Membership acquisition strategies are important, whether you’re a business owner trying to get your first 10 customers or your 10,000th. We know you need to ensure that every dollar you spend helps you get new customers. But it can be hard to figure out how much it really costs to win over a new customer.

Don’t worry; we will provide 12 effective membership marketing strategies for Shopify merchants in this blog. 

What Is Membership Acquisition?

Membership acquisition is the process of getting new people to join a reward program or subscription service. A membership acquisition strategy can boost consumer loyalty, lifetime value, and engagement.

Why Focus On Membership Acquisition Strategies For Shopify Stores?

For Shopify business owners, the membership acquisition strategy has the following advantages:

• Better customer retention because members are more likely to make repeat purchases.
• Improved sales consistency due to providing a steady revenue stream. Also, reducing reliance on one-time purchases.
• Stronger community building by fostering a sense of belonging and encouraging member engagement.

Do you feel your store needs e-commerce membership strategies? Don’t worry—we will talk about 12 ways that Shopify shops can get new members.

Strategy 1: Leverage Social Proof

According to BrightLocal research, 87% of customers would not even consider a company if its average rating was less than three stars. Positive comments from people in the community thus also increase the likelihood of prospective members joining. 

You can leverage social proof with the following 3 effective methods.:

Option 1: Customer Reviews and Testimonials

A customer review or testimonial is a negative, positive, or neutral opinion a customer leaves about a product or service they have experienced. You can allow customers to leave reviews on your product pages like the fashion brand Everlane did in the image below. 

EComposer’s guide to adding Shopify product reviews can help you do this. Also, get more ideas to get more customer review in our blog. 

Option 2: Influencer Endorsements

Statistics from Matter Communications show that 69% of people believe in influencer recommendations. They are more likely to buy something and even buy it again. Also, Influencer Marketing Hub research stated that 18% of U.S. influencers who use TikTok regularly have a good interaction rate.

KISS is one of the case studies that worked really well. With eight sub-brands spread across more than 100 countries, it dominates internationally in professional beauty goods. To get the Falscara product out there, it worked with 46 beauty stars on many different social networking sites. 

For the Falscara campaign, paid and organic hits exceeded expectations by nearly forty percent. Along with a plethora of great assets—17 Facebook posts and a TikHub with around 638,000 views—the campaign also acquired Not only that but also 493,630 organic video views! People clearly found the information from influencers to be intriguing. 

Option 3: User-generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is brand-related content that customers create for the brand (for free) and share on social media. It can include images, videos, reviews, or recommendations.

The drink brand LaCroix really gets this. They want people to use the hashtag #LiveLaCroix on Instagram with their products. LaCroix will then choose the best shots to use on their website as user-generated content.

Strategy 2: Offer Exclusive Benefits

Exclusive offers are only available for a short time. This membership acquisition strategy creates a sense of value that encourages loyalty by using some types of exclusive benefits such as:

• Member-only discounts on products or services.
• Early access to sales and promotions.
• Special promotions and events for members only.

You can also combine all three ideas, as Sephora did. During their members-only Spring Savings Event, members with the Rouge tier (the highest level in their tiered membership levels) got first access at a 20% discount.

Strategy 3: Implement Referral Programs

Did you know that a referral program is one of the membership acquisition strategies? Yes, these programs did! Deloitte research shows that customers referred by other customers have a 37% higher retention rate. 

But for your referral program work, you need to make sure of the following:

• Incentives for both referrer and referee. The article 40 best referral program examples clearly show that most successful referral programs offer two-sided rewards.
• Easy sharing options include simple ways such as sharing referral links or codes (e.g., email, social media). We have detailed guides on creating referral links for Shopify stores, with examples in another blog.
• Clear tracking and a reward system like timely delivery of rewards, just like Uber did.

Strategy 4: Utilize Email Marketing

Since email marketing helps you get directly to a customer’s inbox, it is a membership acquisition strategy. Your marketing message is, therefore, not merely tossed wherever and hoped the buyer would notice it. Rather, it finds its way to consumers’ daily checked emails.

Leveraging email marketing to promote your Shopify membership with:

• Personalized email campaigns by tailoring email content to the customer’s name or according to individual preferences and behaviors.
• Automated welcome sequences with a series of automated emails.
• Engaging and informative content inspires your audience.

