Your members are opening your emails, liking your posts and they’re showing up to the calls.
So why does it still feel like nobody’s seeing they results they signed up for, and your membership retention rate keeps declining steadily?
If you run a membership, chances are you’ve asked yourself some version of this questions already.
Maybe it sounds like “why do people cancle when they seem so engaged?” or “Do I need to keep adding more content to keep people sticking around?”. Or the one that keeps a lot of us up at night “is my membership too expensive?”.
Here’s the thing:
Most of the advice floating around answers those membership retention questions with the same 3 assumptions:
More content stops churn.
Engagement means things are working.
A lower price makes people stick around.
I’ve busted all 3 in the following podcast episodes I’m going to share with you.
Real momentum has almost nothing to do with how much content sits in your membership portal, and how much you add each month. Engagement metrics can look fantastic on the surface, while your members stay completly stuck. And, in some cases, a higher price with more skin in the game grows your membership retention more than a low-ticket pricetag ever will.
I’ve gathered the best podcast episodes on What Would They Do? The Customer Experience Podcast for Online Business that dive deep into what gets members to stay:
The design decisions, the psychology, and the systems running memberships people don’t want to leave.
Some of them are lessons from my own membership, Retention Lab. Others feature guests and clients who’ve established retention rates most of us would love for our communities.
Check them out, check out what’s most relevant to your biggest membership headaches right now, and subscribe to the podcast if you like what you see.
Bundle 1: Why your members stop making progress
This is the super important aspect of memberships so many of us like to skip, because on paper, everything looks fine. People log in, and they’re engaging. So why does it feel like none of them see wins?
It turns out, activity and progress are 2 very different things. The following episodes take a closer look at the gap between these 2 aspects, and what to do once you spot this discrepancy in your own membership.
Episode 67: The ‘false momentum’problem in your membership
This episode explores the difference between engagement and real momentum, why relying on self-motivation is dangerous, and how to design experiences that naturally move people forward instead of keeping them busy.
Episode 18: How to increase membership engagement without more content
It’s a common challenge: we create valuable membership libraries, but members forget what’s inside or never get around to exploring it. In this episode, I share practical, low-effort strategies to help you bring existing content back into the spotlight without adding more to your plate.
This episode is a goldmine for membership owners who want to reduce churn, increase member satisfaction, and make the most of what they’ve already created.
Bunde 2: Designing for member retention from day 1
Membership retention isn’t something you start adding on down the track. It needs to be an intentional decision and mindset that starts with your pricing, your onboarding and the very first touchpoint someone has once they’ve handed over their first month’s membership fee.
The following episodes take a closer look at what it takes to build a membership people commit to from day 1, including the 3-layer system I used to design a 12-month onboarding experience for a client in a done-for-you capacity that runs almost entirely on autopilot (while feeling deeply bespoke and human).
Episode 13: What the Netflix Model can teach us about customer experience and retention
Drawing inspiration from Netflix’s mind-blowing roughly 98% retention rate, I unpack how you can borrow the streaming giant’s most effective strategies and apply them to your courses, memberships, or digital products without fancy corporate-level tech!
In this episode we cover everything from seamless onboarding and personalization to binge-worthy content and an ongoing evolution so you walk away with practical tips you can implement this week to keep your customers hooked and coming back for more.
Episode 68: 95% member retention without burning out
In this episode, I’m joined by neuropsychologist and systems strategist Dr. Tiffany Shelton, who has built a program with a 95% retention rate (yes, let that number sink in!).
Together, we explore how pricing, psychology, and customer experience work together to create long-term client relationships that actually last.
Episode 81: The 12-month onboarding experience that runs itself (without losing the personal touch)
In this episode, I’m walking you through the three layers I used to create an onboarding experience in a done-for-you client project that tracks the signals students are sending, delivers timely automated nudges, and deliberately brings my client back into the experience when a human touch actually matters.
The result is an onboarding journey that’s 95% automated, with the remaining 5% intentionally unscalable.
Bundle 3: Membership retention strategies with real impact
Once you have the foundations of your membership in place, the fun begins. In the following episodes we’re exploring gamificatin, personalisation, and the intentional low-lift tweaks that do a lot of the heavy lifting in your member experience.
All this is doable without a big tech stack or more hours of your time. It all starts with being intentional around every aspect of your membership.
Episode 54: My CX Escape Room Strategy, a case study in member engagement and loyalty
What started as a 3-day “part challenge, part game” experience quickly turned into a powerful retention engine that increased engagement, brought in new members, and helped existing members finally take action and get quick wins.
If you’ve ever felt like your membership needs more content to keep people around… this episode will completely flip that belief on its head.
Episode 65: Hot Seat: How to design a membership busy people will stick with
In this special hot seat episode, I am joined by Retention Lab member Scotti Weintraub to workshop a real business challenge:
“How do you keep overwhelmed, time-poor members engaged in a low-cost membership?”
Together, we unpack how to design a membership experience that feels like a support system, not another obligation, and how to create engagement without adding more pressure.
Episode 72: Hot Seat: How to make your email automations feel personal
What if your email automations could do the heavy lifting of personalisation… without you writing a separate email for every type of subscriber?
That’s exactly what we dig into in this hot seat episode with Retention Lab member Rachel Smith, freelance journalist, copywriter, and the founder of Rachel’s List, a thriving jobs board and membership community for writers of all kinds. Rachel came to me with a real headache around her email marketing, and we worked through it together live on the show.
And here’s what it looks like when you’re intentional about your member experience
In early 2025, I made the call to relaunch my own membership, because something told me I could be offering so much more than I currently was. And the data backed up that gut feeling!
So the Copy Confidence Collective became Retention Lab with two tiers, instead of one. The new version had a completely new focus. And it took a whole lot of listening to what my members needed from me (rather than assumptions) came before the intial founding member launch.
This next episode is the most honest one in this list, because relaunching anything is never as tidy as a case study makes it look.
But it’s also the best example of what happens when you stop guessing and start designing with intention and your members in mind.
Episode 12: Behind the Scenes: How I relaunched my membership
If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s time to pivot an existing offer or felt drawn to evolve something that once worked, this episode is your permission slip to listen, adapt, and grow.
If any of what you’ve just read has you rethinking your own membership…
That’s where my membership Retention Lab enters the picture. It’s where we can work through all aspects of your online business and membership together in real time, alongside other business owners looking for deeply human ways to support their members.
