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The Customer Happy and Customer Success teams are often asked about how to promote new members, but seldom do we get customers asking about the best method to welcome newly acquired members. It sets an important precedent to engage and welcome new people to your community as well as creating a memorable first impression. Here are four key points we've identified that will ensure that your new members feel comfortable and at immediately at home.

1. Welcome email and redirect page

Many of the bad experiences that I've had with customers is due to lack of instruction or communication about what the user is supposed to do immediately after joining.

My customers always are advised to presume that the new members don't know the best way to navigate the program they've bought. The way we deal with this is two different ways by:

Designing a memorable redirect page which can either provide clear next steps or instructs members who are new to the site to look in their email for an email welcoming them to join the club that is designed to address any query a new member may have. (This may seem like a trivial thing, but most customers do not take the necessary time to complete this.)

Informing members that new content is available along with reminders on how they can gain access to that content.

From my personal experience, the majority of situations where people stop auto-renew immediately after joining are caused by inadequate onboarding or the lack of guidance.

2. The preview of future content and benefits

Another tactic that works well is to send previews of member contents and other benefits before they're available. The members have something they can look forward to and  keep an eye on.

This can be achieved with emails that target the newest members who have signed up within a recent timeframe (that the customer can specify).

3. Social engagement

I've been telling some of my customers to give shoutouts to their new followers via social media. The results have been positive: new members get recognition and prospective members view this as 'social proof'. The result is win-win.

One way to achieve this is by asking the new members to reply to the welcome message with their Instagram handles or their Facebook address to get a shoutout. We have a few customers who use a social proof app named FOMO which integrates 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 want to see will instantly make them feel that they are an interest in the members. When membership operators ask to hear their input, and make the effort to reply with to that feedback, it can help create immediate trust. All of this could be handled over email by soliciting members to answer the Welcome email.

Conclusion

That being said the things that customers does to build an immediate personal connection with their members is always an important factor in retention and opens the way to expanding future revenue. This makes it even more likely that the customer is open to the concept of an upsell, to offer even more value, down the road.