There are many efficient ways to welcome and engage people in a group. Most of the largest communities have completely automated this.
None of these are very effective though. The conversion and long-term retention rates range from 0.1% to 1%.
Acting like a personal concierge to a newcomer is more effective. You can ask them about their challenges, what they need, what they believe in, and how they like to participate. You can introduce them to other people like themselves and periodically follow up with them throughout the year.
Your conversion rates at this level get up to 10% – 25%. But being effective takes a LOT more time.
Consider this though. Being 0.1% efficient with 5000 newcomers gets you 5 retained members. Being 10% efficient with just 100 members (1 every few days) gets you twice as many. And that’s just 1 every few days.
Don’t begin with the premise we have to treat every newcomer exactly the same to scale efficiently. Begin with the premise that with the limited time available, how many members can we effectively welcome to the group?
Being effective will help you a lot more than being efficient.