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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 assist them in advancing their membership-based businesses. As we continue to engage with new customers and aid the growth of their membership by sharing important lessons and results that we're witnessing when it comes to the overall strategy for membership.

A recent hot subject of discussion among our clients has been the issue of price increases. Folks are asking the following concerns:

• "How can I tell that I'm in a position to increase the price without creating an enormous churning event?"
• "How can I boost price?"
• "When is the ideal price to be raised?"

Clearly, there's no one-size-fits-all solution for this. And without a detailed approach in place, there's the risk of raising prices . But, after walking through this journey recently with some of our customers I'm convinced that there are clear signals that suggest when prices are able to increase with little risk. The indicators include:

The strong adoption of annual plans vs. plans that are monthly

The memberships with a strong organic adoption of an annual plan over monthly plans hold major pricing power. If memberships experience at minimum 70% of new subscribers purchasing an annual plan over a period of minimum four months, it is an indication that the membership is priced at an undervalued.

If this is the case an increase in price between 10% and 20% will get the approval of members.

The content formats continue to evolve.

Memberships that continually expand their content formats can raise prices often (i.e. once per year). Take the case where member benefits have historically been newsletter-focused. Expanding those benefits into different formats like podcasts, video and others could increase the benefits of members.

If it's content recycled or is completely new, content expansion creates 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 only a few experts who are qualified that can compete on the market.

A membership that offers in-depth analysis and cutting-edge research, in a niche subject, is sure to attract prominent CEOs, thought-leaders and other innovators from similar industries. It's a market that's eager to shell out a substantial amount to learn about the impact on their industry and their customers. Members who serve such groups in these markets have a significant power of pricing.

Statisticians and guidelines

Here are some more general trends we've spotted during our research:

• Customers who have had the greatest success in raising prices do it gradually - not exceeding more than one price increase every 12-18 months.
• When a pricing plan involves yearly prices increases, 10 percent per year are accepted by customers.
• Annual memberships that do not have raised prices historically (or for a period exceeding the period of 18 months) and that have an annual retention minimum 75% are likely to increase the cost by as much as 20%, without having a negative impact.
• The results of customer surveys show that the frequency of price hikes is more significant than the increase itself - as long as the consumer is in the 10%-20% increase interval.

Hope this can be helpful. I'll be sharing more of these learnings as we move forward!