The Membership Economy: Find Your Super Users, Master the Forever Transaction, and Build Recurring Revenue

I'm the VP Marketing for a tech company, and I think this book is a must read for any exec (tech or non-tech). Here's why.Whenever someone first buys from a company, they are a new customer. But no business can be sustained on new customers alone. All businesses rely on REPEAT CUSTOMERS. (Duh.) The key to getting more repeat customers is to STOP treating them like customers and START treating them like MEMBERS.This is the book that can help you (and your entire business) make the transition from being customer-centric to being member-centric. Read this book and learn:- What the difference is between a membership and a monthly subscription (hint: they're not the same, because "Membership is an attitude, an emotion.")- How to (re)organize to be member-centric -- "The Membership Economy is more than a marketing strategy. It's about the whole organization being built around the ongoing customer relationship."- Why ongoing tinkering with membership benefits is absolutely critical- How to streamline your member acquisition funnel- What a super user is, and why they're important for other members- When "free" does and doesn't make sense- Technology to help your organization to be more member-centric- And much, much more.This book is a quick read. It's well written and full of tons of practical advice and real-life case studies. Whether you are VP Marketing in a large company, a sole proprietor of a local business, or the head of a non-profit or association, this book is a must read. This book (and author) is pure marketing genius and is likely to spawn a whole new generation of marketing.

The bottom line is; this is a must read whether you’re a new or a seasoned owner of a membership business. Read on and I’ll fill in some details for you.I did more than read this book, The Membership Economy, I studied it. I’ve been developing a membership business (membership website) for several years. After taking in this book, it’s clear I’ve been wandering around without a map. Of course, there are articles and other content around the internet on this topic. But to me, this book is like an experienced “been there, done that” consultant available at my finger tips to help me create and grow a membership business. The insight and guidance in the book is as important to a membership business as a blueprint is in building a house. In my experience, the information in this book provides the kind of insight and guidance that I could not find anywhere else.If you’re new to the idea of a membership business (particularly online), this book is a great place to start. Use this book as your planning guide; make sure you have the big picture mapped out before you delve into the details (my personal recommendation). When you have a clear plan in place based on the ideas in this book, then you’ll be setup for success reasonably well. Then you can delve into the next level of information knowing you’re not wasting your time heading in the wrong direction. Good planning & best wishes!

Does this describe you: You don't know what the membership (subscription / sharing) economy is. You are skeptical that membership economy will help your business. If you answered yes to one or both, the you are going to get tremendous value from this book. The author does make a convincing case for the future of membership as a way to bolster businesses ranging from online forums to small stores. The beginning of the book is exciting, she introduces the concept of the Membership Economy, a trend that has only grown in momentum since the book's writing. I found myself excited about many of her ideas.However, if you are looking for an instruction manual on how to implement this, then you should look elsewhere. Later in the book she dives into a plethora of short case studies. Since the membership economy is a loose set of ideas, it is difficult for her to show what a successful and intentional roll out looks like, She resorts to painting a company's action in broad strokes without thorough analysis. Despite the lack of rigor, she did show an apparent positive impact from applying the idea of membership to many different styles of businesses.Frustrating aspects:Chapter 9 is a series of advertisements for selected SaSS players.The case studies are very shallow.The last section of the book was too high level to be practical.That being said, I will be recommending this book to colleagues. I loved the ideas, I finished it wanting more proven tactics, rigor and analysis.

I found the book useful, but not the same kind of utility I was anticipating.  More than anything, it was intellectually interesting.  I agree with some of the positive reviews and some of the negative reviews on here. That is the reason for my 3 stars. In general, I think the book is more useful than not. However, it did not answer as many questions as I hoped it would.As a small-business owner, I was looking for some nitty-gritty strategies and tactics to help my cottage subscription-based businesses. That's not what this book was. It did give me a lot of things to think about, and that helped me to generate my own strategies, tactics, and to-dos, but it was actually more of a broad survey of the topic of membership businesses. A lot of information was covered from a pretty high level, conceptually.Where I think this book would be most useful would be in the Silicon Valley startup world, or with larger established organizations considering a new strategy. The book focused heavily on these larger organizations and their established customer-bases and marketing budgets. There was also a lot of great content regarding innovative marketplace interruptors. If that's the kind of place where you work, or the kind of company you dream of starting, this book is a great tool to get you thinking about the membership economy.

Este libro tiene un compendio de todo lo que una persona podría necesitar saber sobre la membresía. Ideal para asociaciones profesionales

I love this Book

This is a fantastic book on subscription/membership model, you will go through basics of how business getting transformed today and why customer focus is so important to be in business and excel.....

Should be called the Membership bible. Don’t bother highlighting the important parts because every page has something you can use. We read it as a team at work and everyone loved it. Highly recommended.

In my opinion this is one of the best currently available books about the membership economy. I found it very useful, with a good mix of strategic and hands-on advice.