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Here at , the Customer team for Customer Happiness and Customer Service frequently get asked how to market to new members. But very rarely are we asked by clients asking us about the best way to onboard recently acquired members. This sets a great precedent for engaging and welcoming newcomers to your group and creates a positive first impression. Here are four key areas we have identified to make the new members feel welcome and at home right from the start.

1. Welcome email and redirect page

A significant number of the bad experiences that I've had with customers is due to lack of instruction or communication regarding what the customer must do first following signing up.

My customers always are advised to assume that new members know nothing about how to manage the program they've bought. This is addressed in several various ways:

Designing a memorable redirect page which can either provide specific next steps or directs members who are new to the site to open their mailer to receive a welcome email which will answer any question a new member might have. (This seems like an easy task, yet lots of customers fail to invest the time needed to complete this.)

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

From my personal experience, the majority of cases where people disable auto-renew right after joining are caused by poor onboarding and inexperience.

2. Previewing future content and gains

Another strategy that's effective is to send previews of member contents and other benefits before they're made available. The members have something they can look forward to and  to 'wait for'.

This is accomplished by emails that target the newest users who joined within a recent timeframe (that the customer can specify).

3. Social engagement

I've advised one of my clients to shout out their newly joined members via social media. The results have been positive as new members are recognized and future members perceive this as 'social proof'. This is a win-win situation for everyone.

An easy way to do this is to ask the new members to reply to the welcome message with your Instagram handle , or even Facebook address to get the opportunity to be featured. A few of our customers utilize a social proof application called FOMO that integrates with Stripe and generates pop-ups for their websites.

4. Help new members build equity

The question of asking new members what type(s) of content they would like to view will instantly make them feel having something to contribute to the group. When members are asked for such input and then give time to answer that input, it helps create immediate trust. Again, this can all be accomplished via email by asking members to respond to the welcome email.

Conclusion

All that being said that, anything a client can do to establish an immediate, personal relationship with their members is always a driving factor for retention and provides a way of expanding future revenue. This also makes it more likely that the customer will be receptive to the idea of an increase in price in order to provide more value, down the road.