Ep 45: Two Types of Member Outreach

Dec 27

Two Types of Member Outreach

A member journey map is a way to map out all of the various touchpoints that we have with our members from the time they first joined the program, until cancellation, and beyond. When people see my member journey maps, they often wonder how on earth I came up with so many touchpoints and opportunities to reach out to members.

The other day I was chatting with a client about these various touchpoints, and the client wanted to know how I came up with them. I talked to them about the two different kinds of member outreach tactics. When I tell you these two different kinds of tactics, it is going to spark for you a whole new list of opportunities and ways that you can reach out and connect to and help support your members.

Time-Based Tactics

The first kind of outreach tactic is a time-based tactic. The time-based tactic is outreach or a touchpoint that happens based on how long they have been in your program.

Some examples of a time-based tactic:

Five days after purchase, we will check in by sending them a video message.
30 days before an annual renewal, we're going to reach out to them that their renewal is coming up.
Three months after joining, we're going to send them a quick question to pulse and see how things are going for them inside of the program.
Maybe you have a big event and two days before you want to make sure that they are coming and have downloaded their workbook.

Trigger-based Tactics

The second kind of outreach tactic is a trigger-based tactic. These are touchpoints or actions inside of your program that are based on activities that your members are or are not doing.

What Members Are Doing

Let's talk about some of the things that your members may be doing that could trigger certain activities or behaviors from your team. What happens when a member completes orientation? Do they just complete orientation and that's it, or do they get an email or outreach from a team member? Do they unlock content that was locked before? Maybe they need to complete orientation in order to unlock access to your community forum. Those are some things that they may be doing that could lead to a trigger-based tactic.

What Members Are Not Doing

What about the things that they're not doing? I like to think of this as things that they are not doing within a certain timeframe or with a certain frequency.

If I have not started orientation within the first 10 days of being a member in your program, I want you to reach out to me. If I've been a member for a while and all of a sudden I haven't logged in in 45 days, what do we do at that point? When we can identify somebody who hasn't logged in in 45 days and we're billing them every single month, you better believe they're going to cancel if they're not taking advantage of it. So what do we do?

Many Opportunities for Member Outreach

There's this standard of once people purchase every other outreach is based on the deliverables that we are giving them as a part of their purchase inside of our program until they cancel. And none of it is personal.

There are so many other opportunities for us to have outreach to encourage action or reward people based on the things that they are doing inside of our programs. When you are mapping out your member journey, I want you to think about two different kinds of tactics.

First, the time-based tactics. This is based on how long they've been in your program or the timing related to a particular deliverable or event. The second is those trigger-based touchpoints. These are things that are triggered by the activities that your members are or are not doing.

What I love about this is that it lets them know that you are paying attention to them and they aren't just a number.