Top 11 Member Retention Strategies [That Work]

Keeping your members on board for a longer period is one of the most challenging tasks for any membership organization.

It would be best to develop a profound membership retention strategy right from the time when you’re just building your membership site. First, you have to keep them engaged and set in a roadmap to get the best results they joined for. Remember that the members have joined your membership program to get maximum value with their time and money spent. Therefore, a clear roadmap following which they could get the best results will engage them and retain them to explore more resources.

So, what are the best membership retention strategies that’ll hold on your member’s number from slipping away?

We have compiled up some proven member retention strategies so you could retain your members in the long term. These strategies have a proven record of a higher retention rate, and your visitors will keep on coming back each year.

1. Categories your members and give them a “road map” to navigate through your membership plan

Most new members aren’t aware of the plan they should follow when they join your membership site. More likely, they are not of the same levels of awareness; some would-be beginners, some on the intermediate level, and some would be looking for advanced-level solutions. So, you have to categories your members as per their knowledge base and then offer them content accordingly; in this way, they will get content as per their needs, and chances are they’ll engage more and stick around for longer.            

2. Survey to collect members reviews about the membership plans

Keep connected with your existing members and survey to get to know their needs. Make sure your content comes in line with their needs. In this way, you can keep an eye on your content’s popularity or flaws that need improvement.

3. Offer short-term membership plans along with long term plans

Offer multi-level membership plans with short-term payment and long-term payment options as a part of your pricing strategy. Sometimes due to personal reasons, members need to pause their memberships. Instead of only the option to cancel their membership, members should be given a chance to pause their membership for a limited period. Likewise, members should be able to switch current payment plans to higher or lower levels. 

4. Share a content planner with members

Keep your members aware of what is coming up their ways with a content planner. With a content planner, you can show them how much value you will add to the upcoming programs. The fear of missing out will keep them engaged, and they won’t think about leaving.

5. Provide valuable resources, tools, or software to stick them around

Suppose your membership offers tools, software, or any useful resource that members frequently use in the long run. In that case, chances are they won’t like to lose access to that valuable asset, and this powerful magnet will keep your members glued in.

6. Create a thriving community with “share your success” to motivate your members

Create a community where your members could share their success stories with others because people love recognition and acknowledgment by society. So, provide them a platform where they could hold their head high with their wins. In addition, members love to hear success stories from other people, creating a testimonial section will provide a platform where people could reach out to the members and engage with them.

7. Entice your lapsed members with irresistible offers

Most of the time, when we abandon our online shopping cart, we get another email to complete our purchase with some other discount offer.

The same technique works wonders on your membership site, where you can re-engage your lapsed members with enticing offers. You can offer them

• A free invite to your events
• Access to your tools/ resources with a certain time limit
• A win-back discount for new members with limited time offer

Check out which discount strategy works best for your brand; some companies found that offering a dollar-off discount worked 200% better than offers with a percentage discount. Sometimes, an appreciation letter can also help in retaining members for longer.

8. Track the member’s engagement levels in a chart

To keep track of your member’s engagement, divide them into three levels, fully engaged, partially engaged, or slightly engaged. The fully engaged segment is that of low risked members, who actively participate and engage within the circle. Most likely, these members are satisfied with their membership plan and renew their membership when needed. The other two segments need your critical attention because these two are high-risked members and their less engagement shows that they have not taken advantage of your membership offers to their full. You can easily judge the member’s engagement activity using these metrics.

• Member’s participation in the event
• Social media engagement
• Website and posts share
• Email interaction
• Comments / downloads of content

To re-engage this segment, one employee of your community should actively engage with them regularly.

You can also share the report card with your members to show them their activity level. Also, it’s a great way to involve your members and keep them reminding that you are ready to help them, and this method is always effective and encourages the members to retain their membership.

9. Facilitate your customers with an upsell

If a member is not engaging with your offerings, then most likely not getting what you have provided them. You can offer them a premium version with better support, access to more resources, or facilitation. Offering a premium version is a great way to upsell your membership plans with better offers, and it will retain those members who think they are not getting enough from their membership plan.

10. Use a drip-feeding content system on your site

Drip feeding is an effective way to engage your members where you’ll release content over time. As a result, people will stick around to get to the full knowledge of your content series. It’s also effective because when content is divided into bite-sized parts, it becomes easily digestible, and members will never get overwhelmed with your content series.

11. Create an exit survey to know the reason for the cancellation

Remember that it’s quite normal that people will join and leave your membership site. It’s a part of the business. However, you have to keep an eye on why do people leave you. Devise a quick exit survey to find out why they’re leaving. Keep on improving your content and if your members are leaving for a valid reason, try to fix it as soon as possible so you could retain other members.

Wrapping up

Member retention might seem like an uphill task, but if you keep on evolving your membership retention strategies over time, chances are your membership site will nurture and thrive with more members. Plan a strategy early on, right from the start when a member steps in, and keep a solid retention plan evolving with better facilities. Make your membership site as much member-friendly as possible and try to identify problems sooner so people might not get confused and leave your site.

I hope our member retention strategies will drastically improve your member’s retention percentage, ensuring long-term members with better engagement.