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At Customer Happy and Customer Success teams frequently get asked how to market to new members. But rarely do we hear members asking for the most effective way to onboard recently acquired members. This sets a great precedent to engage and welcome new members to your organization, and sets a great first impression. Here are four key points we've identified that will make the new members feel welcome and at home right from the start.

1. Welcome email, redirection page and a link

A significant number of the poor onboarding experiences I've seen for customers stems from the lack of instructions or information around what the member is supposed to do immediately after joining.

I tell my clients to presume that the new members know nothing about how to navigate the membership they've just purchased. The way we deal with this is several various ways:

Create a memorable redirection page, which either outlines clearly defined next steps, or asks members who are new to the site to check their inbox for an email welcoming them to join the club that aims to answer any potential query a new member may be able to ask. (This sounds trivial, but many customers don't take the necessary time to create this.)

Notifying members when new content is made available, as well as reminding them of how to access that content.

In my experience, most situations where people stop auto-renewing immediately upon joining are caused by insufficient onboarding and inexperience.

2. Future content previews and the benefits

Another tactic that works well is sending previews of member contents and other benefits before they're available. The members have something to look forward to and 'hang around for'.

This can be achieved with email campaigns that focus on the latest users who joined within a recent timeframe (that the client can define).

3. Social engagement

I've advised certain of my clients to give shoutouts to their new members via social media. This has been impactful as new members are recognized and future members perceive this as 'social proof'. This is a win-win situation for everyone.

A simple way to accomplish this is to ask the new members to reply to the Welcome email with your Instagram handles or their Facebook username to be eligible for the opportunity to be featured. A few of our customers utilize a social proof application known as FOMO which integrates with Stripe and generates pop-ups for their sites.

4. Assist new members in building equity

Asking new members what type(s) of material they want to see will instantly make them feel having an interest in the members. If membership managers ask members to hear their input, and give time to answer by giving their input, they help build trust immediately. All of this could be done via email, inviting members to reply to the Welcome email.

Conclusion

All that being said that, anything a client can do to establish an immediate, personal relationship with customers is consistently a driving factor for retention and creates a path to increasing future revenues. This makes it even more likely that a member will be receptive to the idea of an increase in price, to offer even more benefit later.