The Latest Scoop on Membership Marketing
Friday, October 28, 2011 by Deirdre Reid
Have you ever wondered how your association’s membership numbers and practices compare to others? One of Marketing General Incorporated’s (MGI) gifts to the association community is their annual Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report.
Reading the report I couldn’t help but think back to how my association did things. Why not take this opportunity to step back and take a hard fresh look at your membership practices? A good place to start: MGI identified the four most common impediments to membership growth.
Weak product and service offerings
Membership renewal hinges on value. 63 percent of associations selected one of the following as the top reason for non-renewal: perceived lack of value; employer stopped paying dues (members didn’t value membership enough to pay for it themselves); or the dues were too expensive.
Solving the value issue may depend on how leadership measures success. 26 percent of associations use membership growth as the standard. That makes sense; growth is tied to the retention of satisfied members. However, growth in net and gross revenue are also top measures of success. What if most of your members (and prospects) don’t value your profit centers?
Associations that understand and devote resources to current and future needs are more likely to have strong programs that meet members’ value expectations. Discontinuing weak programs, including sacred cows, will free resources needed to do that.
Lack of marketing expertise
Associations with membership challenges also lack marketing expertise. You won’t make the best decisions about resource allocation if you don’t know how to do market research to identify needs. You won’t increase numbers or dollars if you don’t know how to develop a marketing plan or write marketing copy.
If you don’t have staff with marketing expertise, bring in consultants or allocate funds for professional development so staff can learn the basics. If your budget is limited, get a free education by reading marketing blogs and talking to members and prospects about their needs and challenges.
Member word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations are still the most popular means of creating awareness with and recruiting prospects. Websites, emails, conference promotions, sales calls and direct mail are also common methods. Do your members and staff know how to talk about the benefits, not the features, of membership?
The scary news:
Reading the report I couldn’t help but think back to how my association did things. Why not take this opportunity to step back and take a hard fresh look at your membership practices? A good place to start: MGI identified the four most common impediments to membership growth.
Weak product and service offerings
Membership renewal hinges on value. 63 percent of associations selected one of the following as the top reason for non-renewal: perceived lack of value; employer stopped paying dues (members didn’t value membership enough to pay for it themselves); or the dues were too expensive.
Solving the value issue may depend on how leadership measures success. 26 percent of associations use membership growth as the standard. That makes sense; growth is tied to the retention of satisfied members. However, growth in net and gross revenue are also top measures of success. What if most of your members (and prospects) don’t value your profit centers?
Associations that understand and devote resources to current and future needs are more likely to have strong programs that meet members’ value expectations. Discontinuing weak programs, including sacred cows, will free resources needed to do that.
Lack of marketing expertise
Associations with membership challenges also lack marketing expertise. You won’t make the best decisions about resource allocation if you don’t know how to do market research to identify needs. You won’t increase numbers or dollars if you don’t know how to develop a marketing plan or write marketing copy.
If you don’t have staff with marketing expertise, bring in consultants or allocate funds for professional development so staff can learn the basics. If your budget is limited, get a free education by reading marketing blogs and talking to members and prospects about their needs and challenges.
Member word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations are still the most popular means of creating awareness with and recruiting prospects. Websites, emails, conference promotions, sales calls and direct mail are also common methods. Do your members and staff know how to talk about the benefits, not the features, of membership?
The scary news:
Is this because of a lack of awareness (marketing expertise) or value (programs)?
Lack of membership strategy or plan
A good membership program doesn’t just happen. Successful associations develop a membership plan and focus on new member onboarding and engagement.
The welcome email is the most common method for engaging new members. A welcome email, in my opinion, isn’t enough unless it’s customized with meaningful steps to engagement. The report also reveals a heavy reliance on traditional materials — welcome kit, membership card or certificate – that are easily lost in a pile of papers and aren’t at all engaging.
Only a third of associations make a welcome call: an effective method that may not be practical for large associations unless it’s done by a deep pool of volunteers.
Another reason to focus on onboarding: associations with high retention rates start renewing, or, more accurately, engaging and retaining, immediately after welcoming.
Associations with renewal rates at 80 percent or higher are also likely to have 11 to 15 percent of their members volunteer. If associations offered more ad hoc (low time commitment) volunteering opportunities, would volunteering and retention rates go even higher?
Insufficient resources
36 percent of associations mentioned a resource issue — insufficient staff, budget or database — as their biggest impediment to membership growth. An industry of “full plates” and “many hats” is all too familiar with insufficient resources. With limited resources, you’re better off spending your time and money on programs that most members value, or you’ll have the “weak products and services” challenge on your hands too.
New member recruitment gets a larger piece of most associations’ budget than anything else. Here’s what I don’t like: only 27 percent of money spent on recruitment is spent on new member onboarding and engagement, and nearly twice as much is spent on renewals – an administrative function.
So is smaller better? Regional and state associations may provide more opportunities for members to meet other members and for staff and volunteers to “touch” members – a good thing. Do small associations have the advantage of being more creative out of necessity with limited resources?
Nowadays associations of all sizes must be creative to deal successfully with both the challenges created within and outside our office walls.
Deirdre Reid, CAE is a freelance writer who has lately become obsessed with onboarding and ad hoc volunteering.
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Deirdre Reid
Deirdre is a freelance writer, blogger and copywriter. The association community remains her professional home after spending ten years at national and state associations overseeing membership, vendor programs, marketing, publications, chapter relations and more. Away from her laptop, you can find her hiking, doing yoga, cooking new recipes, volunteering at the history museum, or relaxing in a comfy chair with a good book and glass of wine or craft beer.