How to Build an Effective Member Onboarding Strategy

Did you know you could lose 75% of your members the first week after sign-up?

Truly, the first 24 hours after a customer visits your membership site are some of the most critical for customer retention, and the best way to beat the odds and maximize your first impression is with a solid onboarding strategy.

But developing an onboarding flow is arguably one of the more frustrating parts of running a membership or subscription business. It takes careful planning to turn a first time visitor into a loyal repeat customer, but without a process in place, you run the risk of losing business permanently.

Look at the stats:

• On average, you will lose 75% of new members in the first week.
• 40-60% of members with a free trial will use your product or service once and never renew.
• Over two-thirds of SaaS companies experience churn rates higher than 5%.
• Most revenue comes from existing customers.
• Happy customers become your top referral sources.
• Customer retention lowers acquisition costs and increases revenue.

Your onboarding process can immediately increase customer satisfaction, reduce long-term churn, save you time, and even create new opportunities to upsell or cross-sell.

In fact, free users who complete the onboarding email prompt within 24 hours are 80% more likely to convert to paid customers than those who don’t!

So having an onboarding process is key. Think of it like a compass — a good one will guide your members to a final destination, otherwise known as their first win with your product or service.

But what makes a successful onboarding strategy? Let’s delve into the key elements of a successful customer onboarding strategy and how each element can be personalized for maximum ROI.

Did you know you could lose 75% of your members the first week after sign-up? Truly, the first 24 hours after a customer visits your membership site are some of…

Author

Joanne Penn

Joanne is a content strategist at MemberDev. She helps B2B and SaaS companies promote their message and drive engagement through well-researched content marketing.