Retention starts before someone even joins your community membership

Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/Cadhqqb1vYs 

‍

Most membership owners only start thinking about retention when it’s almost renewal time, members are already on their way out, hovering over the "cancel subscription" button and one click away from leaving.

That is often when the panic sets in and they start asking themselves “What more can I add to show them how valuable the membership is?” “What more can I offer to keep them here?” “How do I keep them here long term?”

However, by the time someone is thinking about canceling, that decision was made weeks, sometimes months, ago before renewal time. Trying to retain them at that point is very hard, (although not impossible which I will talk about in future articles).

A great retention strategy starts long before renewal time, in the way you communicate, design, promise and position your membership to the outside world.

‍

Retention is really an expectations problem

At its core, retention for new members comes down to one question: Did the experience in the community match what the members thought they were signing up for?

When expectations and reality align, new members stay and when they don’t, new members leave even if your membership seems great and valuable. This is why so many memberships packed with incredible content still struggle with churn. This is more often than not an expectations problem, not a content problem.

And that mismatch usually starts in three places:

1. Your website and marketing 
2. Your description of who the membership is for and who it is NOT for
3. Your programming

‍

1. Your website is your first retention tool

We tend to think of websites as conversion tools, which they actually are since their job is to get someone excited enough to join your membership. But in addition to sales and marketing, your website is doing something much more powerful than that. It is signalling to potential members on what to expect once they are inside the community.

Every line of copy is making a promise: 

“This is how fast you will see results once you join.” 

“This is how much support you will get.” 

“This is the kind of person who thrives in this community.”

If your marketing overpromises what you can't actually deliver, you are setting yourself up for disappointed members and planting the seeds of churn from day one.

And as someone who has built websites for clients, I understand the desire to paint a rosy picture of your membership with the hope that it will get you more members. But is it really worth it if the new members come in only to be disappointed and leave?

Actionable takeaway: Underpromise in your marketing and overdeliver inside the community membership. When reality exceeds expectations, members are delighted and this increases retention.

‍

2. Be clear about who your membership is NOT for

When you are starting out, it is tempting to cast a wide net hoping that it will help your community membership attract a lot of new members and grow.

When your membership tries to speak to everyone from beginners to advanced users, people with tons of time and people with none, it ends up not resonating with anyone deeply. And when someone joins and eventually realizes that the membership isn’t really for them, they will leave even if your content is amazing and your community is warm and welcoming.

The goal of good marketing is to help the right people recognize themselves and self-select in, not to get everyone through the door. Your marketing should also gently repel the wrong fit before they even join.

Retention improves when members feel like your community was made specifically for them. When members feel like your community is a great fit for them, they have a strong reason to stay.

One of the most underused tools on a membership sales page is a “Who this is NOT” for section. Yes, it might turn some people away but those are people who would have churned anyway after joining. The ones who stay after reading it are exactly who you want in your community membership.

Actionable takeaway: Add a section on your website sharing who your community membership is for and who it is NOT for.

‍

3. Make sure your programming delivers on your promises

Is your programming actually designed to fulfill what you have promised on your website and marketing?

It is easy to list benefits like "peer connection", "accountability" and "community support" on a sales page but listing them and designing for them are two very different things.

Take peer connection as an example. This is one of the most commonly promised community benefits and one of the most commonly unfulfilled ones. The assumption is that if you put people in the same space, connection will just happen naturally but this usually isn’t the case.

I experienced this at an in-person event where the promise was that I would meet new people. When I arrived, everyone was already settled into their own groups with shared history and inside conversations. I was physically there and still felt completely on the outside. The promise was real but the programming to support it was not there.

The same happens in virtual communities every day. If you promise peer connection, your programming needs to actively create the conditions for it like coworking sessions, speed networking, member matchmaking and onboarding steps that show people how to actually reach out and connect.

Just being in the same community does not create connection. You have to design for it.

Actionable takeaway: Go through every benefit you promise on your website and marketing and ask yourself: Where in my programming does this actually happen? If you cannot point to something specific, that is a gap worth closing by either removing the promise or fulfilling it in your programming.

‍

Retention is a design decision

When you build retention into your membership from the very beginning through honest marketing, clear positioning of who your membership is and is not for and programming that delivers on your promises, you will not have to scramble later running yourself ragged trying to convince people to stay. Instead, members join with realistic expectations and experience something that matches or exceeds what they imagined while feeling like they are exactly in the right place that was designed for them.

‍

—

Retention is one part of the member journey framework which maps the full membership lifecycle from awareness to offboarding so that you can strengthen your member experience end to end.

I use a Member Journey Framework with my clients to think through the full experience from a member’s point of view. It lays out where friction shows up and how to create delightful member experiences at each stage.

You can find the Member Journey Framework at jolleenopula.com/journey and use the free workbook to design or evaluate your membership.