When engagement is crucial for user retention

How do you create a membership that gets used - and continues to stay relevant for users?

This question is central for many companies that rely on continuously producing relevant, up-to-date content in the form of guidance/advisory for their members - in other words, subscription-based businesses. For one of our clients, it became clear that the answer was not more features, but better access, higher relevance, and repeated use of their service.

71% of the client’s members believed that an app would create high value for them

Is retention and engagement important for your membership business?

Many companies overestimate the need for new features and underestimate the value of:

Better access, availability, and strong functionality
Higher visit frequency and increased engagement
Happy members who gain value from their membership

This case clearly shows that retention and lifetime value in membership-based businesses are driven by engagement - and engagement starts with accessibility. Is your content easily accessible to your members?

The challenge: Great potential, but low engagement

The client was in a situation that many subscription businesses will recognize - members saw the value of the subscription but did not exhibit the desired behavior:

Users were spread across multiple channels (web, newsletter, social media)
There was a long time between member visits
Organic traffic was declining
It was difficult to retain members

At the same time, qualitative responses from members painted a clear picture: the problem was not a lack of content, but friction in accessing it. In a member survey, more than 70% of the client’s members assessed that a well-functioning app would create high value for them.

When the user experience is poor, engagement drops

An analysis of several hundred member responses pointed to five recurring needs:

Stable and easy login
A better mobile experience
Easy access to relevant content
Improved search and navigation
Flexibility in the membership

These are classic signals in membership-based businesses:

If access is difficult → usage declines
If usage declines → perceived value declines
If value declines → loyalty declines
If loyalty declines → churn increases

65% of members access content via mobile

Focus on user experience, minimize churn, and grow membership

Instead of focusing on “more features,” the focus shifted to improving what already existed:

Accessibility → content should be at hand and always easy to access
Relevance → enable personalization and segmentation
Habit formation → repeated touchpoints and usage

With the help of skilled UX designers and our technical expertise, an app was launched that met members’ needs while expanding opportunities to offer an engaging membership universe.

With the app, the client can create more engagement

The client’s member survey made it clear that the issue wasn’t the content itself, but rather access (or lack thereof) to it. Therefore, they followed an approach that many membership-based companies could benefit from considering:

Start by removing friction

Login should just work
Navigation should be intuitive
Content should be easy to find

These are not “nice to have” - they are the foundation of engagement.

Make the core value more accessible

Content should be easy to find, save, and return to
Mobile is the users’ primary platform - treat it that way

In this client’s case, 65% of traffic comes via mobile - we suspect this is similar to what you see on your own website.

Create a direct relationship with members

Push notifications outperform emails in timing and visibility
Use AI for personalization
Use AI-driven insights into customer behavior to create new offerings
Owning your own channel, improving retention, and growing membership reduces dependency on algorithms and traffic

Build habits - not just features

Repeated usage is more important than a “one-time wow”
The app becomes “the membership” for digital users