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At Customer team for Customer Happiness and Customer Service frequently get asked how to promote new members. However, seldom do we get members asking for the most effective ways to integrate newly purchased members. This is a crucial step to engage and welcome new members to your organization and creates a positive first impression. Here are four key points we've identified that will help your new members feel comfortable and at immediately at home.

1. Welcome email and redirect page

A significant number of the negative experiences onboarding I've witnessed for customers stems from the lack of instructions or information regarding what the customer should do right away upon the initial sign-up.

My customers always are advised to think that members who are new don't know the best way to navigate the program they've bought. We deal with this in a couple of different ways by:

Designing a memorable redirect page, which either outlines specific next steps or directs members who are new to the site to check their inbox for an email welcoming them to join the club that is designed to address any questions a prospective member could need to know. (This seems like an easy task, yet many customers don't invest the time needed to do this.)

Informing members of new content that is released, and reminding them how to gain access to that content.

In my experience, most instances where members disable auto-renewing immediately upon sign-up is due to poor onboarding and inexperience.

2. Previewing future content and gains

Another method that is effective is sending previews of member contents and other benefits before they're available. It gives members something they can look forward to and  keep an eye on.

This is accomplished by 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 one of my clients to shout out their new followers on social media. The results have been positive as new members are recognized and future members perceive it as social proof. The result is win-win.

One way to achieve this is to ask the new members to reply to the welcome email by providing your Instagram handle , or even Facebook address to get an acknowledgement. A few of our customers make use of a social proof tool called FOMO which integrates with Stripe and generates pop-ups for their sites.

4. Assist new members in building equity

The question of asking new members what type(s) of material they would like to view will instantly make them feel if they have something to contribute to the group. If membership managers ask members for input from members and give time to answer that input, it helps build trust immediately. This can also be accomplished via email by soliciting members to answer with a welcome email.

Conclusion

However, whatever a customer is able to do to create an immediate connection to their members is always an important factor in retention and opens the way to increasing future revenues. This also makes it more likely that the customer will be receptive to the concept of an upsell, to offer even more value, down the road.