Show Notes
Getting a new member through the door is only half the job. The other half — the part that actually determines whether they renew — is what happens in the months that follow.
Most associations have some version of an onboarding process. A welcome email, maybe a short series, then months of broadcast communications before a renewal notice shows up in month 11. The problem isn't that nothing is happening — it's that none of it is shaped by what the member actually wants. And by the time you find out who tuned out, it's already too late.
In this session, Brittany Lancor, Senior Marketing Manager at PropFuel and former association membership professional, makes the case that onboarding isn't a sequence — it's a retention strategy. She walks through what changes when you stop telling members what you think they should know and start asking them what they actually came for.
During the session, she covers:
- Why the renewal decision is made in the first few months of membership, not when the renewal notice goes out
- What most welcome sequences get wrong — and how to spot it by auditing how much you're telling versus asking
- How the Academy of Model Aeronautics built an eight-touchpoint series where every email asked one question and routed the next step based on the answer — resulting in a 45% engagement rate, double their previous system
- How NAPNAP created a choose-your-own-adventure onboarding campaign that let members pick their path and immediately received relevant follow-up, not a generic benefits dump
- Three things you can do this week: audit your welcome sequence, add one question to your first touchpoint, and drop in a mid-year check-in around month four or five
This is session two of a three-part campaign series. Session one covered recruitment, and session three covers renewals.