The Co-operative Group has overhauled its new members’ strategy, designed to increase the speed with which it engages them and improve awareness of all aspects of membership.
TDA has designed an interactive area on the Co-op Group’s membership website to inform people about membership and the many ways in which it can be made more rewarding. The activity is predominantly aimed at new members, who will be channelled here from the online application area, but existing members will also be driven to the area when they visit the membership site.
Members will be able to ‘direct’ their own welcome movie by selecting answers to two questions with multiple choice answers, and this will build their welcome journey. Each answer they select relates to a short 10-15 second clip describing a different facet of membership. The clips will then be pulled together into a short personalised video.
Once the movie has been viewed, members will be asked to select which areas of the business they’re most interested in and these choices will determine some of the content they’ll see whenever they make future visits to the membership website.
Co-op membership direct marketing manager Anne Byrom said: “Our previous welcome to membership was completely offline, and a result, was very generic. Taking the process online allows the member to tailor the process according to their particular preferences. This gets across that membership is more than just points, makes it more relevant to the individual, and allows us to build a clearer understanding of their motivations so that we can prioritise that information in our communications with them.”
Emmeline Kite, account director at TDA, said: “On the whole, members initially join for the points earning potential, but the more they learn about the other facets of membership, the more likely they are to be engaged. Many people have little knowledge of what The Co-operative does in relation to ethical and charitable activities and how they can benefit from these, so informing and educating are absolutely paramount here.”
