for you, it could turn many of your members off. Too much is as much of a problem as too little, so think about what you are asking of members in terms of a time commitment and cut your cloth accordingly.

The other aspect of ‘overwhelm’ is how it relates to you. If your service is delivering regular content then remember that you are the one who has to deliver it – month in and month out. I am sure that you will start out feeling really enthusiastic and ready to invest all your waking hours into creating the content – but will you still want to give up your evenings and weekends to this in three or six months time? The key word is sustainability.

Get the balance right and you will engage, entertain and serve your members, keep them in the long term and, just as importantly, make sure you can keep delivering great content, month after month.

How far ahead?

How much quantity is very much a question that is answered from an audience perspective.

How far ahead do you need to be? on the other hand, is about the management of your content and of your time. Only you know what time you have available and what it takes to put each content drop together. Here then, are my thoughts on the matter – but feel free to adapt and adjust for your own needs.

Firstly, do not wait to launch until all your content is ready and perfect. Otherwise you could be investing masses of time and money into something which, on first contact with customers needs to be changed and re-written.  For my clients, I find that the ideal place to be is about 2 months ahead. It gives leeway for any bumps in the road and changes in direction. For launch however, I would strongly recommend you get an additional month ahead.

Why?

Because, quite simply, you are going to need to put a lot of your time and effort into making that launch a success. If your focus is on promoting the new service you won’t have time to build anything else so that extra month allows you to relax and put your attention where it needs to be.

Once you are launched, it is absolutely vital to deliver further content when you say you will. Keeping promises builds trust in the service and is more important  in a member’s first few months than later on, when they’ve had some results and can see that it is worth sticking around. So, keep yourself a couple of months ahead in order to keep that promise.

After a couple of months, do some analysis of how your members are interacting with the content and, based on what is working and what is not, you are now in a position to make adjustments. This might relate to how often you release materials, or how much you release at a time, or even to discard some components of what you provide.

This last one tends to be the hardest to do. You’ve worked hard on this, it’s great content, it makes the material even more exciting…. But if your members aren’t using it or can’t make sense of it or aren’t ready for it, all you do is risk overwhelming them and pushing them towards the ‘Cancel’ button.

And, at the end of the day, taking care of your members is what it is all about.

If you’d like support outlining your member journey, we can help. Book a call to find out about our content planning services.