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Anyone running a membership site needs an effective onboarding process to get members off to a good start. In today’s article, I describe what an effective member onboarding process involves.
First impressions last.
We may not like it, and we may think “oh, I’m better than that, I make it a point to see how people are really like before judging them,” but no matter how we try, making snap judgments is innate to us as humans.
Your new members are the same. When a new member signs up on your website and they feel disoriented, dissatisfied, or any other negative feeling or reaction, that’ll stay with them. It’s going to take a lot to make them forget that feeling.
So you need to spend the time and effort to get that first impression just right.
In this blog post, you’ll learn why you need a member onboarding process and outline what an effective one comprises.
What exactly do we mean when we say “member onboarding”?
Here’s a definition we can work with.
Member onboarding is a process designed to introduce new members to your membership website and help them gain the needed knowledge to use your site. Onboarding also involves discovering your members’ goals and directing them through the optimal way to use your site for them to be able to achieve their goals.
Sounds like a lot of work for you, huh?
I mean, why go through all the trouble of drafting out an entire member onboarding process, right? Wouldn’t it be easier for you to just email them their username, password, and then the link to your membership site so they can log in and start exploring your membership site?
Well, it’s certainly easy, but will it give added value to your new members? Would it motivate them to come back to your site? Would they feel welcome in your site?
No. No, it wouldn’t.
Here are some good reasons why you need a member onboarding process in place.
To teach new members how to access the site. The most basic process to teach your members is how to log in to your site. Provide them the link to your homepage, their username, and their password (and invite them to change it to a more secure one while you’re at it).
To deliver value at first contact. The sooner you show off your best content to your new members, the more impact it has on them.
To integrate them into the community. Not all those who join your site are comfortable with just going into the forum or discussion board and interact with existing members straight away.
The forums be like this… and you know no one.
Some of them will need you to guide them through your forums and how to use them, as well as introduce them to existing members or direct them to a designated “new member” forum to introduce themselves.
To encourage them to start on their goals. Asking new members about their goals and their motivation to join your website serves as a reminder to them to get started on working toward those goals.
Getting your members off to a great start increases their chances of seeing results early and staying on as members.
So how do you create an effective member onboarding process that will do just that?
Here’s an outline of how to do it.
Once a member has started to do something on your site, it will be much easier for them to continue doing it, which involves them coming back to your site.
Keep their first task/tasks simple. You want them to feel thrilled after completing the action, not overwhelmed. The more complicated the action you make them do, the less likely they are to actually do it.
The first actions your customers will take will quite possibly vary with your niche and the type of membership site you’re running, but here are some examples of first actions your new members can take:
When you’ve determined what you want your members to do when they’re in your site, you’ll want to make sure you provide them with what they need to know so they can do their first tasks as well as the rest with no problems.
As with your members’ goals and actions, this information may vary, but here are some general aspects that you’re likely to want your members to know.
Basic administrative information. Basic, boring, but crucial stuff: how to log in, how to set up their user profile, how to use the community area, where to find downloadables, where the courses are, where the support page is, and other things that your members need to actually use their membership.
Your best content. What’s the content that you’re most proud of? The content that you consider the star of your website?
That’s the first thing you want your new members to see so they can get to appreciate the kind of quality that you have to offer.
It’s like when you invite someone to your house for the first time; what coffeetable books do you display to impress them?
If you have a site that has members at different stages of their journey to their goals, you might show different content to different members depending on where they are.
The features of your website. When you have a membership site with plenty of features, you’ll want to highlight the features that they’ll otherwise overlook.
Again, if your members are on different levels, highlight the features that you know are going to be useful for their own journey to their individual goals.
Previews of what’s coming. Give your members a few sneak peeks of content that you’re working on for future release. This gives them a feeling of “oh, I don’t want to miss that” and they tend to stick around so they can be there when you release that content.
Plus, this gives the impression that you’re doing your best effort to update your website and keep it interesting and relevant for your members.
Now that you know what actions you’d like new members to do and what they need to know to do those actions, it’s time to create the actual “getting started” tour.
You can have this tour as a presentation, or even an illustrated PDF, but a video is simpler to follow and is easier to update in case you decide to change some processes or features of your website.
Here are some pointers when creating your new member tour.
Make your new members feel welcome. When you decide to sign up for something that you feel will help you in your journey and will help you achieve your goals, you’re at least a little excited and looking forward to get started.
It’s a bit of a letdown when you go through the entire process, give your credit card information, and then… nothing. Not even a peep from the site owner or anyone in charge. Not even a “hello.”
“Guys?” *crickets*
Include a warm message to your new members sincerely expressing how glad you are that they decided to sign up to be members in your site and how excited you are for their journey will go a long way in making them feel at ease.
Break it down. I told you earlier that you need to simplify processes. Well, that applies here too.
You might take your workflows for granted because you designed the site and you know it inside out. But it’s easy to forget that not everyone will know their way intuitively around your website.
