Community Onboarding 101

Hey everyone,

Last time we spoke, I shared some heavy news about my health. Thank you to all of the friends and readers that reached out 🙏

I’m happy to share that we’ve found a solution for continuing the newsletter while I undergo my treatment. You can continue to expect highly-tactical community-building tips in your inbox every other Tuesday 😀

Today, we’re walking through 4 tactical “Dos and Don'ts” of community onboarding 👇

DO Touch Base ASAP

Onboarding should be instantaneous. You have to strike while the iron's hot. 

The longer you go without getting a new member engaged, the less likely they are to EVER be a contributing member of your community.

As soon as they sign-up, let them know they need to check their inbox to confirm their membership and fire off your first onboarding email.

Even if you require an application to join your community, the communication should be instant. 

New members should be acknowledged (and warmly welcomed 😄) immediately.

DON’T Talk Rules Right Away

Imagine you walk into a fancy restaurant that you had booked an expensive reservation at.

You take your seat, the waiter approaches, and the first thing he says is:

“No talking on your phone at the table, please keep your conversations to a reasonable volume, and we ask for a 25% gratuity for parties of eight or more. Enjoy your meal!”

It wouldn’t set a great tone, would it? 

We don't want to hit brand new members with a bunch of rules. Rules can come later. 

There's no reason to immediately make an entrance into the community feel heavy or punitive.

DON’T Overwhelm With Info

I use the bowling ball analogy a lot (s/o Donald Miller from StoryBrand).

The idea is that communicating info to an email audience is equivalent to giving people a bowling ball to hold. 

You can give them one bowling ball to hold. That's fine. 

You can give them two bowling balls to hold. Most people can manage, but it starts to get a little uncomfortable. 

The minute you add a third bowling ball, not only can they not hold that third ball, they can't hold any of them anymore. 

All of the information you wanted them to retain is lost. 

The solution is to keep it simple. 

For onboarding communications, I like to make sure that I don't give readers more than one important piece of information at a time. 

Ideally, I want members to be in the community twice a week - that’s a good benchmark for cadence for activity and checking-in. So, when I'm onboarding, I'm going to try to send them an email from the onboarding sequence twice a week for that first month. 

I'm trying to train that twice/week frequency right out of the gate.

They're going to get eight emails total from me, and every single one of those emails is going to include a single simple CTA that gets them involved in the community. 

DO Provide Different Options For How to Get Started

I like to let people choose their own adventure when it comes to onboarding.

Some people love high-touch onboarding, some want to be totally left alone.

Some people like audio, some like to read. 

It’s good practice to be cognizant of those preferences, and (without going overboard) provide options for new members. 

This maximizes the odds of any given member completing onboarding and getting involved in the community.

Here’s how I might do it:

• Record a Loom video that new members can watch or listen to

• Provide the exact same information in writing directly below the video

• Also provide a link to book an “intro call” with their community manager (for members that want a more high-touch onboarding experience)

In addition to sending those options in the intro email, I’d make sure it's all posted to a permanent space within the community. 

At any time, members should be able to revisit and find that onboarding information.

How Do We Know These Tips Work?

Glad you asked! If you’re actively building a community (or looking to start one soon), we have some options to help you level up fast:

• We build and implement onboarding sequences like this for our partners. If you’re looking to build a world-class community for your brand, without the guesswork or headaches, you can book a call with us here.
  

• Many of these tactics are sourced directly out of conversations happening within our Builder’s Club - our incredible, private network of solopreneurs working together to build engaged communities.
  

• For folks looking for a self-paced option, you can check out our CommunityOS course. It’s packed with tactical tips and tricks for building and growing a high-retention, revenue-driving community.

That’s all for this week. We’ll see you again on August 6th!