Effective Ways to Welcome New Members – Episode 127

Melissa: All right. So let me hop over to Alison.

Alison: My question is about onboarding and getting people started in the best possible way. I just did my first official launch after my founding members launch.

And now having been done both of those a few months apart there are people from both launches who have joined who have not started, who have not really done anything. And I know for sure that my onboarding is weak. I know I don't do enough. So I really just kind of wanted to ask people, like, what are your favorite ways to welcome people into your membership?

Like how do you make them feel excited and appreciated and ready to go? So they actually like start the content and start moving. 

Paul: Can you tell us what your membership is about and your price? 

Alison: Yeah. So my membership was about pet photography. I'm a professional photographer and I teach people how to take amazing photos of their own pets, even if they don't have a DSLR or a fancy camera. And my price point is low. My latest launch was $12 a month. I mean, so,

Melissa: awesome. 

Paul: Does anybody have any onboarding experiences that they love to share even as a consumer? Did you have a great onboarding experience? You could even share an onboarding experience that you had that really impressed you?

Heather: Oh, Alison is your question about engaging them because they bought and they haven't used it or is it about onboarding and how do you make that experience more fun or something? 

Alison: All of the above. Just any idea. I mean, I just, I guess I just want to know. Is an impactful thing to spend my time on because I know there's stuff, you know, I could Google this and I could look it up and I could apply everything that I find on Google.

But I want to know what people actually appreciate, not just like the fluff for the random stuff. 

Paul: All right. Does anybody have any input? I have some ideas. I have ideas too. Oh, here we go. 

Rose: So I'm just gonna share what I experienced once. It wasn't necessarily a membership, but it made a big impact on me. So this is somebody I bought something, a very high price product. So the person I was buying from this is a designer and he actually took the time to get acquainted with me.

And you did it very shortly in an email. And he just asked very specifically what drew me to his product. And I gave him an answer and he just zoomed right into something very personal. I said, and I'd had no idea that he would respond to me personally. So I was very touched by that.

And then he responded again and then he said, yes, look at the Facebook group. I just posted something, especially for you. So my name was not called out, but what he did is he really responded to something I had told him that was very personal to . Me. So he knew that it would touch me, you know, the thing that he said, wasn't that important, but he knew that he touched me.

So it made a very big impact too. So You were telling you're doing something with that, right? So if all these members, they have their own pet, right? So if you can make like a personal connection with each of them, just really with each of them, if you want to make them feel really special, you could do something to zoom in on their own experience or connection with their pet.

So I think you could really make an impact there. So that's just my 2 cents. 

Alison: Thank you. 

Paul: It's a great customer service story. 

Rose: Yeah, it is. It was really great, great experience. 

Paul: Yeah, that was great. Anyone else have any great onboarding experiences or systems that they have in place? Yeah. 

Belinda: Yeah. I can give some quick tips. For our membership we do like ongoing onboarding support calls. So when we have like a cohort coming in, we'll do a series of onboarding calls. Cause one of the biggest things is like, where do I log in and where do I start? And what should I focus on?

And so we'll do those and we'll do them a zoom so that people can ask their questions. They usually get. I don't know, five to 20 people or something, but then Mark or a community manager will lead them. So then they end up seeing the people connecting with them. I think one of the biggest things might be a connection issue that's missing.

That was the first thing came to mind. Second. Do gamify it a little bit. Maybe you can do some sort of challenge or like, Hey, the first 10 days in, or, you know, make it something fun that they can then report into a post. Hey, for everyone who just joined and pick out a little snippet of something you teach and one of the first modules and then encourage them, here's the link go and check it out.

It's super funny and include a funny clip from your video or something. The third thing I don't take this the wrong way. I think that people pay attention when they pay. And my concern is actually that at $12, they're not paying enough attention to you. So don't take it personally that they're not doing it.

I just think that they don't have enough skin in the game. It's kinda like a little bit of what we were talking about earlier. Right? Like as they pay more, they will actually do it more. But I think it's 12 bucks an hour. It feels like, oh, this is nice. I'll check it sometime soon. But it doesn't feel like, oh, I really, I got money on the line.

I need to go and check it out. So would encourage you to start to raise those prices. 

Alison: Understood. And I agree with you. I'm not at the final person that I actually wanted to be or where I think the value is, so it's going up, but the reason I priced it so low is because I'm still building it. 

So that's why the price was so low. And then even with this newest launch, I was very upfront about the fact that I really haven't even finished building it out yet. I've built about half of that. 

Belinda: So maybe go up to 20 or something. 

Alison: Right, right. Yeah. It'll keep going up with every launch. And I know that, but I agree with you.

That may be part of the issue is I am charging a little bit too little. I just want to make sure it was accessible for people that really wanted it. But a little bit of my target market is the DIY type and the type to not want to spend a lot of money on, you know, fancy things or anything. So I felt like that would align a little bit more with what they wanted, but point well taken. Absolutely. 

Belinda: Your heart is in the right place. Absolutely. I totally get it. But that just occurred to me that that might be part of it. How many are in the membership right now? 

