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It's my job to be part of the Customer Success team here at , and I work closely with our customers to help them advance their membership business. In the coming months, as we work to connect with new customers and aid the growth of their membership we'll share some important lessons and results we're seeing when it comes to the overall strategy for membership.

The most talked about topic of conversation for our customers has been the increase in prices. Customers are asking inquiries:

• "How do I know if I'm able to successfully increase the price without creating an enormous churning event?"
• "How can I boost prices?"
• "When is the best time to raise prices?"

It's clear that there's no universal solution in this case. If there isn't a specific strategy in place, there's the risk of increasing prices. However having been through this journey recently with some of our customers I'm convinced that there are certain signs that show when prices can be raised with minimal risk. The indicators comprise:

Strong adoption of annual plans vs. plans that are monthly

Memberships that see strong growth in the number of people who subscribe to annual plans over monthly plans have a significant price advantage. When memberships see at least 70% of first-time customers purchasing an annual plan during a time period of at least 4 months, it is an indication that the membership is undervalued.

In these cases, a price increase of 10%-20% will likely get the approval of members.

Continuous expansion of content formats

Memberships that continuously expand their content formats may increase prices frequently (i.e. each year). For instance, member benefits are typically focused around newsletters. Expanding those benefits into different formats like videos, podcasts and other formats could increase the worth of member.

Whether it's content that's been repurposed or content that's entirely fresh, expanding content can create an opportunity for pricing increases that fall in the range between 5% and 10% every 12-18 months.

Operating in an under-served market

Members who operate in unserved markets can charge more. In these cases the competition is minimal and there are very limited experts with the qualifications who can compete on the market.

Memberships that provide in-depth analysis and cutting-edge research in a niche area, can attract high-profile business leaders, thought leaders, and innovators in similar markets. It's a market that's ready to spend a significant amount to understand the impacts on their industries and customers. Members who serve the same groups hold significant pricing power.

Statisticians and guidelines

Here are some more general trends that we've observed through our studies:

• Customers who have had the greatest success in increasing prices slowly - never exceeding the amount of one price hike each twelve to 18 months.
• If the pricing strategy involved each year's price increase, 10% per year is accepted by customers.
• Annual memberships that have not raised prices historically (or for more than 18 months) and have yearly retention minimum 75% could raise the cost by as much as 20% without any negative effect.
• Results from customers show that the rate of price hikes is more relevant than the price increase itself in the event that the customer is operating within the 10% to 20% price rise interval.

Hope this can be helpful. I'll be sharing more of these lessons in the coming months as we progress ahead!