Congratulations on joining Member365! In this knowledgebase article we will cover the ways that you can notify your members that you are now using a new membership software. 

If at any point during this KB article questions arise, please reach out to our customer support team and we would happy to advise on what is the best way that would be suited for your organizational needs. 

1. Welcome Email 

Sending out the welcome email is one of the most common ways that organizations decide to let their members know that they have migrated to a new membership software. 

Our customer success team will import your members into the system. All that is required on your end is to make sure that the welcome email template is tailored to your organizational needs (including your logo, copy and pertinent information). Then you will let us know what specific date and time you'd like for the welcome emails to go out. The customer success team at Membber365 is responsible for ensuring that the welcome emails are sent out. 

The screenshot above denotes the welcome email that is set up within each Membership category, which will be sent out to your members. 

2. Pilot Group

This follow the exact same structure of the welcome email launch. The biggest difference is that the email is not being sent out to all of your members. Rather, the information is sent out to a small subset of individuals that you choose. 

Using a test group is ideal if you want to test out your new membership software.

Pros:

• Helps you minimize any risks or operational failures
• Can be used for a small quantity of people
• Tests out all of the links make sure they work
• Check all pages to ensure they are working

Cons:

• It can push back your official launch date

This launch strategy will allow you to send the welcome email to the platform to a small group. During the test group soft launch, you have the flexibility of choosing who has access. Once you select the individuals that are part of that group, they can receive the welcome email. They will be able to go through all the steps that you’re future members will have to go through.

This strategy allows you to see if there are any operational issues that may need to be dealt with. This will also provide you with ideas to see if maybe changes need to be made to make things run more smoothly.

For instance, you only provide access to your member portal to the board of directors. Your board of directors will receive a welcome email that redirects them to the member portal. There they will use their log-in credentials to sign in and proceed to explore the member portal.

Consequently, allowing your board of directors to go through all the steps that your members will eventually go through during your hard launch. Through this experience, they will be able to test that all the links, pages are working and there are no issues that require immediate attention.

Let’s talk about a different kind of soft launch.

3. Soft Launch

• Member Initiated Application 

This method is going to be used if you wish to allow your members to apply into their specific membership category, this can be done in certain ways. 

We can import your contacts into the system. Then you can use our email campaigns to send the members a link or redirect them to your public website where they can apply for their membership application. 

Alternatively, we do not need to import the contacts, you can just use a list that you already have and use the email campaigns to send them an email redirecting them to membership appications. 

4. No launch - using Member365 as a CRM

 If you have decided that you will only be using Member365 as a client relations management software you do not need to to send any welcome email to members. 

5. Renewal Reminder

A Renewal Reminder is the last kind of launch we will consider.

If you have annual memberships with renewals coming up within the time frame of launching your new membership platform.  Sending out a renewal reminder is a perfect way to introduce the new platform and have your members renew while updating their contact information at the same time.  This method should only be used for annual memberships, if you have anniversary or lifetime memberships you will need to use the hard or soft launch methods.  Using the renewal reminder method is also great to earn back the onboarding and set up cost that you had to get the system launched while seeing what your renewal rate will be with the new platform.

Now that we’ve covered the ways that you can launch your new membership software to your members! You just have to decide what one works best for you.