Alison: Like 26. Yeah. 

Belinda: So maybe offer to have calls with them kind of like what Leo was just saying and see if you can tap into, and maybe work out little action plans for them and maybe share that into the group.

Hey, just talk to Jane and Jane was struggling with getting started. So I thought maybe more of you were struggling with getting started. Here's a quick video, you know, and maybe that will tap into some of their reading. 

Alison: That's a good idea. I did send out an email a month or so into the membership after my founding member launch, because I noticed this.

So I sent out a personal email. And I, I just did one for each person and I said, Hey, just checking to make sure you're good with getting started because a couple of people have not been getting the emails that I've been sending out through the job. And because that was true. And I wanted to make sure everyone was getting the updates were going to say, so I reached out to everyone and I got a minority of responses.

Like, I don't think even half the people like responded to my emails. So I'm kind of like, okay, if they're not even bothering to respond to an email, are they going to show up for a video call? Like I wonder just how much they're willing to 

Melissa: Dawn had her hand raised up a minute too . 

Dawn: Hi. I just had a quick thought because I was thinking about all the core onboarding experiences I have had, which are like three recently where I've just, and I am very add, so I do new need, hand holding, but what I thought was, oh, you know, like all the challenges that I participate in, the ones who are I'm most successful personally, and, and the DIY component kind of piqued my imagination is where we can do a fun project.

Like take a photo of your pet dressed like you. And I, I did this specifically, like it was Halloween and I didn't have a costume, but I took a picture of my dog wearing a hat and a scarf that I always wore. I was like, somebody dressed up, you know? And it was like, I had a super fun time doing it.

It was, you know, like 10 minutes of work, it was engaged teaching. And then I felt like, you know, I felt like I had contributed to the community. And like what you're saying with the skin in the game, once you're viably contributing to the community, then suddenly it becomes more important to you as well is, is sort of what I'm thinking.

But yeah. I mean, let them know you're out there and also maybe check in and make sure, because sometimes I get onboarding emails in weird inboxes that they don't belong and then I feel angry and then I find out a week later. Oh yeah, I did get that. Oops. Because it came from like support or something like that.

Yeah. Great. And Larry had something to contribute. 

Larry: Yeah. I actually have a similar cat Facebook group right now. I'm trying to do a membership also. One thing I know that Paul has always beaten into my head thick head is you might want to ask people what their pain points are.

Dawn: mean, that's always, people will tell you what the, what the issues are. If you, it may not be saying, Hey, what's your pain point with this? Like I am I cat group . I don't have a membership yet. And that's when i'm struggling with is I did ask about taking pictures of their other cats.

And I actually asked that in a different cat group and got like, no, got like one response. So in my own cat group, I said, I posted a picture trying to take picture of my cat princess who had this beautiful pose. And I brought my cell phone up and then she moved inside this picture of her blurry, you know, as he's moving away because she wanted to get her nose as close to the camera she could.

So I posted that and a picture with a pose that I didn't want to get, and that got some pretty good traction. So the problem could be like, Hey, do you have problems taking of your cat or does, when you go to take a picture of your cat, does they want to get as close to the camera as possible to see what it is that's in your hand?

You know, you might phrase it that way and you might get better traction. 

Paul: Yeah. Awesome. 

Melissa: I love this because I think the biggest thing is have to hold their hand a lot too.

Cause they don't know what to expect. So it's like, what can you do to make the experience so they don't feel silly about asking a question and you're just kind of handling all those questions ahead of time before they even have to ask. So one of the simplest things that you can do is having some sort of page or place where you have everything in one spot, like a dashboard area, this is where you need to go.

If you need to figure out where you need to be, what you need to find. So like for us, all of our, how you find the zoom links for calls, how you log in. Here's how you do X, Y, Z. Here's a link to the Facebook group. It's all just on one page. So it's just a one stop place where people can get what they need so that they don't feel lost.

I love the ideas about the emails and follow-up emails too, because I think that's really important, especially with some of these software systems. Sometimes that email doesn't go through. So, you know, that first initial welcome email, but then maybe like another email a day or two later, and you can have this automated.

 We're just like, Hey, I'm just checking in. Just making sure everything's okay. Are you finding everything? Okay. And then even working into, as you're building this out an email sequence where you walk them through the areas within your membership. So you know, we do this in a lot of different ways where it's like, if you have a course in the membership, here's the course.

And here's the things that the course is going to cover. Or here are all the resources that are inside the membership and you pre-frame them ahead of time. Let them know that this series of emails is coming. It doesn't have to be a ton. They get an initial email from you, welcoming them and saying, Hey, just so you know, over the next three days, I'm going to send you just a couple of emails, so you can find your way around and then you walk them through that way.

So that's the biggest thing is just making sure that they know where to go, because they're little lost and you don't want . Them to just trying to figure out where to go. 

And then just simple things, like even just a simple, welcome post to welcome them to the group.

