490 - Ask Mike: Should I Onboard Trial Members Differently?

Every month inside Membership Academy, I run a live Q&A where members bring me their toughest questions. One that keeps coming back around is this: should you onboard trial members differently to your regular paying members?

Most people either run one blanket onboarding sequence for everyone, or assume trial members need something completely different. Neither is quite right. The answer comes down to a concept I call the off-ramp, and once you understand how your trial length lines up (or doesn't) with your natural off-ramps, the right approach becomes obvious.

In this episode:

• Should your trial onboarding be the same as your regular onboarding, or different?
• What is an "off-ramp," and why does it decide how you should structure your trial sequence?
• How does a 2-week trial change your approach compared to a 1-month trial?
• How do you detect (and nudge) trial members who haven't actually used their trial?
• What's the case for letting trial members skip the trial altogether?

Want a simple way to check your own trial onboarding against this? Grab the free Trial Onboarding Timing Map at membershipgeeks.com/490. It maps out exactly what should change based on your trial length, plus ready-to-adapt nudge and upgrade prompts.

And if you want a wider view of where the gaps in your membership strategy actually are, our free Membership Healthcheck will show you in about two minutes.

Key Quotes & Takeaways:

"There are some natural off-ramps within the member journey where people are more prone, more likely, more at risk of leaving your membership."

"If someone signed up for a trial, there's less impetus for them to actually use what they've signed up for than if they'd paid for it."

"Assuming your membership is as awesome as it should be, all you need to do is you get people using the membership, you get them getting results, you get them consuming your content, then that's going to make it far more likely they'll stay than if they've not used it."

"When somebody joins on a trial basis, they are not entering with the same expectations, with the same commitment level, with the same intent and purpose to someone who would be joining as a regular member. They are not the same, and therefore your onboarding should reflect that."

You might also find useful:

• Advanced Tips and Tactics for Offering a Membership Trial
• Should Membership Trial Periods be Free or Paid?
• 5 Things to Include in Your Member Onboarding Sequence
• Why you need a solid member onboarding process

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