You know how important it is to keep your existing members happy if you own a membership website. It is more expensive to acquire new customers than it is to keep your existing ones. Loyal members are more likely to share their experiences with family and friends.

How can you keep your members loyal and engaged with your brand?

1. Offer perks that your members will love

Everyone loves perks. It’s a great way to keep your members returning by offering additional benefits they will love. If you offer an online fitness program, you might also consider offering a percentage discount on the sales of health and wellness products in your store. You can also exclude products with low margins or tailor the discount to meet your members’ needs.

Customers may be interested in membership access. If you offer monthly meal subscriptions, give customers free access to your recipe database with a 6-month subscription.

GrutBrushes offers customers a 60-day free membership to their art brushes program if they purchase a complete set of brushes. Customers may continue their paid membership even after they have completed the free trial.

Perks are a great way for happy members to support you in growing your business. In exchange for referring friends and family, you can give them an exclusive gift or a free month of your membership. These benefits make people feel special, and they will keep coming back for more.

2. Dose content regularly

You can make sure you are constantly coming up with new content for your members. Stock photography is a great way to keep things fresh. Customers will be more inclined to stay if they are offered education and training in the form of video.

Drip content is a way to keep things fresh. This allows you to schedule when members have access to information. You can, for example, set certain content to become available after a subscriber has been a member for a week or a month. This allows you to take advantage of existing content and allows you to develop more. Your members will feel that they are getting more information, without you having to do any additional work.

3. Your members can create a community

Friendships built within the community will last a lifetime. They won’t want to lose the friendships they have built. Connecting with others can help them find greater success in your community.

A community can be useful for offering online classes, meal plans, or other services. Studies have shown that people who exercise separately experience a 43% dropout rate while those who exercise together only have a 6.3% dropout rate. Humans are social creatures and seek out support and reinforcement from others. Fear of disappointing someone is an incentive to continue!

Because they allow people to exchange experiences and ask each other questions, communities can be very beneficial. Your members might want to exchange examples of their work or seek advice on solving a particular problem.

Forums can be created that cover a broad range of topics, and only active members have access to them.

You can also create a private Facebook Group and invite your friends to join. This allows your community to use a platform that they are familiar with but gives you complete control over communications.

4. For long-term members, add a VIP experience

Consider adding a VIP experience as a thank you to long-standing members. If any of your customers live in the same area, you could host a special event. You could also offer a discount on your products or access to a special library of content.

These benefits are a reward for your members’ loyalty to you. These benefits make members feel valued and can be shared with their friends. Their friends may become members, you never know!

5. Get in touch with your fellow members

Your members should feel that there is someone behind them. They want to feel valued and included.

Send handwritten or signed thank you notes and “thank you” cards to customers who have their addresses. No address is required. You can keep track of the information that you gather about each member and send personalized messages via email. If you find out that one of your customers will soon be traveling, contact them to inquire about their plans. Send them encouragement to finish a course, or reach a milestone.

You can quickly create customer segments and send emails directly to customers or members of a particular membership plan with a free trial. This is a great way to get in touch with your members, based on their membership level. You can send helpful tips, sales information, and thank you emails.

6. Create a smooth onboarding process

A good onboarding process will set you up for success and help you get your members started on the right path. You want to make sure they have all the information they need to benefit from the benefits of your membership and become loyal fans of your brand.

An excellent place to begin is with a “welcome” series of emails. Mailchimp is one method to do this. Instead of bombarding your customers with information, send them a series of emails that you can send over several days. They will thank them for signing up, give them instructions on how to get started, and link to useful resources to help them make the most out of your membership program.

It may be a good idea to set up a series of touchpoints that allow you to connect with your members from the start. You could send them tips and information at the end of Week One. You could also offer a phone consultation to answer any questions at the end of Month 1. This will depend on your membership so make sure to personalize these touchpoints.

7. Videos and other multimedia can be used

Depending on which type of membership you offer, videos can be extremely valuable. Make walkthrough videos that show how to navigate your member dashboard and use your resources. You might add a video to show your yoga members how to perform a particular pose. You could also share videos on how to resize stock photos for your social media accounts if you sell them.

Videos can also be included in your offering. PHLEARN gives you access to over 150 Photoshop, Lightroom, and photography videos, along with other resources. These tutorials offer more than just an added benefit. They also teach members how to use Lightroom presets, Photoshop actions, and other resources.

Members of the Paddock Magazine can access a variety of multimedia including videos, galleries, and digital desktop copies of their content. The archive is easy to use and contains content that dates back eight years.

8. Conduct customer surveys

You can gather valuable feedback from your members by using customer surveys. Send them to existing members to learn what they love, what is confusing, and what you could do better. You can use this opportunity to correct any errors, improve your onboarding process, and better explain your membership program.

To find out why your former members left, you can send them surveys. Is it too costly? Was it too expensive? Did they feel unhappy about something?

There are many ways to create customer surveys, but Crowdsignal is the best option. It’s as simple as creating a WordPress blog post to create a survey.

9. Benefits are easily accessible

Your members should be able to understand what they get and how they can take advantage of them. Customers shouldn’t leave because they don’t know what you offer.

The Leaders in Sports company also uses their membership landing page as a way to outline all the benefits. Members can see exactly what they get by signing up for the membership.

A list of benefits may be included in your first welcome email or as part of your welcome series. Customers will be more likely to take advantage of this information if it’s available in multiple ways.

Keep your members happy

It is easy to retain members. You can create a membership site that is built for success by focusing on giving members the benefits they want, connecting with them, and meeting their needs.