5 things to consider when building a member portal

1. Offer value

When asking people to give you their personal data, sign up to marketing comms and maybe even pay a fee, you need to be sure that what you’re offering makes it worth their while. This might be a monetary discount or exclusive/early access to products, services or industry knowledge. Whatever it is, make sure it feels valuable in comparison to what you’re asking for in return, and importantly — ensure it isn’t available to those who aren’t members.

If you have the time/resources, market research can be invaluable to get this balance right and understand if you’re offering enough, too much or even the right thing. If you can’t use external specialists, the important thing is to come at it with an open mind and not assume that because you think something is valuable, your customers will.

2. Know what data is useful to you and TRACK

The other side of the value coin is what you want to get / know in return. Although ‘everything’ might initially seem like a good answer, there’s a few reasons that might not be the case:

• As noted above, the more personal details you ask for the less likely people will to want to sign up, or the higher the value your offering will need to be to make them do this. Consider whether everything you’re asking for truly holds value for you to know, otherwise skip it.
• Include all your business functions in the discussion of what’s useful to know. It’s easy to think only sales and marketing might be relevant to include in data strategy but different perspectives often shine a light.
• Data only makes sense if you (a) can, and (b) have the time to interpret it — it’s the difference between a pile of bricks and a house. If you’re a small team or are just starting out with a CRM/data strategy, track everything you can but focus on what’s going to give you knowledge, not just mounds of information to potentially get lost in.
• Understand what is useful to know on an individual vs group level as this will have big implications on cost. There’s a lot of tracking resources out there such as Google Analytics and HotJar that can be set-up to track and provide data you need for free, so be tactical on what it is you truly need to know for where you’re currently at.

3. Keep it compelling

The broad objectives of a member portal are usually to increase engagement time, purchase (if relevant) and word of mouth – so what about your programme is designed to do this?

• If your offering is content-led, ensure you’re creating new, relevant and timely content, with the opportunity for members to feedback and/or get involved in as a community.
• Allow personalisation where possible — although you want to show and tell everything, members may disengage if they feel they’re being overwhelmed with irrelevant information. Find the balance between enabling members to tailor their view vs making sure they don’t miss out.
• Always consider how you’re encouraging referrals as this is a huge opportunity for you to get new members. Member-get-member schemes should consider benefits for both the existing and new member, and make sure you’re keeping track of who your top referrers are so you can reward and target similar customers in the future.

4. Consider those who aren’t members… yet

It can be easy when considering all the above to forget about the site visitors you have that aren’t members. Although your member portal may hide or restrict access to certain content and features, you want to be sure that you offer enough information and teasers so people are encouraged to join. This is especially important if you are asking members to pay —you wouldn’t buy the car if you can’t test drive it first. The following tactics can be useful:

• If you’re offering is content led, consider allowing non-members the ability to access a certain amount for free before being ‘cut off’.
• Consider a free trial period, though ensure you take steps to manage multiple sign ups from different accounts.
• Include information about member benefits and prompts to sign up at tactical points within your site so the message of why and how is clear.

5. Prepare for stage II and beyond

If you’re just starting on your member portal journey, the reality is your time and cost investment is going to have a cap on it. This doesn’t however mean that you shouldn’t plan for when you may have more.

• Always set-up basic tracking — you never know what might be useful to know in the future and you can only know what you track.
• Discuss with your design and development team anything that you know might be a future wish. Whether it be something small like members having a profile picture, or something big like having different membership tiers, it may just affect how something is built now and could save you money and rebuilds down the line.
• Be prepared to listen and adapt — member portals can give you a fantastic feedback loop of data and knowledge so use it wisely!