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The Customer Happiness and Customer Success teams often get asked questions about the best way to promote new members. However, seldom do we get members asking for the most effective way to onboard recently acquired members. This is a crucial step in attracting and welcoming new members to your organization, and sets a great first impression. Below are the four areas we have identified to make your new members feel comfortable and at immediately at home.

1. Welcome email with a redirect link

Many of the poor onboarding experiences I've seen from customers are due to the lack of instructions or information about what the user must do first after the initial sign-up.

I always tell my customers to think that members who are new know nothing about how to use the membership they've just purchased. We deal with this in a couple of different ways by:

Create a memorable redirection page that either provides specific next steps or directs a new member to check their inbox for a Welcome email that will answer any question a new member might need to know. (This may seem like a trivial thing, but lots of customers fail to invest the time needed to create this.)

Informing members of new content that is released, and reminders on how they can get access to the content.

In my experience, most situations where people stop auto-renew right after sign-up is due to inadequate onboarding or inexperience.

2. Previewing future content and advantages

Another method that is effective is sending out previews of members' content and other perks before they're released. It gives members something they're excited about and  to 'wait for'.

This is accomplished by email campaigns that focus on the latest customers who signed up in the last few days (that customers can choose).

3. Social engagement

I've advised certain of my clients to shout out their newly joined members via social media. It's been effective as new members are recognized and prospective members view this as 'social proof'. The result is win-win.

A simple way to accomplish this is to request the new members to reply to the Welcome email with your Instagram handles or their Facebook username to be eligible for a shoutout. Some of our clients make use of a social proof tool known as FOMO which is integrated with Stripe and displays pop-ups on their web pages.

4. Help new members build equity

Asking new members what type(s) of material they would like to view will instantly make them feel having an interest in the members. When members are asked to hear their input, and make the effort to reply with that input, it helps to build confidence immediately. This can also be handled over email by asking members to respond to the welcome email.

Conclusion

All that being said that, anything a client does to build an immediate, personal relationship with their members is always a driving factor for retention and provides a way of expanding future revenue. This makes it even more likely that the member will be receptive to the idea of an upsell that will provide even greater worth later on.