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At Customer team for Customer Happiness and Customer Service often get asked questions about the best way to reach out to potential members. However, seldom do we get clients asking us about the best ways to integrate newly purchased members. It sets an important precedent to engage and welcome new members to your organization, and sets a great first impression. Here are four key points we've identified that will make your new members feel at home right from the start.

1. Welcome email with a redirect link

A significant number of the bad experiences that I've had with customers is due to insufficient instruction or lack of communication about what the user should do right away following the initial sign-up.

I tell my clients to think that members who are new do not know how to use the program they've bought. We deal with this in a couple of different ways by:

Creating a memorable redirect page, which either outlines 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 questions a prospective member could have. (This sounds trivial, but lots of customers fail to invest the time needed to do this.)

Notifying members when new content is released, and reminding them how to access that content.

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

2. Future content previews and the benefits

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

This can be achieved with emails that target the newest customers who signed up within the past few months (that the client can define).

3. Social engagement

I've told certain of my clients to shout out their new followers on social media. This has been impactful the new members receive recognition and potential members see this as 'social proof'. It's a win-win.

One way to achieve this is to request new members to respond to the Welcome email with their Instagram handles or their Facebook username to be eligible for a shoutout. Some of our clients utilize a social proof application known as FOMO that integrates with Stripe and displays pop-ups on their web pages.

4. New members can be helped to build equity

Asking new members what type(s) of material they'd like to see instantly make them feel if they have something to contribute to the group. When members are asked for such input and then take the time to respond that input, it helps create immediate trust. All of this could be accomplished via email by asking members to respond with a welcome email.

Conclusion

All that being said, whatever a customer is able to do to create an immediate personal connection with customers is consistently a driving factor for retention and opens the way to increasing future revenues. This makes it even more likely that a member is open to the idea of an increase in price in order to provide more value, down the road.