“All Aboard!”: 3 Things You Need to Know About Onboarding
Association Research | association marketing | consulting | content marketing
Onboarding is an important aspect of any successful business model, ensuring that employees and clients alike are familiarized and integrated with the business’s products and services. Ensuring that an onboarding plan is successful is not always an easy feat, and establishing one can be even trickier. Thanks to our friends at HubSpot, below are three of the most important steps to follow when creating a successful onboarding plan for the first 90 days and into the foreseeable future.
Step One: Alignment
This ensures that both the sales and marketing teams are on the same page in terms of expectations, work load, goals, etc. To align these two teams the following is recommended:
- Define the ideal customer buyer and persona
- Document the buyers journey from awareness to decision – learn more about the buyers journey and check out our previous blog post "The "Funnel-mentals" of Inbound Marketing”
- Gather existing content and make it available to all parties – I recommend GoogleDoc or Dropbox
- Establish priorities and what metrics will be used to measure data
- Implement a strategy and provide recommendations
Step Two: Foundation
The foundation step of the process builds off of alignment, acting as a base to support the action planned. Step two requires you to map out the activities and tasks that were discovered during step one. Foundation can include:
- Workshops to identify blog topics
- Sales tools set up
- Develop style guide for tone and voice
Step Three: Momentum
The final step of the successful onboarding plan is momentum. Although the first 90 days are the most crucial, it is instrumental that momentum remains post-90 days. Some helpful tips to keep momentum going include:
- Don’t rest on success! Continue to generate content - update blogs, website content, etc.
- Stay aligned – have a check-in weekly or bi-weekly to talk strategy, review results, and plan for the future!
Now that you have the basics, get your team moving in the right direction and give it a try! Remember that communication and transparency are key when developing and succeeding in a new onboarding plan!
*Information courtesy of Hubspot Academy