9+ Ways to Increase Member Retention for Membership Sites
Member retention is not just about a number, but a reflection of what your membership site has to offer!
Keeping your members happy and subscribed for as long as possible is your key task as a membership site owner. A high retention rate means you are able to deliver value to your members, keeping them engaged, and justifying their membership.
But how to increase member retention rate in the way you like it and members enjoy as well? What are the member retention strategies that can be implemented? Well, the top three things in general would be:
- Keep your members inspired and engaged.
- Promote personal touch and be involved.
- Help them earn or achieve other desired outcomes.
- Make it easy to navigate your membership platform.
- Celebrate their wins and victories
So, how does this translate into real results? Up to you, but now we’ve got a toolbox full of actionable tips to get you started and find ideas that can be applied to you.
9+ Member Retention Strategies to Boost Your Membership Site
Simplify and Improve your Member Onboarding Process
The onboarding process is all about creating the first impression – your members should fall in love with how you meet them and walk them through the journey!
How do you do that to increase member retention or build a customer retention rate?
Key elements of the smooth sign-up process: minimum information, social login buttons, a progress bar, and valuable follow-up emails.
What’s more, in the dashboard of your membership solution, highlight essential features and guide users towards valuable content or functionalities. To further simplify onboarding, we highly recommend providing your members with tooltips and on-screen guidance, similarly to how WooCommerce does it (if you are familiar with WordPress).
You might also think of AI technology that can help boost engagement or even solve some day-to-day tasks of member onboarding.
Your members should also always have an easy way to reach out to you to ask questions or connect if they are faced with troubles of some sort.
Reshape Your Member’s Journey as a Membership Retention Plan
Imagine how your member’s journey looks like. Checkout how they perceive it. Are there any difficulties? Or what are the most enjoyable and satisfactory moments? Use a feedback form to gain insights into the exact steps of your membership experience. So here are our suggestions to increase member retention with a better member’s journey:
- Get serious about community mapping – understand and bend the journey of your members.
- Identify areas for improvement in your membership program and brainstorm solutions.
- Maximize areas where your membership program is most fun and engaging.
Delight your members with valuable bonus content
Your members pay for the value you provide to them. But why not give them more?
Provide bonus membership content for specific conditions, for example, for completing a certain number of actions, host challenges that require members to complete specific tasks, or encourage members to create content like posts or images to win a bonus pack.
The key idea here is to bring more genuine value over time, beyond just the regular content members paid for. Thus, make sure you can make your members feel privileged, with the bonus content available exclusively for them.
Get Face-to-face With your Members to Promote Retention
Personal connection is a big reason why people joined your membership in the first place. Thus, keep in touch, promote it, and continue showing your members that you can help them transform as personalities.
Live streaming, workshops, or even face-to-face in reality? Your loyal members want this! Regular meetings with members, virtually or in real life, helps them keep the initial connection with your members, inspire them, and keep them engaged. This will boost member retention like anything.
- Host workshops or conferences related to your membership theme.
- If your membership has a large geographical spread, consider regional meet-ups.
- For association member retention, offer member-exclusive events.
- Host online events with a live chat feature or Q&A session.
- Feature member success stories or interviews.
- Encourage discussions within your online forums to increase member retention rate.
Run an Attractive Referral Program, The Perfect Membership Retention Ideas
To motivate your members to stay with you, sometimes you need to offer something beyond just valuable content! Offer them a way to earn, to win, to gain something valuable. A referral program can be a wonderful opportunity to retain your members.
For example, here is what can work:
- Referral Rewards: Implement a referral program for membership retention where members earn various rewards like discounts, bonus content, exclusive access on referring new members.
- Contests and Challenges: Create various events and competitions wherein members can participate to win exciting prizes. This can be one of the association member retention strategies.
- Loyalty Programs: For consistent engagement and to provide value to long standing members, launch a loyalty program. The current loyal members would feel greatly valued and others would aspire to be a part of your loyalty benefits. Thus, boosting member retention.
Choose an Intuitive and User Friendly Platform
How do your members interact with your content? Have you chosen an online platform that is easy to navigate, learn, create, exchange ideas, etc.?
Switch to a smoother platform to promote your membership site even further. Additionally, ensure certain features while choosing a membership platform. It is crucial because the member’s experience and member retention depends on a membership platform software.
- Your member’s experience pretty much depends on the membership software you use. Is it easy to integrate gamification elements?
- Is it easy to get started with the platform without a learning curve?
- Is it a flexible way to drip content and deliver it to your members?
- How well and diverse is the notification system?
- Is it compatible across both Android and iOS systems?
Providing a modern and handy environment to learn and interact with people is the best way to look professional in the eyes of your customers.
Build an Online Member Community for Retaining Members
Well, explore the membership beyond an interaction between you and the particular member. How? By allowing internal communication among members. When members feel like they belong to something bigger and can interact with like-minded individuals within your membership topic, their loyalty with your membership site deepens.
- Let customers create and customize their profile page, pretty much like in social networks.
- Have a dedicated space for discussions with thought-provoking questions, polls, or challenges.
- Consider a mentor program where experienced members can guide newcomers.
Celebrate Milestones and Achievements
When you celebrate member milestones and achievements, they feel valued and connected to your community. You can easily promote member retention by recognizing their progress, anniversaries, or contributions. It helps establish a sense of accomplishment and belonging among your community. How can you do so?
- Personalized emails or notifications on birthdays, anniversaries, on course completion, or reaching fitness goals.
- Implement gamified elements and badges for achievements of various types. For instance, 1-Year Anniversary Member, Top Contributor of the Month, Fastest Learner, Goal Achiever etc. can motivate your members to stay engaged.
- Provide special gifts and discounts if possible to display your appreciation towards their loyalty.
Foster Inclusivity and Accessibility to Increase Member Retention
Every member should feel welcome in your membership site community. Their background or abilities must not limit their exploration of the platform.
- Add accessibility features like screen-reader compatibility, closed captions for videos, and adjustable font sizes.
- Use inclusive language and avoid jargon that may alienate or confuse members.
- Celebrate cultural diversity with themed events or content reflecting different traditions and perspectives.
- Build a safe community space where members can freely express themselves without fear of judgment.
- Moderate forums to maintain respectful interactions and encourage empathy among members.
With the thought of inclusivity, your membership will attract a diverse audience and build a supportive environment. Such an atmosphere of belongingness boosts your member retention.
Let’s Conclude
You must start from today if you want to establish a good retention rate and boost your membership site statistics. There are multiple member retention ideas that you can work on. But select a few and start working on them, consistently. See what difference it brings on a member’s journey with your site. Based on that, gather feedback and tweak your strategies as and when needed or implement newer ideas gradually.
Make sure you use a great membership site builder that provides all the features to build a robust business. Make your membership more attractive by inviting influencers, esteemed guests, and personalities to contribute content to your site.
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Brian Denim
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