How to drive members to confirm their email?

We have a new site that we're just testing with a small group of people at the moment. I've noticed that 70% of  the prople who have joined so far haven't confirmed their email address (which is obviously important). How do people encourage their users to do this? 

My moderation settings are currently:

• Auto-Activate Profiles After Joining: YES
• Auto-Confirm Profile Without Confirmation Email: NO
• Delete Unconfirmed Profiles By Last Log In: 14 DAYS

if they are spam sign ups (which is highly likely) they will not confirm. If you want genuine members to confirm there are atleast 2 exellent mods in the market that direct members to sign up and limits their actions untill they have done so.

Thanks - they're not spam members (I know as they are people on our invite list). So I'll look at the mods in the directory, but any other tips on how to encourage members to confirm would be appreciated.

(Is there any way to redirect new members to a page with an instruction on that tells them to check their email for example. Or is there any way to display a warning message on the site to tell unconfirmed members their profile will be deleted unless they confirm their email address / with details on how to request another confirmation email etc)

one thing about the emails - I noticed that with Gmail and mac.com, all of our emails are going to a users spam folder, so they did not realize an email had been sent. Even though after the registration it says an email has been sent, but some may not think to check their spam folders.

 This is done on most major sites, they warn you once you have submitted the info to check your "spam" box for a message.

So, in order to inform your members; create an HTML block explaining that if they join, they will also get an email that must be confirmed and to look for an activation in their spam box. 

Plain and simple.

I wonder if we generate a pop-up message that has to be closed with a flashing red

"IMPORTANT!"

You must confirm the email

Check your spam folder

if it would do any good.

I've gone for this module: http://www.boonex.com/m/block-unconfirmed-members

Figure along with some adjusting the language keys for error messages and perhaps some additional text on the joining form, that should do it...

Get the free mod: Deny Unconfirmed by ibdw.
Members will be redirected to login again and get logged out of the site.
As long as member account is not active they won't be able to log in.

Also i have a html block on join page with additional tekst saying that they have to confirm the email link after completing the form.

i use it and works frine.

They don't read.  LOL

On my join form, it clearly states to check your spam folder for your email.

The page that is displayed after the join is successful clearly states to check your junk mail or spam folder.

They still don't.

I like GG's idea. A big red flashing box that states to check their spam folder for the email.  LOL!

I've installed this mod and it works a treat: http://www.boonex.com/m/block-unconfirmed-members

When the user joins they're redirected to a page that tells them to check their email (but they're not logged out). The page has a link they can click to get another confirmation email sent and they also have access to the 'contact us' page. But they can't access any other part of the site. If they log out and log back in they're redirected to this page again until they confirm their address.

Going to test it this morning with another batch of volunteer testers, will let you know the difference it makes.