

Rinse and repeat this until you’ve provided a thorough walk through of your site’s key areas. In another 3-5 days, send an email highlighting a popular area of your membership site. Again, ask for feedback and offer them help. This time, point them to another part of what you’re offering – if you have discussion forums, point them to the “introduce yourself” thread if there is one (if not, start one!). Two to four days later, members should receive another email from you. I like “If you ever have any questions, just hit reply – I respond to every email I get.” Email #3 Lastly, this email should ask them to reply if they have any questions, with a promise that you’ll personally assist them. If you don’t have one, consider recording it, as this can be a great way to help introduce new members to your offering and help them get oriented. Additionally, if you have a video overview of your membership offering, link them to that.

If there’s a crucial first piece of content they should read or watch, point them to that. Members should also receive a welcome email, written in your personal voice, which thanks them for joining the community and suggests a starting point for them. Basically, this should be the “quick start” email that gives them access to everything they need. This should let them know their payment went through, provide links to their account settings page, member dashboard page, discussion forums, etc. New members should immediately receive a confirmation email when they sign up. Lucky for you, for the most part setting up a good onboarding process is a one-time project that pays off with every new member who signs up. Sites without good onboarding sequences are the ones where initial churn is really high – members join, don’t find the success they were hoping for, and cancel a few months later. Onboarding is your chance to make a solid first impression on new members and ensure that they’re set up to succeed and stick around for the long haul. If you want to maximize your membership site profit, it’s essential that you onboard new members properly.