Every action you teach them in this tour needs to be broken down to its simplest steps. For example, if you’re teaching them how to post their first comment, have them post one. That’s it. Don’t make it unnecessarily complicated and have them comment on all the conversations and all the threads.
Don’t forget to emphasize the content and features you want them to know about… Those features and your best content that you want new members to pay attention to? This is where you can put a spotlight on them.
Ensure these features and content are highlighted on your tour so that new members can easily spot them on your site. This might mean creating different videos for different types of members, as you might want to show them entirely different sets of content and features.
…But leave some things for them to discover on their own. You might think this is contradicting what I just told you, but hear me out.
You should stress the content and features that will be the most helpful to your new members to go on their journey and accomplish what they want to accomplish.
However, if you designed your membership site and included plenty of other features that are useful to your members, there should ideally be little gems and Easter eggs that your members will uncover.
Remember that member onboarding doesn’t mean you take them through everything your site has to offer; it’s teaching them the fundamentals, just enough for them to take those initial steps toward their purpose.
Your onboarding email sequence is where it all comes together.
This email sequence is the one that gets deployed when your new members finish signing up on the checkout page, and so this is the email sequence that you need to get exactly right.
Here are some useful hints when planning and composing your onboarding email sequence.
Personalize your first email. When your members signed up, they filled out every form with all the information you requested and clicked all the buttons you needed them to click. They’ve done everything you asked them to.
The least you can do is use their names.
Your new members know that these emails are automated, but reading their names on your correspondence to them makes them feel that they’re important enough for you to take that extra step of personalizing their emails.
It’s up to you if you want to keep this up for all emails you send hereafter, but the first email is where you absolutely need to personalize.
Start with a warm welcome. A sincere, heartfelt note welcoming your new members to your site and reassuring them that you’re there to help them if they need it will do a lot toward convincing them that they made the right choice when they signed up for your site.
Include the basic administration information in your first email. The fundamentals (i.e., the basic, boring, but crucial stuff) should be in the first email.
If nothing else, at least include the link to your homepage, and their username and password so they can access the site. All the others like where to download content and how to access the community area can be in a succeeding email.
Build the relationship. Your onboarding email sequence may be automated, but let your new members know that they can reply with their questions and comments if they want to.
Emphasize that they’ll receive a personal reply after a certain turnaround time (make sure it’s a time you can commit to so they don’t get disappointed) to encourage them to go ahead and email you.
In one of your first few emails, ask them about their goals and what they plan to achieve by joining your site. This gives you an idea of the content and features they’ll need to maximize your site and whether you’ll need to design and create different onboarding email sequences aside from the “default” one.
One email is not enough. It’s super tempting to put everything in a single email and just automatically send that out to new members.
But if you include too much information, readers can potentially ignore or miss important information. Worse, they can easily get overwhelmed by the information overload, enough for them to potentially give up and just not log in to your site.
Avoid information overload. Do your best to stick to one thought per email.
Probably the absolute minimum number of emails you should think to send would be three. The first email is for your welcome message, plus your question asking them about their goals and/or what stage they’re at in their journey to attain those goals.
The second email is for giving them a link to your “getting started” video, which may be different for different members depending on their answer to the first email, if you have that option enabled. You can also include an invitation to reply if they have questions or they need you to clarify some things in the video.
The third email is for highlighting the content or features you want them to see, which again may vary depending on their answer to the first email if you have that option enabled. Include another invitation here to reply if they need to ask questions.
You can add to these emails, or change the contents, but these are the bare minimum that your new members should be able to receive in their first emails from you.
When it comes to your membership site, you can’t afford to get off on the wrong foot.
Persuading your members to keep logging back in and actively engage with your membership site starts with their initial experience. It’s up to you to make that experience a positive one.
Here is a recap of the steps involved in creating an effective member onboarding process:
Here are a couple more reminders when you start planning your member onboarding process.
Your membership site will evolve.
Everything in it: your membership base, your content, and your community will adapt to changes and innovations in your niche.
Your member onboarding process should also evolve with these changes.
Don’t be afraid to constantly test new ideas, new ways to implement your “getting started” tour, and other new methods of doing things.
Learn from the testing process and improve your process continually.
What you should always remember is to:
Member onboarding isn’t just about your site.
It’s about your members’ overall experience of transacting with you, from the time they signed up for your membership site, to when they’re actually welcomed as members, to when they’re interacting with other members of your community.
Creating goodwill at the very start of their journey goes a long way toward keeping your members.
Do you already have a member onboarding process in place? Did I miss anything that you think should have been included?
JoAnne is your average, everyday, sane stay-at-home mom who believes in the power of the internet to make dreams come true. She has an insatiable appetite for chocolate, as well as all things internet marketing. She keeps up with the latest trends in blogging, affiliate marketing, e-commerce, and more.
