Terms

"You must know the audience you are targeting before creating an organization that is based on membership," starts Matt Hardigree, publisher of The Autopian. "I have seen problems where people have just hopefully thought there'd be an audience there. The math is hard, but not impossible. You can use all the facts you've gathered."

He suggests that if you already write for an online platform, take a look at how many readers you have. "If I'm at a site with 10 other writers and 3 of us are looking to start something, what is our combined readership? Does it make up 15% of the site's traffic? That's not a lot. Or do we make up more than 80% of all the websites' visitors?"

In the past, The Autopian founders David Tracy and Jason Torchinsky made up 50 percent of Jalopnik's traffic. "They could have thought "We could start something, it's possible'," continues Matt. "What's interesting is David and Jason don't have huge numbers of followers on social networks, which appears to be the most obvious method to convert into readership. However, they didn't need to get that, since they already had readers.

Prior to launching, The Autopian did a competitive analysis of the motor industry and the media. "We know how many car people visit these websites. Calculate: Once we take out the costs, what do we need in order to be successful? Then you ask, 'Where will those individuals come from?' and 'What percentage have some awareness of who we are?' and 'What proportion of them do we require in order to meet an objective that is sustainable?' and 'In terms of membership, how much are we planning to cost? ?'."

He adds: "You can make some guesses - you don't have to be correct, but you have to possess the relevant data points. After you've begun making your predictions, you'll have the ability to connect these data points to see where you're wrong and adjust. If you have no data and are guessing at it, you have to do the math, and work it out.

Matt acknowledges that even after you've conducted your own research, there will be a 'hold your breath' moment "In the initial half hour or so of starting the membership, I was a mess! I wondered, "What's going to take place? Once those memberships started coming in, it felt amazing! We're also still performing the analysis of data, and we're always looking at what is effective and what's not."

Growth and engagement strategies

"I consider that we're about 10% of the way to where the membership could be,"" Matt continues. "We've achieved our goals, and we've had plenty of members. However, that first 10% of members are the easiest to get. Those remaining 10% will be the most difficult. Each tranche will be tougher than the tranche that preceded it. We'll need to think a lot."

Matt believes that 10x growth is certainly a five-year target for the next five years. "If we can get to 50 percent of this goal, we are almost completely sustained at our current level with members. If we are able to reach 100%, we're far more sustained through the membership fee or are earning income from membership only and I'd love to get to that point."

Matt Hardigree, The Autopian

What are their plans to get there? What are they offering now in terms of membership benefits and how can they make use of this to draw the members?

Matt replies: "It's a balance because The Autopian is a journalism venture and an activity for fans. We see it as three distinct buckets in how we get people to become members and then to keep them as members by giving The Autopian feel valuable."

Strategy 1: Content

Matt states that the first bucket of content is the first. "We have to write something that is good enough and exciting enough and distinct enough from the content you will find elsewhere and 'I'm only able to be able to read this through the Autopian. I have to be part of The Autopian if I want this to be a reality.'

"You're not paying to gain access to the content, as there's no paywalled access to it. You're paying because you want it in the world." Matt confirms that the content will always the Autopian's most valuable offer: "You need this thing to be there so desperately, you'll pay four dollars a month, ten dollars monthly, or $85 a month, for some."

Strategy 2: The Benefits

Bucket two represents the items a member receives, such as Discord access, clothing including T-shirts, invitations to events including trivia nights and merchandise like stickers and badges.

"We offer a variety of products you can choose from as if you're purchasing the car. The bottom level is cloth ($70/year), then vinyl ($100/year), then velour at $250/year, then the top level is rich Corinthian leather, which is $1000 per year. There have been far more customers do velour and leather than I would expect!"

"One of the things that you'll receive is a birthday card one of our co-founders has a talent as an artist. We hadn't anticipated having as many drawings, so he's doing way greater birthday sketches than we expected - we're still catching up!"

A monthly rate of $1000 seems as a big ask, however this came as advice from the well-established company in media Defector. They informed Matt they had many more people who could afford $1000 than they would be expected. "I was like"I don't even know the amount, what's $1,000?' they said, 'Do it'!" Matt laughs.

"They also said they wished they could have a middle stage, since they've got two levels lower and one higher," he continues. "We went back and forth on it and decided to go with $250 per year. It was the magic number: we have so many Velour members, and this year] we saw more people move between vinyl and Velour, and then from velour down to vinyl - more people went from 100 to 250 than did they go from 100 to 250. This makes me believe we're on the right track!"

The Autopian team has also recognized that behind the scenes content is popular. They also share procedural material, such as what they used to come up with the headline as well as "Tales from Slack". Matt clarifies: "We have our internal Slack, and it's obviously not intended for the public to use."

"People are prone to saying ridiculous, stupid funny things!" Matt laughs. "Our chief editor David isn't a pop-culture awareness so he's constantly having trouble understanding things. He was thinking Ronan was Serpico; he thought it was an Al Pacino movie set in the 1970s was a Robert De Niro movie from the 90s!"

Strategy 3. Fear of Missing out (FOMO)

"The third category of content which does really well, and that many people overlook is FOMO. People don't want to miss out on stuff," Matt continues.

"We are a discord, with weekly column of advice. Our Discord is completely free and accessible, however there's a section for members," he adds. "I would like members to post photos in general chat: 'Here's my picture with my shirt' or 'Here's me with my badge' and people would like to join that."

Matt states that the process of attracting new members can be very effective as long as the message is in line with the kinds of content you write. "Every every now and again we'll do a 'Here's everything you get' appeal - as a reminder of the benefits that the benefits of membership are."

They will also be thankful to their followers: "We love our commenters and you are the reason we're so great. If you're not part of our community, we're sorry. Some people don't have enough money. If you're in school, whatever, we get that. If you don't have the money, just become a reader. We're here for you, we'd like you to be part of our community. However, if you are a lover of this kind of thing, there's the opportunity to be member of it."

But then we'll do a FOMO blog post in which Jason will say 'Here are all my birthday sketches I made this month!' people will see them and think 'God, I'd love that.'

It's like forming communities can come in a variety of forms and sizes. There are even birthday celebrations for car lovers.

Additional information

For more information and to be a part of The Autopian, go to theautopian.com.