14 Membership Retention Strategies to Reduce Members Churn in 2023

In a world that costs for acquisition are increasing higher and higher, keeping customers around is just as important as finding new ones. It's the reason why numerous creators are particularly focused on their strategies for retaining members.

If done correctly If you do it right, a well-planned member retention program can have huge advantages for your business. You'll be able to keep your customers longer and for longer and increase revenue and the life-time value of your clients. Additionally, you'll be able to tap into the opinions and opinions of the users, which is beneficial in improving your brand for the future.

Let go of the rotating door of members and hello to a loyal, vibrant group of members that is the driving force behind the success of your membership website. Let's dive in and make this year the year to retain members!

Why is membership Retention important?

Membership retention is crucial for the success of every company that is based on membership. There are several factors to consider:

• Cost-effectiveness: Retaining current members is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, as the recurring revenue generated from loyal customers is greater than the time and effort required to attract one-time customers. According to Harvard Business School just a 5% increase in membership retention can result in a 25-95 percent increase in profit
• Potential for referrals: Bain & Company's research suggests that a person who has made multiple purchases will be more likely to recommend other customers. If you focus on keeping your current members and leveraging their influence and turn them into brand ambassadors that can result in organic growth by word-of-mouth referrals.
• Financial stability: Constant churn could make a membership website financially unstable. On average, it costs around 6-7 times as much to win the new member than to keep the existing member. Through implementing efficient retention techniques, you'll be able to lower the rate of turnover among members and guarantee an ongoing revenue stream which makes it simpler to invest into growth strategies.

14 Membership Retention Strategies to Enhance Member Retention

Here are 14 member retention strategies you could test on your site's membership now:

1.   Create a stellar onboarding experience
2.   Build a library of resources and engaging content
3.   Offer exclusive perks and benefits
4.   Start challenges for members to boost member participation
5.   Create a membership calendar for events coming up
6.   Flexibility is a feature of your participation
7.   Offer options for a longer-term commitment
8.   Make use of the appropriate hosting platform for your site for membership
9.   Connect with churning members
10.   Take notes on the things you've accomplished
11.   Create a limited membership level
12.   Member success stories
13.   Renew your memberships or acknowledge your participants
14.   Be present!

 1. Create a stellar onboarding experience

The initial step in ensuring an excellent retention rate is creating the best possible member experience. A clear and structured onboarding process is essential for new members to understand the way your content will address their problems and effectively utilize the benefits you offer. Consider providing clear guidelines regarding when, how, and where they can access your membership benefits your company offers. Without proper guidance, members might feel like they are left to their own devices, leading to feelings of uncertainty and a potential for them to leave your membership and feel like it wasn't worthwhile for them.

One of the primary aspects of creating a spectacular customer experience for new customers is creating an email drip campaign with a welcome email.

Immediately after an individual joins Send a customized welcoming email or text message which expresses appreciation and gives the details of what members can expect from the membership. Help them feel appreciated and energized to be a part of the community.

For clarity, we're not recommending you to send email messages manually to all of your newly added members one by one. Instead, use an email marketing platform to set up an automated email drip campaign. Create a set of four customized emails to guide new members through your membership site, highlighting important features like the collection of resources and the upcoming events. Engage them immediately by encouraging them to leave comments on membership posts and join the online community. Let automation do the work as you design a fantastic user experience.

 2. Make a library with materials and interesting content

If new members sign up to on a site for membership members expect immediate access to relevant materials and information. Having a pre-existing library ensures that you can fulfill those expectations right from the beginning so that you have a better chance of being able to retain your members over time. It demonstrates your commitment to offer a great experience and helps new members feel that their investment in the membership is worthwhile.

If new members are able to explore the library of materials immediately, they are more likely to interact with the content, participate in discussions, and contribute to the wider community. This engagement fosters feelings of belonging, and encourages them to maintain with their involvement throughout the years.

Platforms like these allow users develop unique and captivating members' content in a variety of formats such as videos, text, file attachments survey, polls, and many more! Your users will also have the ability to engage with your content through likes and comments, thereby encouraging users to share your content.

