How to Choose Membership Tier Names That SELL

Author 
Chipo   0

Updated on May 25, 2023

Struggling to come up with captivating membership tier names? We get it.

One of the hardest parts of building and launching a successful product is thinking of a great name that looks professional, encourages sales, and fits your brand.

Thinking of one name is hard enough, but finding the perfect membership tier names can slow you down with analysis paralysis!

Today's post will give you everything you need to choose membership tier names fast that:

  • Sound fun and professional
  • Connect with the language of your audience
  • Communicate your hierarchy of benefits
  • Match your type of membership business model

You'll also learn a few key tips on how to promote your membership tiers after you've found the right names.

Ready?

Let's dive in.

More...

Why Do Membership Tier Names Matter?

The first decision a new customer has to make is to choose a membership tier that best fits their budget and needs... so it’s essential that you put some thought into naming your tiers in a way that connects with your audience. The level name is what they will come to associate as their relationship with your product.

Good membership tier names are:

  • An engaging branding tool
  • An opportunity to be super clear on what you offer
  • Terms that resonate
  • Accessible for a broad audience
  • A point of connection to communicate the value of your product

Naming your membership tiers can be fun, but with so many options, it’s easy to get distracted in the creative process. Don’t worry, we’ll help you find great names for your membership tiers... but let’s hold off for a sec and explore what kinds of membership tiers already exist first.

tiers of membership

Membership tiers engage customers with benefits that are clear, to the point and speak to what they want from your products.

How to Create Membership Tier Names That Make Your Audience Want To Buy

The best way to approach a creative task like naming your membership tiers is to exhaust all possibilities before making your decision. 

While you can’t avoid bias and personal preference influencing your decisions, you can consider all possible options. It’s time to put your most creative hat on and have some fun

Here we go…

Select a Membership Tier Approach

If you're struggling to divide your offers into several clear tiers, consider one of these approaches:

  • Skills-based Membership: Define your tiers according to your customers' level of experience (e.g. Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced). This kind of membership is engaging as it comes with a clearly defined promise of improving your customers’ skills through purchasing your membership.
  • Time-based Membership: Offer a recurring membership model based on a period of time (e.g. Monthly, Quarterly, Annually, etc.). You can use the higher-priced tiers to offer an irresistible investment that makes the longer-term option seem like a no-brainer for those who do the math.
  • Supporter-based Membership: Want to use your platform to connect with your customers on a deeper level? This type of membership plan is a great way to get your audience to hang out, learn from you, purchase directly and find all your latest news. Fan-based memberships offer a chance to manage content, press releases, launch new products, and create a sense of exclusivity with your audience. 
  • Content-Dependent Membership: These kinds of membership sites can be huge. You can use this approach to provide access to completely different sections of a website based on the type of membership your customer signs up for.

Outline Each Tier's Benefits

The next important step in creating your membership tiers names is to divide your offers and create a hierarchy. Try to limit your tiers to a maximum of 3 or 4. Having too many membership tiers will confuse your audience and cost you sales.

Make sure you establish clearly defined benefits that justify the price jumps between tiers.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes when you consider this. You don’t want to restrict your customers so much that they can’t function at all within your lowest priced tier (particularly if it's a free one).

That's because trapping people inside an artificially limited membership tier won't get people to upgrade. It’s just going frustrate them to the point of abandoning your product or service. 

Once you know exactly what you're offering and how many tiers you need to establish, it's time to give them great names. 

Brainstorm Keywords

The FUN step!

To really brainstorm great tier name possibilities, you’ve must let go and all the ideas flow out of you.

There are many exercises you can do to get your idea juices flowing. One of my favorites is a brain dump session. Note down every word associated with your product, your branding and anything else that your target customer connects with. Then, write down all of the words you can think of that connect by association to those. By the end of your brainstorming session, you should have a huge bank of words that relate to your business.

Feel free to ‘cheat’ using tools like Thesaurus.com to discover new synonyms and themes.

Now select your best finds, trying to filter for words that reflect the “small, medium, large” concept you often see in tiers of membership. 

Tip: Target descriptive, memorable words that clearly communicate value to your customers. Words like "Elite", "Inner Circle", "Superfans", "Gold Members" are compelling and automatically create a sense of high-value exclusivity -- and that's what you want.

Keep It Simple

Membership tier names need to resonate with your customers. And to do that, you must present your products in a language customers understand. The names you choose should be inline with your brand and define what customers can expect from your products.

If you get this far and decide that Basic, Pro and Premium is and always has been the best option for your membership site, don’t see this as wasted time. Going through the brainstorming processes is vital picking the best not the first — option.

How to Promote Your Membership Tiers & Generate Sales (Key Tips)

Download & Install Thrive Suite

If you're serious about generating consistent sales for your online business, then you need Thrive Suite.

Thrive Suite features a set of powerful plugins, each designed to build, grow, and advance your online business.

Download and install Thrive Suite


Whether you have an existing website, or need to build one from scratch, Thrive Suite's plugins can play a big role in improving the way you promote your sales offers, generate conversions, and capture leads.

In terms of promoting your latest membership tiers, here's how Thrive Suite can help...

Create a Conversion-Focused Sales Page For Your Offer

If you want to grab your audience's attention and skyrocket their interest in your offer...you need a kickass, conversion-focused sales page. And if you get Thrive Suite, you can use Thrive Architect, our super simple drag-and-drop editor to build a professional-looking sales page to successfully promote your offer.

