How does Facebook communicate with its users? Television. Facebook launched a new product just in time for Christmas. It’s a new video-conferencing device that works through Facebook Messenger.

And would you like to know how they chose to promote it for Christmas? With a multimillion-dollar television advertising campaign.

Why didn’t they just use Facebook? After all, according to their ad managers, Facebook is the best possible way to reach your target customer. You’d think they could have used their own platform to target families or couples living apart. Or, after you comment on your friend’s post, they could have shown you an ad reading, “Why not talk to your friend using Portal?."

Portal looks like a great product. Not since “The Jetsons." television show have I seen video conferencing that appears to be so simple. But why does the largest seller of advertising in the world outsource their product launch campaign to television, a medium invented in 1927?

What a complete hypocrisy; this television ad campaign was financed by millions of advertisers paying Facebook to promote their products to Facebook users. Facebook isn’t good enough for Facebook to launch its own products, yet they take your money.

Let’s observe and learn from what they do rather than listen to what our Facebook ad rep says when he’s encouraging us to spend more with Facebook.

As a membership marketer, it’s easy to focus on your own problems. You and I both have goals to reach. You, like me, likely have a number you want to reach with your membership program. There was likely a number you dreamed about before you started, a number at your launch, and a different number you want to hit today.

Your members don’t give a damn about your goals.

Your member prospects and your current subscribers have their own problems. Right now, they aren’t taking action because of some fear — a fear it won’t work, a fear they won’t do what it takes, or perhaps a fear of what others will think of them if they move forward.

Each day in your members’ lives is a new drama: their drama. It really has little to do with you. Your membership and what you deliver is a small thing in the context of their lives.

With unreasonable bosses, demanding customers, sick kids, aging parents, spouse problems, and the internal narrative going on inside their heads, your message is getting lost.

Yelling louder, sending more emails, or trying to improve retention by delivering “more value." isn’t going to help you. Instead, become the problem-solver for your members.

My longtime coach, Rob Berkley, passed away in December from stomach cancer.  My final coaching call with him was in July as he was closing his coaching practice. Rob’s final piece of advice to me was to grow my meditation practice by going to classes conducted by professional instructors.

I’ve meditated for five years on my own, I like to be self-reliant. But this month, I finally followed Rob’s advice and joined a beginning meditation group by attending their “Beginner’s Meditation Class.”

There were six other students, I started feeling superior to the other beginners after listening to a few of their questions. I’ve made a lot of progress on my own.

Then everything changed for me. The meditation class instructor introduced one of the students, Lynn. Lynn had been meditation since she was ten years old. She had just attended a two-week meditation retreat at the center. And, for the last four days, she was in a solo meditation retreat. Yes — meditating by herself, all day. The teacher asked Lynn, “Why are you attending this beginner class?”

“You must approach everything in life with a beginner’s mind,” said Lynn. What an important way to approach everything, including membership.

Rather than chasing every new social media marketing strategy, implementing bots, uploading dozens of videos, and getting lost in the fancy new targeting features, look at the problem as though you know nothing. Then, you can recognize that not even Facebook relies on Facebook advertising to sell their products.

When you are frustrated that your membership isn’t growing, recognize that your members don’t exist to solve your business problems. Instead, your membership exists to solve your members’ problems.

And if you catch yourself thinking, “That’s silly. I already know all this,” you are doing it wrong.

Set aside your ego. Rather than dismissing, lean in to discover the lesson you have been missing.

About Robert Skrob

The problem with subscription membership programs is that members quit, I fix that problem. For more than 20-years I have specialized in direct response marketing for member recruitment, retention and ascension in diverse subscription members environments including non-profit associations, for-profit publishers/coaching, subscriptions and SAAS companies. For an evaluation of your current churn rate and how I can improve it, contact me here. I discover there are often two or three quick wins you can implement within a week to lower churn immediately, let’s talk about your quick wins.