Module 7 | Adoption to Retention Pathway

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Planning a Pathway from Adoption to Retention gives you the structure to create habit-forming educational experiences that help members get more value out of your product or service. As with any typical onboarding process, understanding what is blocking customers from getting value out of your product or service is key to refining this Pathway.

 

Exercise 4.2 - Pathways | Adoption to Retention

The purpose of this Pathway is to find a repeatable, methodical way of highlighting the value the community can provide in relation to their needs. Many companies create knowledge bases to teach customers about the problem they help solve. 86% of people say they would stay loyal to a business that welcomes and educates them after they’ve bought.

 

A community provides an opportunity to leverage the expertise of members at different stages of your Community-led Growth flywheel to solve challenges and point each other to the right knowledge, at the right time. You can create different Pathways for different member groups if they need to be guided through a different process.

 

Create an editable copy of the worksheets

 

Starting action

First specify what will trigger someone to begin this Pathway. This will be informed by how you defined adoption and what member groups related to that stage in exercise 4.

 

Ending action

Pathways are all about guiding someone from A to B, so now you have A defined, B should be the action someone has to take before beginning an retention process.

 

Key actions

It’s important when planning the key actions to guide someone from your starting action to your ending action to not constrain your ideas by tools or initiatives you’re already using. The most effective key actions are engagements which help the member solve their needs mapped in exercise 1. The best way to define your key actions is with a measurable outcome, for example - completed a course or RSVP’ed for an event.

 

For adoption to retention it’s useful to think about what knowledge you need to unpack so a member fully understands how you can help solve their challenges better than anyone else. Your key actions should therefore mirror your member value proposition from exercise 3.

 

Once customers are active in your community, how will you encourage them to participate more and share feedback as they go? The more your key actions can provide a safe space for members to engage, the more likely you will discover their pain points and reduce churn.

 

Potential catalysts of key actions

Content & Courses

Adoption is all about the transfer of knowledge. Making sure content is organized in a way that members can quickly find it or ask for help is key to success. Longer-form content and videos packaged up as courses allow you to break down complex subjects and show real value in your thought leadership, products and services.

 


Resources & Events

Exclusive downloads, webinars and in-person events are again great ways to transfer knowledge and engage members in complex subjects. The more your key actions involve bringing members together in real-time, the stronger the human relationships you’ll be able to build. 

 

Discussions

Active participation in discussions is an important indicator of value creation. Ideally your onboarding process will provide members with the right information at the right time but discussions allow people to ask for help, or share what they love.

 

Contacts

As a member is onboarded onto your community, product or service, its key that you introduce them to people who may be able to provide them with support or mentorship. The level of member to member engagement that is needed to create value will be defined by your member value proposition. However, at a minimum, members should be connecting with your brand experts. 

 

Target impact

Your target impact should reflect adoption related business outcomes documented in previous exercises. To make your Pathway effective and impactful, your target impact should be a direct outcome of your Pathway’s ending action. 

 

Indicators of impact

Unless you’re running your community in isolation from all other channels, there may be other factors impacting your target impact. Depending on the key actions you set out, it may take some time before enough members have been guided through your Pathway and you have hard evidence of ROI. Indicators of impact should be desired outcomes of your key actions which you feel confident you can measure to track progress.

 

What’s next?

Next up, mapping your adoption to retention Pathway.

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Go to the profile of Thirza Loffeld
over 1 year ago

@Jack Bartrop what would your advice be on best ways to finding out what is blocking customers from getting value out of your product or service?