No need for coding. No need to spend hours trying to plan your sales. Thrive Architect is packed with powerful, conversion-focused elements to help you generate sales.

Another bonus?

If you buy Thrive Suite, you can also access a library of professionally-designed landing page templates from our smart companion themes in Thrive Theme Builder.

Thrive Themes Landing Page Set Library


That way, you can save even more time by using a pre-built landing page template -- that's already designed for conversion generation -- to promote your offfer.

Run a Time-Sensitive Promo to Get Your Audience To Join a Membership Tier Immediately

Who doesn't love a good ol' time scarcity campaign?

It nips your audience's procrastination in the bud and pushes them to take action immediately. And if you're a Thrive Suite user, you don't have to worry about searching for a countdown timer plugin for your FOMO-driven sales.


All you need to do is activate Thrive Ultimatum, and use one of our pre-designed countdown timer templates to kickstart your time-sensitive campaign and drive those sales up immediately.

Place Strategic Popups on Your Website Based on Audience’s Behavior

Stay with me.

I know popups have a pretty bad rep -- but they can be super profitable when you use them the right way.

Strategically positioned and timed popups on your website can help you convert more curious potential customers into excited, paying ones.

And with Thrive Leads + Thrive Architect (both a part of Thrive Suite), you can build and embed an eye-catching popup in minutes. Thrive Leads, our lead-generation plugin, offers a large selection of fully customizable popup form templates you can use on your website.

Don't sleep on this simple, conversion-generating strategy. Popups are still useful and they can help boost your sales.

Don’t Have An Audience? Use a Free Offer to Promote Your Paid Offer

If you're still on the fence about popups, no problem!

You can use Thrive Leads to promote a free lead magnet to build an audience you'll eventually sell to.

Thrive Leads has over 450+ opt-in form templates, designed to grab your audience's attention and convince them to become interested leads.


Once you've got a mailing list, you can use top email marketing strategies to connect with your leads and get them to eventually buy into one of your membership tiers.

Use a Quiz to Direct Your Audience to the Right Membership Tier For Their Needs

Who doesn't love a fun, online quiz?

Quizzes are one of the most effective ways to gain key insights on your audience and provide them with personalized recommendations.

With the right quiz, you can direct your audience to a specific membership tier that matches their budget, skill level, and/or interests.

And if you have Thrive Suite, you won't need to spend $100+ on one quiz plugin. Because you'll have access to Thrive Quiz Builder, one of the best WordPress quiz plugins out there.


Use the drag-and-drop editor + pre-built quiz templates to create a fun, engaging quiz to segment your audience and get them in front of the right offer.

Tip: Read this guide to learn more about using quizzes to grow your online business

Don't Forget to Include Social Proof

Glowing customer reviews and testimonials are a solid way to prove your offer's credibility and win your potential customers' trust.

Adding social proof to your sales pages is a surefire way to show your target audience that they won't regret purchasing one of your offers.

Collecting and managing testimonials can be tough -- especially as a busy business owner who's managing so many different parts of your business.

Enter: Thrive Ovation, our nifty testimonial management plugin that helps you collect, manage, and showcase your testimonials all from one place.

With your Thrive Suite subscription, you also have access to this game-changing plugin (at no additional charge). Coupled with Thrive Architect's testimonial blocks and elements, you'll be able to leverage social proof in an effective way that encourages your potential customers to convert.

Thrive Suite is more than a website-building toolkit. It's the ultimate all-in-one solution you need to build a lasting, thriving online business. Whether you're using a different platform to host your membership tiers, or you're still on the search for one (we recommend Thrive Apprentice), Thrive Suite has a game-changing solution for you.

You won't find this kind of value, at this price, anywhere else.

Check Out Thrive Suite Pricing

FAQs

Q: How many membership tiers should I have?

A: The number of membership tiers that you choose should represent the range of customers you want to sign up to your membership site.

If you haven’t noticed already, the rule of three is a popular choice. It offers options — but not too many — and looks good on the page.

While these are good reasons for choosing three options, don’t feel obligated to comply. As a business owner, you should always be testing and looking to make improvements, and your membership tier names are no exception.

Q: How to price my membership tiers?

A: The price of your membership tiers will also dictate your revenue and filter for certain kinds of people. Too low, and you’ll attract customers who are not engaged and who require a lot of support. Too high, and you may price your product out of the market.

Your membership site should be accessible to a mix of customers at different stages in their journey, with the idea that, over time, they might jump up to the next level.

To do this, you need a comfortable entry-level price and a realistic mid-way point that is attainable and affordable. Do your research, see what your competitors are offering, and decide what works for your business.

I’m going to say it again because it’s that important, make sure that your membership tiers justify each price jump. If you go from $90 to $500 with nothing in between (and only a few of benefits that no one really wants), people are going to feel cheated.

Q: Memberships vs. Online Courses – Which business model is better?

A: If you want to create an info-product business, the question of whether to sell individual courses or create a membership site is important to ask yourself.

Check out our Membership vs. Courses post to learn more about which business model is best for you.

Time to Move from Research to Action

You now have all the tools you need to get your membership tiers names finalized. And if you're looking for more resources on how to grow a thriving membership or online course platform, check out these articles:

There’s no excuse anymore — get to naming!

And if you want to build a membership site that gives you total flexibility and customization power...

Get Thrive Suite and Start Building Your Dream Membership Site Today

by Chipo  May 25, 2023

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