We will show you an instance of when you want to run ready-made triggered adverts when consumers spend a certain sum of money. Popular marketing systems like Mailchimp and Omnisend provide email flow features to help you do this. As seen below, someone joining their loyalty program and spending $200 receives a thank you email and customized offers. 

We recommend you read the detailed guide to creating a personalization email campaign with Omnisend to find more.

Strategy 5: Create High-Quality Content

Getting consumers involved and enthusiastic depends on high-quality content, as it fosters trust and clearly shows the value of your business. 

We recommend you create 3 types of content below:

• Blog posts and articles

The easiest approach to communicate interesting and educational knowledge about your sector is to write blog articles. Beardbrand, a company focused on men’s beard care products, is well aware of this. They provide plenty of posts and pieces on cultural advice and tricks for beards. 

This high-quality content makes your site more visible in search engines. This brings you more interested visitors who might become members once they see how valuable your site is.

• Videos and tutorials:

Besides the articles, you can also create visual content to show product usage or share expertise. For example, if you sell cosmetics, you can create makeup tutorial videos like Sephora. For fashion items, you can also make styling tips videos.

• E-books and guides:

Unlike articles or blogs, E-books offer in-depth knowledge on specific topics to establish your brand as an authority. Because of its specific nature, brands that choose to publish ebooks tend to place a premium on expertise. These can be areas such as health and wellness, finance and personal finance, technology and software.

However, even the Food and Beverage sector can consider publishing ebooks if you are a big brand like Starbucks. They have produced ebooks on coffee culture, techniques of preparation, and coffee and food combinations.

Strategy 6: Optimize Your Website For Conversions

Take a moment to put yourself in the customer’s shoes, if you walk into a messy store, would you want to stay there for long? 

For e-commerce platforms, optimizing your website is similar to keeping your store neat, tidy, and clean. It enhances usability and plays a significant role in turning visitors into loyal customers. Pay attention to improving the following aspects:

• User-friendly navigation.
• Clear and compelling CTAs.
• Fast loading times.

First of all, make sure your store has user-friendly navigation. It’s like a concierge that guides customers through the store. Get ideas using simple navigation, such as the fashion eyewear brand Warby Parker. They simply categorize women and men to help visitors quickly access their shopping needs.

Make sure you use strong, clear calls to action that get people to do what you want them to do. The “Browse Men” call to action from Warby Parker in the image above is brief and understandable. 

Finally, optimize your website for speed to improve user experience and reduce bounce rates. We recommend using Google PageSpeed Insights, which offers actionable recommendations for improving your website’s speed and performance.

Strategy 7: Offer Free Trials Or Samples

Free trials is a membership acquisition strategy to lower costs. You build trust and confidence with your audience by letting them try before they buy. This can make them more likely to buy, which can increase conversion rates.

However, free trials or samples don’t always work, especially if you don’t follow these tips:

• Limited-time offers because if you offer an unlimited free trial, users will tend to think it is low quality. That means you should create a sense of urgency for your time-bound free trial or sample.
• Easy sign-up process by simplifying claiming the free trial or sample to cut friction.
• Follow-up with promotional offers to encourage conversion after the trial period ends.

You can get the most out of your free trial program by giving prospective customers free samples in exchange for their email addresses. This information will help you use the email marketing plan we talked about in the future.

Strategy 8: Leverage Social Media Advertising

Advertising on social media is a great way to reach prospective consumers and get them to join. You can effectively promote your membership program and get new ones by following these tips:

• Targeted ad campaigns use demographic and behavioral targeting to reach the right audience.
• Retargeting past visitors by displaying ads to website visitors who haven’t converted to encourage them to sign up.
• Utilizing various ad formats (e.g., image, video, carousel) to find what works best for your audience.

If you are interested in this strategy, read more a beginner’s guide about paid advertising by Semrush.

From what we’ve experienced, paid ads on social media should only be used as a last measure after all other options have been explored. Because paid social media marketing tactics for getting new people are so expensive. The exchange rate won’t go up if you use it by itself.

Strategy 9: Host Webinars And Live Events

Businesses can show that they are experts in their area by holding webinars and live events. This makes them reliable sources of information. People will be more likely to trust you, which can lead to new members.

• Choose relevant topics that align with your target audience’s interests and needs.
• Promote the event across many channels via email, social media, and other marketing channels to reach a wide audience.
• Engage with attendees during and after the event by answering questions, addressing concerns, and following up with attendees.

