How can you personalise and tailor your member experience?
This is something that many don't even think is possible when it comes to memberships…
Especially when you can potentially have hundreds or thousands of members in a community…
How on earth can you tailor an experience for so many?
Yes memberships are a one-to-many business model…
But that doesn't mean you can't offer a personalised, memorable experience for your members.
In fact, it's important that you do…
Because if the member has a more personalised experience, they're more likely to extract the elements of your membership where they get the most value…
And this will help them achieve the outcome they aimed for when joining your site…
And make them want to stick around for a long time.
And that's the goal, right?
So how can you personalise and tailor your member experience?
Let's explore through 10 techniques…
1. Use segmentation within your membership
Segmentation is a scary word for many membership owners.
But here’s the thing…
When used right, it can transform your business into a well-oiled machine.
It simply comes down to looking at your member base and identifying three to five key segments, depending on the purpose of your membership.
It could be anything from what you’re helping people achieve to their interests…
But typically, these are going to be based on outcomes.
So, if people join your membership to work towards a specific endpoint, then that journey can be broken down into key stages…
For example, over at Membership Geeks, our segments are: Plan, Build, Launch and Grow…
Those are very clear, distinct stages in a membership owner's journey.
Your members…
So if your membership is based on outcome, you can select your segments by breaking down your member journey.
That way, you can address each member based on where they are in that journey and help them move towards their end goal.
If your membership is centred around competency, like music for example, you could segment by beginner, intermediate and advanced.
You could also segment by topics, sub-topics and interests.
With the right CRM or marketing system, you can use tags to assign a segment to each of your members.
So if you're using software like ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit or Keap, they enable you on a per user basis to add a tag to an individual's record so you can send them different emails.
This alone can help things feel a lot more tailored.
Why?
Well, it means you can write email content that's geared towards a particular subject, competency level, or stage in someone's journey.
One thing to remember when segmenting your user base is that your beginners are going to progress at some point…
So make it possible for them to update their segment to different levels when that happens.
2. Set up a new member survey as part of your onboarding process
This should be one of the first things that your members complete after joining your membership…
The great thing about member surveys is that they're an essential tool for collecting information for marketing…
But they also help you get your members off to the best possible start.
In the survey, you can ask them things like:
- Where they are in the journey…
- Why they’ve joined…
- What they're specifically interested in…
And you can use that data to personalise the experience they have inside your membership and place them in the right segment.
3. Create a recommendation engine
One of the fantastic things you can do on the back of identifying the segment that someone is in via your new member survey is to create what we call a recommendation engine.
The ability to do this will depend on your tech set up…
But if you're using WordPress, for example, you can use plugins like Gravity Forms to send people to different web pages related to the answers they give in the survey.
So if a member selects the option for beginner, you can direct them to the relevant content for them.
This kind of “conditional re-direction” can play a massive part of branching people off down their own path…
And that's why the new member survey is such a critical part of your onboarding process.
This recommendation engine doesn't need to be used exclusively with your survey…
It can be included in your site at any stage of your member journey, so people can update their segments and be directed to the best content for them.
If you're an Academy member, you can find out more about how to create your recommendation engine using Gravity Forms by completing our training materials available inside the content library.
4. Send personal videos and check-ins to your members
There’s nothing like a personalised video to really make your members feel special.
So, once they sign up, send over a short welcome video using a tool like Bonjoro…
And be sure to mention information from their individual responses to their member survey so they know that the video is specific to them.
You could also highlight where you think they should start utilizing your membership based on the information you have.
You sending a personal video to your members…
But don’t just stop with welcome videos…
Send similar videos when members share wins or reach milestones in your membership…
And even commiserate losses!
This goes a long way to making your members realize that you really do care about helping them to get results.
And it doesn't take long to do…
You can simply use your phone.
However, if the idea of doing personal videos right away doesn’t appeal to you, then dip a toe in by sending a personal message to your existing users instead.
This is an unexpected personal touch that will add to your member experience.
