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September 12, 2019 By Amanda Kaiser

New Members Feel New For Longer Than We Think They Do

I just read that Kevin Bacon is 60 years old! How did that happen?!?!? My nine-year-old son is as tall as my shoulder now, but it seems like just a few months ago he was a toddler, baby-staggering around the house. My younger sister recently turned forty, but most days, I still feel like I’m still in my 20s.

We have a very warped sense of time (or maybe this is just me).

Sometimes I’ll ask members how long they have been a member and they’ll say eight years, no wait 15 years. Sometimes a member may have only been with the association for two years and identify as a long-time member (this is rare). More often, members at the one, two, and even three-year mark think of themselves as new members.

While most new members feel like new members from 0-3 years, many onboarding efforts only last 1 to 30 days. Most associations are not onboarding for nearly enough time. We found in the New Member Engagement Study that onboarding programs previous seven months or more are far more successful than shorter programs.

If your new member retention rates are not where you want them to be, try extending your onboarding program to take members from feeling new to feeling engaged.

More associations are creating onboarding programs. We want to see what is working and what has changed. We invite all past participants and new participants to spend 10 minutes answering this year’s survey. All participants can compare their programs with their peers and will be the first to get the report. Even if you just send a welcome letter, we would love to hear from you. Click here and look for the big purple box to participate. 

Related:

  • Many organizations accidentally ignore new members
  • Associations are home and family to many members
  • Not fitting in is awkward for many members

Filed Under: Member Engagement, Member Experience Tagged With: early engagement, engagement process, engaging members, new member engagement, new member experience, new member onboarding, new members

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