Why Slack is the platform for your 1000 true fans

There’s a simple truth that can be found everywhere from the high school cafeteria to prehistoric hunting groups: Everyone wants to be part of the in-crowd. You, as a business owner, can leverage this natural human instinct (in fact, you probably already have). Membership in a private group is an excellent high-value add-on to almost any service, from career, financial or life coaching to special interest groups and more.

Not sure how to make your paid insiders’ club a reality? There’s two hurdles to focus on.

1. Where do you host that group (a private Facebook group, a messaging platform, email newsletters, etc.)?

2. How do you quickly and seamlessly charge for entry into that group?

The answer to both questions is easy. Create a paid Slack membership site. Over the next few weeks we’ll share with you what a Slack membership site looks like, why it’s a better than the available alternatives and how to form your group.

Who or What is a Slack?

If you’re new to the Slack party, Slack is the hottest new social media tool. It started as an employee communication platform, allowing for one-to-one chat as well as private and public group chats that help take the place of time-consuming mass-email communication. With “unheard of” growth in paid users of 3.5x in just a year (as of April 2016), if you aren’t already on Slack, chances are you will be soon.

It didn’t take long for groups outside the workplace to catch on to the usefulness of Slack, and it quickly grew to be a tool for friends, volunteer groups, special interest clubs, and others to stay in touch. Here at SlackPass, we’ve taken this revolutionary platform and made it automated and monetizable. You get all the incredible functionality of Slack with the business-boosting benefit of easy enrollment and a paywall.

What is a Slack Membership Site?

Chances are, you have an idea of who your power users are. Whether numerically or instinctively, you can probably identify your high-value customers; these are your most loyal users, the clients who are most likely to purchase upsells. What if you could offer those customers even more value by getting private individualized access to you or your services? They’d probably buy, right — but how?

This is where Slack Membership Sites come in. You give your group a purpose, like teaching a specific skill, providing private group sessions, or facilitating support and resource sharing amongst like-minded folks. Then you direct your users to your SlackPass page and they pay securely and easily for the membership. They’re automatically granted access to your Slack, and you can focus on providing killer content instead of jumping through hoops to manage members.

What does a Slack Membership Site Look Like?

OK, so your users are now on your Slack site. What can they do? Because SlackPass leverages the existing power of Slack, there’s so much you can offer on your membership site. Here are a few of our favorite uses to get you started:

• Provide premium support by answering questions directly via private chat
• Facilitate group conversations, allowing your best clients to connect and support each other (since the group is filtered to your most dedicated users, this can be so much more valuable than public forums!)
• Host regular voice or video calls — a great benefit for people who provide coaching services or want to teach a lesson in a real-time virtual classroom
• Share valuable paid content like whitepapers and case studies

An added benefit is that you can choose to charge a one-time fee (great if you’re offering a course or time-specific program!), monthly membership, or even offer free trials.

Now that you’ve got an idea of what you Slack Membership Site looks like, check back in with us next week to learn why this is a better option than other community-building and membership site alternatives.

Interested in reaching your 1000 true fans via Slack? Check us out at SlackPass