5. Provide personalized dashboards
Generally, membership sites have some sort of central dashboard…
It’s essentially the homepage for members and the entry point to their experience…
There’s so much more you could be doing with a dashboard.
If you know what a member’s segment is or other key information about them, then you can personalize the content displayed on the dashboard.
You can get complex with this or go really basic…
But it’s important to note that your ability to do this does come down to the tech that you're using…
So find the right tools like WPFusion, crunch the numbers, and pick something that suits your capabilities.
6. Using conditional email content
There’s something incredibly annoying about receiving emails that don’t offer you anything you need…
So, if you have all this information about where your users are in terms of their membership journey, use it to your advantage.
Tailor your emails so members aren’t getting overwhelmed with notifications about things that simply aren't relevant to them…
So if someone is a beginner, don't promote advanced content to them heavily…
Also, if you're sending a weekly digest…
Something we recommend everyone does…
Highlight the content that is most relevant to that person’s stage or segment…
Again you do this by tagging in your CRM…
That way, they get content that’s actually going to help them.
7. Send activity-based messages and prompts
Most memberships have a progressing movement through their courses or a roadmap to follow through to their end goal.
If this is the case, then you’re probably already tracking and updating members’ progress using tools like Intercom.
Giving your members a little nudge
Here’s where it gets interesting…
You can also use tools like WPFusion to add specific tags when people have completed lessons within a course.
You can send prompts and reminders based on their progress to show them that you’re part of the process too…
You can also help them if they get stuck, suggest courses to complete next, or give them a nudge to re-engage with content if they've not logged in for a while.
It doesn’t get more tailored than that.
8. Offer a short, private welcome call to new members
This technique is a little more labor-intensive on your side…
And whether or not you want to implement this would depend on your membership type and price point.
But, if you can pull this off, it’s a great way to welcome your members…
And provide a more personalised pathway for them to work through your content.
Since you’re actually speaking to them, it’s a lot easier to pinpoint their concerns and what they hope to get out of your membership.
If you’re still in the early days of your membership, then this is a great strategy to adopt going in.
Having those personal calls really helps to give you the information you need to grow the membership.
Yes, it is more effort…
But if you're very early in your membership journey and you're looking for a simple and inexpensive way to ensure your members feel seen, then this is the route to take.
9. Offer an SOS option for people who need extra support at random
There comes a time in every membership journey when a user randomly needs something extra.
It could be an inquiry, extra direction, or a little bit of support…
And having an SOS option is a solid way to get people back on track if they're feeling lost, confused or overwhelmed.
Utilizing a tool like VideoAsk to offer more personal support to members on an ad-hoc basis when they need someone, can go a really long way…
It provides that additional level of care and attention that a lot of members don’t get elsewhere.
10. Tailor your community features
One of the best things about memberships is that you’ll have members at different stages of their journeys who can help each other out…
But that also means that sometimes people can feel a bit lost.
If this is the case, then it’s a good idea to make it easy for them to find people on their wavelength.
Of course, you might not want your entire community to be segmented…
But things like an advanced topics area…
Or a newcomers’ chat section…
Can really help members feel more comfortable in posting because they know people in those sections of your community will be in a similar position to them…
If you run live calls, you can tailor them to specific segments of your community…
But with more general calls like member mixers, you can utilize tools like Wonder so members can self select where they go to talk to fellow members with similar interests.
While you may want to have that general sense of community…
Having a space for people in the same boat to connect actually enriches the all-around membership experience.
Yes, there’s quite a lot to unpack here…
So it’s worth mentioning that you don’t have implement all ten of these tactics…
In fact we'd recommend that you don't…
Simply choose a few tactics that you think will help your members the most.
This is about making your members feel like their experience was designed with them in mind…
Like they're in the right place and part of a community that is tailor made for them…
That's how you'll create happy members…
And happy members are your best asset.
A number of tools were mentioned this in post…
If you want to find out more about them, click on the links below to visit their websites…
Please note some of these links are affiliate links which means that whilst you won't pay anything extra, we'll get a little bonus if you buy through us. Rest assured we only promote products we trust.
