The Decision to Renew Happens Waaaayyy Sooner than You Think

So when does a new member decide to renew? When they pull out their credit card to renew? 9 months after joining? 6 months? Nope, nah, and not even then. So what is the magic date? I’ll get to that in a minute, but first: Welcome back to the Things I Wish I Had Known Then Series, second edition (here’s the first edition), where I share what I wish I had known when I was a baby association marketing and membership director.

Okay, so let’s get back to that magic date when a new member decides to renew. It’s roughly between 3 days to 3 weeks after joining. Are your neurons screaming, “Yikes!!!!”?

(Full disclosure, there are some caveats: they are not making the conscious decision to renew. But they are making the decisions to engage that lead to renewal. In other words, if we don’t engage a new member during the formative 3-day to 3-week window, we’ve lost them.)

Yes, I know, it’s a bit of a shock, and it doesn’t give us much time to fully engage someone, but here’s the good news: we don’t have to fully engage them. They don’t expect us to fully engage them. They don’t expect us to solve all their problems right away, and they don’t expect to make their next work BFF in just a few days either.

So what do they expect?

They want a glimmer. A glimmer that they are welcome. The whiff that this community is their people. The hope that they will fit in. The tip-off that they’ll get some solutions.

How do you meet those expectations?

First, craft a three-email series. That’s it? Three emails! Yup! And there’s more good news. Keep them short, friendly, and point them to a bit of value that doesn’t take long to consume, like a 3-minute video or a 500-word article.

Try to match a problem your new member has right now with a tiny solution. Don’t worry about solving their ENTIRE problem; just give them a taste and speak their language.

They’ll read your first three emails and become intrigued, hopefully intrigued enough to keep reading more of your emails. When they keep reading, they’ll click on links to articles, join your online community, maybe attend a virtual event. One small decision to engage leads to the next, and the next, until it’s a foregone conclusion that they can’t live without the association.