 3. Offer exclusive perks and benefits

Who doesn't love deals? Consider sending exclusive perks like freebies, early access, or special offers as part of your member retention plan. While at the same time they will assist in the recruitment of new members, while satisfying your existing ones. That's what we like to refer to as winning-win.

If you're using  it, you'll be able to sell diverse other digital items like digital downloads (e.g. eBooks) as well as online courses and coaching services as well as be in a position to provide specials and discounts on your merchandise directly through the platform. This will help you provide greater worth and make people come to return for even more.

 4. Launch membership challenges to increase the engagement of members

The idea of launching regular challenges for members can really help with your long-term retention strategies as well as increase the number of new members joining your site. The challenges provide an organized and engaging experience for your members and encourage them to actively participate in your website. By setting goals, completing assignments, or taking part in group activities, members get more involved and inspired to do something, which can lead to greater engagement.

The challenges for membership can assist in keeping members by providing ongoing benefit and an impression of progression. Challenges provide fresh and engaging information that keeps members engaged and involved in the site for a long duration. If they have an incentive to continue engaging with the site, they are more likely to renew their membership.

Consider challenges that are related to your business and the niche you operate in such as a drawing contest to an art website, a 30-day mindfulness challenge on a health and wellness website, or a 7-day decluttering task for your home or website for organization.

A bonus point Inviting your members to post their challenge progress on social media, as this can let you tap into their networks and attract new members who might be keen to join your site!

 5. Set up a membership calendar to mark forthcoming events

The membership calendar acts as a centralized way to send important dates out to members. It gives a concise and organized summary of the events happening within the membership community and ensures that your members are informed and up-to-date on upcoming events, deadlines or webinars, seminars, or any other scheduled actions.

This can help provide your members with an understanding of the structure, and a roadmap of what to expect. This also promotes frequent interaction and participation, which can lead to a more lively and engaging membership experience. It is more likely that you will remain loyal to your customers when they are able to experience a wide range of events and events planned in advance, since your members will enjoy continued benefits from participating in the local community. It keeps the membership site relevant and demonstrates a commitment to providing a robust and vibrant community experience.

From an administrative perspective From a business perspective, a calendar for membership can help to keep you organized and simplify the planning process. It allows you to schedule and plan events ahead organize resources, as well as assign time and energy accordingly.

 6. Include flexibility in your member management

A solid membership retention idea is to make things flexible for your customers. Give them a variety of options to get to the same desired goal, such as different payment structures as well as membership tiers. It shows that you are more concerned about the experience rather than just money. That is a sentiment that every customer can enjoy.

Try allowing them to pay their membership fees in multiple smaller amounts, or you can even think about extending the discount for them to stay. With , you can easily offer a variety of payment options for membership fees including one-time fees, recurring fees, payment plans, and many more. You'll also be able to easily provide discount codes with limitations on time.

 7. Offer options to make a long-term commitment

Although monthly subscriptions can be flexible, they can also cause higher churn. Offering longer-term choices like quarterly or annual subscriptions, you not only motivate members to sign up for more commitments but give them additional benefits. The longer-term commitments usually include benefits such as discounted rates or exclusive perks which enhance your overall experience as a member. This approach encourages the members to keep their membership for long periods, encouraging loyalty while reducing the chance of being churned.

 8. Make sure you choose the best membership platform for hosting your own membership website

The right platform for membership is essential for the success of a member-based website. It increases user satisfaction as well as facilitates management of content. It simplifying membership management, guarantees security for payment processing, provides scalability and customization options that allow seamless integration with other tools. The choice of a platform that is suitable will increase member satisfaction, engagement, and retention. This ultimately adds to the success over time of your membership site.

We would recommend that you use it since the platform is completely free, and provides powerful solutions to help you create and grow your membership business.