Like, you know, we want to welcome, Joe, into the group. You could do a funny meme or a little gift with it. Just a welcome. I love the idea I think that would be really fun. Like post a picture of your pet dressed up like you as a welcome, I think that would be a fun post to get everyone to just engage and have fun with.

 but definitely making sure that they know where they need to go. And that, that helps them just feel a little bit more at ease of what they're supposed to be doing because they've joined and then it's like, well now what do I do?

Paul: I'll quickly give just a couple ideas. When we normally sit down with private coaching clients, one of the things that we do with onboarding is we look at it and I said this in a previous call as well. So sorry. Some of you heard this already is that we divide, we call it the perfect onboarding experience.

Everything is its own little bucket. So when you write down on a piece of paper, draw a line, you know, old Ben Franklin method, like draw a line down the center and on one side, it's the perfect member experience from their perspective. And then there's the resources. Like what are you involved with?

Can you outsource things? Is there a process? Is there a system? Is it an email? Is it a post? Is it like the thing that you're involved with or a team member. And it's like, what's the perfect member experience on your end because some of us build things that are really complicated and then we end up hating, but we felt like you don't want to do that.

So you need to always be conscious of the deliverables you do, because is it longterm? Is it sustainable? And also because of the price point, that's also going to naturally be a limitation because there might be other things you could invest in to heighten the user experience. Like the onboarding experience, just like we like what Belinda was sharing earlier on like, you know, things like little elements that you could send, but you don't want it with a price point where it is right now.

You can't do that. But what I would say though is not to keep that off the table, though, because as you do increase in price. You might not circle back around naturally to onboarding experience. You might not think you need to up-level it later on, you might still do the same thing you're doing at $12. Now, how I normally, you know, when we coach, we just like, if like, let's take your $12 as an example, I don't want to have a $12 onboarding experience.

I want to have them have a $50 onboarding experience. I want to go in with a mindset that this is an onboarding experience that they should have if they pay $50 a month, because I'm going to blow their mind, I'm going to make them go wow. Versus them having something that is like tear down because the amount of money that they invest in.

So if you are at $50 a month, what can you do to make it feel like it was a hundred or $200 program in the onboarding experience? Because when you do that, your mind is going to shift your, come out with different, cool, creative ideas that like, as an example, Melissa and I were just talking about hiring a graphic designer to create custom memes for our new members as they come in.

So not a boiler plate, generic thing, but something that we can actually, they have like their own custom meme, you know, as little as that is, it wouldn't cost that much, but it's like, oh, we got to create a process. So we need to have a system. We don't want to do it. So we want to get all right, one of our VA's to do it, you know, like we've got to start thinking like, how can we make this happen automatically?

But then it doesn't take from our resources as well. But what I would definitely say, though, is if you start thinking. Of your membership, even at 12 a month, if you start thinking about it, it's more of a $50 a month membership, all of your deliverables. You might look at that differently and you might change things because we can't wait until you want to charge 50 to up level.

We have to make it that way now. And naturally people will be attracted to it, but start off by saying, what would be the, for you, what would be the perfect onboarding experience if you were a member and you just signed up that onboarding experience starts on that. Thank you. Page. The onboarding experience starts the moment they do or do not get that first email.

Like you said, the people didn't get the email, right? So it's like, Hmm, what do you have as a check and balance that first email, maybe it should have a question that way causes them to reply. And if you don't get a reply, you naturally send them a direct message because might have buyer's remorse.

Like how do I cancel this? I don't even know how to log in. I didn't get any information sent to me. Was this a rip off? Is this a scam? You know what I mean? Like you have to think of like where that buyer state is in that moment. They're vulnerable. So it just something like, if you notice they didn't join a Facebook group, if you have one, they probably didn't see how to do it.

They probably didn't get the email. They probably wasn't clear . So what you want to do is it's these little things. It doesn't have to be the thrilly stuff all the time and it doesn't have to be confetti cannons and all kinds of fun and crazy stuff. And that's cool. It's cool and we've done it all.

And we'd done some fun, weird things that makes people laugh and at the same time, as simple as it is just them knowing what the next step is. And I will circle back cause I do a hundred percent agree with the others, especially when Belinda said it. And I'm going to give it to you my own personal experience when I went years ago and sign up for planet fitness for $10 a month.

That was my level of commitment to my physical health was $10 a month. So, you know, what's interesting. There's two times in my life, I walked into planet fitness, one the up and one, the cancel I paid for three years and not walk into that place because it was such a low level investment that I just never got around to canceling it.

It was low enough that I just didn't care. It wasn't a big enough pinch, but then also it wasn't a big enough pinch for me to lean in and actually utilize it. 

So as you move forward, you know, definitely lean in to that concept of who pays, pays attention, you know, cause there's a lot of truth to that..

Alison: Yeah, the price is going up for sure. I I understand that. And I think my goal is to get it to be between 30 to $40 a month, because I think that'll be just a very different experience for people. 

Melissa: Love it. Love it. Awesome. well keep us posted 

Paul: congratulations on your founding member launch in your first official public launch. That's awesome. 

Alison: Thank you. I appreciate it. 

Paul: Big step. 

Melissa: Awesome.