Using the freebies technique, which we covered before, is the simplest way to get people to follow your brand’s social media account. After that, you may use livestream to make sales. 

Strategy 10: Partner With Influencers And Brands

Collaborating with influencers can significantly boost membership acquisition and brand visibility. We will suggest some effective influencer partnership strategies for you:

• Collaborate on content:

You can create joint content with influencers or partner brands to reach a wider audience.

• Host joint events or giveaways:

Partner with influencers to offer exclusive experiences or rewards to members. BlendJet and Herbivore Botanicals did a good job with this strategy by having people follow both accounts, like the post, and tag friends to be eligible.

• Cross-promote products or services

You can offer reciprocal promotions to each other’s customer base. See how Bearaby and S’well work together on a special bundle deal:

Strategy 11: Implement A Loyalty Program

Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company did a study that found that keeping 5% more people can boost profits by 25% to 95%. 

The key components of a successful customer loyalty program include:

• Points-based rewards allow customers to earn points for purchases and redeem them for rewards.
• Tiered membership levels with increasing benefits as customers spend more.
• Regular promotions and incentives such as limited-time rewards and exclusive offers.

Get inspiration from our Özel Beslenme case study, a Shopify online drugstore in Turkish. They have a Shopify shop and use BON Loyalty to launch a reward program. Through rewards redemptions, BON Loyalty’s coupon benefits helped them make an extra 6% in sales.

This Shopify loyalty app helps you tailor everything from the loyalty widget and loyalty page to content. Also, the BON app helps your business grow worldwide with savings in more than 250 languages and currencies.

Strategy 12: Use Data Analytics To Optimize Acquisition Efforts

Data analytics is important for figuring out how customers act and making the best plans for getting new members.

• Shopify’s built-in analytics let you track and evaluate important metrics. It such as acquisition cost, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value (CLTV). 
• Test and refine strategies with different acquisition channels, messaging, and offers to identify what works best.
• Use insights to make data-driven decisions to optimize budget allocation, target audience, and campaign performance. You can use A/B testing to compare different campaign variations.

You can make data-driven decision-making to improve results by tracking key metrics and analyzing performance.

FAQs

What is the most effective membership acquisition strategy for Shopify stores?

Our recommendation for the best membership acquisition strategy is the leverage social proof method, one of the twelve we covered in this post. According to Statista data, five billion people around the world used social media in 2023. For these reasons, the best, most cost-effective, and long-term strategy is to use social media to promote Shopify membership sign-ups.

How can I track the success of my membership acquisition efforts?

Here are some metrics to measure the impact of your membership acquisition strategies:

• Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost of acquiring a new member.  
• Conversion Rates are the percentage of website visitors who become members.  
• Membership Growth Rate is the rate at which your membership base is expanding.
• Churn Rate is the percentage of members who cancel their membership.
• Member Retention Rate is the percentage of members who remain active over a specific period.
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) to Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) Ratio.

By tracking these metrics and analyzing the data, you can make informed decisions to improve your membership program and drive sustainable growth.

What types of content are most effective in attracting new members?

One excellent kind of material to attract visitors to your website is blog entries. Visitors are eager and inclined to return to a site with regularly released fresh, practical items. 

Additional Tips For Successful Membership Acquisition

To further enhance your membership acquisition efforts, consider our supplementary strategies:

• Regularly update and refresh your membership offers.

Most of the time, you should add new perks and rewards and make changes. Take a look at Starbucks’ reward. To keep members coming back, they often run holiday deals, limited-time offers, and different levels of member perks. 

• Use customer feedback to improve your strategies.

Of course, you already know that Apple is a great example. Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys help Apple find its critics and make its shops better places to shop. A survey is sent to customers by email asking how they liked their time in the store, regardless of whether they bought something or made an appointment to try on an Apple Watch. 

Because it always focuses on the shop experience, the company has always had the best sales per square foot of any US retailer.

• Ensure seamless integration with other marketing efforts:

To get the most out of your marketing plan, make sure that the way you reach out to new people fits in with it. Check out Sephora Beauty Insider for tips. They connect with the in-store experience by letting users know about events and making suggestions based on their preferences. 

Conclusion

Your Shopify store’s customer growth approach needs to be well-thought-out. You can keep people, make more sales, and build trust over time by using the 12-membership acquisition strategies in this blog. Would you like to look into certain case studies or learn more about any of the methods that were talked about? To read a more in-depth plan, visit our blog.