Here are some notable features when creating your membership website by using :

• Generous forever free plan
• Unlimited members and different membership levels
• Let members choose several recurring periods (weekly or monthly and even for life) to pay for memberships
• Create content that is customized based on member levels to provide targeted benefit to all members
• Ensure a fast, secure, and seamless checkout process for easy membership purchases
• Utilize powerful features for creating content such as schedule posts, live previews, and rich media features
• Foster member engagement through comments and likes for interactive community participation
• Create highly converting page landing pages to promote your membership site with no technical headaches
• Provide options for free trials or a variety of first-time costs to encourage membership sign-ups
• Get a completely hosted domain for free from , or easily join any domain you want to your account
• Gain valuable insights by integrating Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel to track customer data

Register for a free account on No payment information is required. You can enjoy exploring the website and see if it is right for you

Also, check our article on how to create a membership website for a more thorough step-by-step instructions.

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 9. Contact churning members

However, it's impossible to prevent a member from logging off your site. This is the nature of the game. Therefore, this idea for retention is more proactive to find out why people leave. This can provide useful insights into ways to improve the experiences of your colleagues. Perhaps that, in addition to this, you might be able to persuade them to stay with you after having a conversation!

For example: if members who are churning complain that price of membership is excessive, maybe other members also have the same opinion but aren't able to express their opinion to you. If they mention the issue that your website has issues it will be possible to fix the glitches. If your services don't have enough strength, you'll be able to enhance and broaden your options. There's always room to improve as your clients are the best source for information.

 10. Take notes on the things you've achieved!

The collection of important information about the things you've accomplished for your website's members is a great way to pinpoint the elements, actions or information that impressed your users. This helps you understand what strategies are effective in engaging and retaining members, allowing the possibility of replicating those success for the next time. Here are some tips to collect valuable information from existing members:

• Keep track of member activity in your site, which includes content consumption, participation in forums and related actions. These data will help you identify patterns and identify which elements of your website are most popular with your members.
• In regular intervals, ask for feedback from your clients by polls, surveys, or feedback forms. Find out what they think of your service and what they value as well as areas of improvement. The direct feedback from the participants can offer valuable insight on what's working and how it can be improved.
• Perform A/B tests through the creation of different versions of your website or your membership options to test the performance. It allows you to test and collect data about the things that resonate better with members, which can lead to higher engagement or conversions.

Keep in mind that data collection needs to be a continuous procedure. Always review and evaluate the information you collect to make informed decisions and constantly improve your membership website to achieve better results.

 11. Participate in recruitment for members

It is important for existing members to see that your member site is continually expanding and adding new members. New members increases the appeal and value of the membership website. As members who are already members notice new members join, it reinforces their decision to join and be part of the community. It provides proof to the public that the website is useful and valuable that strengthens their commitment as well as their loyalty.

Although it's important to retain your existing members, don't forget to continuously seek out new members for your site by engaging in various recruitment as well as marketing efforts. Also, keep in mind that choosing the correct platform to offer memberships could make or break your membership recruitment process.

 12. Share member success stories

Social proof is an important means of getting more people aware of the benefits offered by your membership site. One excellent form of social proof can be found in the success stories of members that show the ways you have helped members achieve a goal or make improvements in some way.

These can be posted in a variety of formats, such as quotes or videos on your homepage of your site or as a "Member success Stories" page. They can also be posted as downloadable content such as cases studies, and in eBooks or in text and video postings on social media platforms.

 13. Celebrate renewals/acknowledge your loyal members

Recognizing and praising your members is a great way that can help them feel as if they are part of the community in which they belong. This can be done by just sending them a text message or a message telling them how much you value your members. It is also possible to go a step further and offer discounts and special gifts to demonstrate your gratitude. Birthdays, anniversaries, and renewals are a great time for these.

 14. Make sure you are Present!

One common mistake the creators make in membership retention is not taking care of their website after setting it up. People join the site because of their connections to the creator. However, in the event that the creator is absent from the community, that relationship dwindles away. If you are active in engaging your members and consistently being there for them, you will persuade your members to continue being part of your community.

Final Thoughts - Membership Retention Strategies to Consider Today!

Implementing strategies for increasing retention may require the time and energy, it's important to remember that getting new members is more expensive than keeping existing members. Hopefully we've provided a good checklist of cost-effective and affordable strategies to increase your membership experience that you can try out now! A reputation built on good retention rates demonstrates the value of your community and draws new members that want to participate in the exceptional program for membership. Retention of members is an art that takes time, commitment, and patience, but the result is a masterpiece. Get started on building your membership site with today!