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Here at , the Customer Happiness and Customer Success teams often get asked questions about the best way to market to new members, but very rarely are we asked by customers asking about the best ways to integrate newly purchased members. It sets an important precedent to engage and welcome new people to your community and creates a positive first impression. Here are four key aspects we've identified to make your new members feel at in the first place.

1. Welcome email with a redirect link

Many of the bad experiences that I've had for customers stems from lack of instruction or communication around what the member should do right away upon signing up.

I always tell my customers to think that members who are new don't know the best way to navigate the new membership they've purchased. This is addressed in two various ways:

Creating a memorable redirect page, which either outlines clearly defined next steps, or asks the new member to check their inbox to receive a welcome email which will answer any query a new member may have. (This sounds trivial, but many customers don't take the necessary time to complete this.)

Informing members that new content is available along with reminding them of how to get access to the content.

In my experience, most situations where people stop auto-renew right after sign-up is due to inadequate onboarding or the lack of guidance.

2. Future content previews and the benefits

Another strategy that's effective is sending out previews of members' content and other perks before they're available. This gives members something they can look forward to and 'hang around for'.

This can be achieved with messages that are targeted at the most recent users who joined in the last few days (that the client can define).

3. Social engagement

I've advised one of my clients to shout out their new followers on social media. This has been impactful: new members get recognition and prospective members view this as 'social proof'. This is a win-win situation for everyone.

An easy way to do this is by asking new members to respond to the welcome message with your Instagram handles or their Facebook address to get a shoutout. Some of our clients utilize a social proof application called FOMO that integrates with Stripe and displays pop-ups on their sites.

4. Assist new members in building equity

The question of asking new members what type(s) of material they'd like to see immediately let them feel as that they are an interest in the members. When members are asked for input from members and take the time to respond that input, it helps to build confidence immediately. All of this could be done via email, soliciting members to answer to the welcome email.

Conclusion

All that being said, whatever a customer does to build an immediate, personal relationship with members consistently proves to be an important factor in retention and creates a path to expanding future revenue. This also makes it more likely that the customer will accept the idea of an upsell in order to provide more benefit later.