Often the secret to a thriving membership is not so much working harder. Instead, success can be driven by understanding and removing an impediment that holds back growth. By identifying the challenges and eliminating the roadblocks, membership programs can flourish. This session is designed to diagnose the seven deadly sins of membership marketing and provide insights to remove them and allow membership efforts to advance.
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The Seven Deadly Sins of Membership Marketing
1. Tony Rossell
Senior Vice President
Marketing General Incorporated
The Seven Deadly Sins of Membership
Marketing
2. Membership Marketing Benchmarking
Report
• 14th year of publication
• Accumulated Data of
Thousands of
Associations
• Correlation of best
practices through
cross-tabulation
4. 2. Excessive Planning
Getting
Started with
Membership
Recruitment
(PDSA)
• Avoid “Paralysis of Analysis”
• Impediments: Bylaws, IT Delays, More Research, and
Silos
Plan
• Launch a Low-Cost Test Campaign
• Think – “Ready, Fire, Aim”
Do
• Record Test Results
• Calculate Cost Per Acquisition and Lifetime Value
• Determine Return on Investment (ROI)
Study
• Deploy and Fund the Successful Programs
• Continue to Test, Track, and Adjust
Act
5. 3. Abandonment of Membership Recruitment
Associations that increased new member input
this past year: Far more likely to see total
membership growth.
• 63% of associations with membership
growth increased new member input
• 7% of associations with membership
declines increased new member input
6. Renewal Rate New
Members/Year
Steady State
Membership
90% 1,000 10,000
85% 2,000 13,000
80% 3,000 15,000
Steady State =
# of new members/lapse rate
Recruitment Offers the Best Growth Opportunity
7. 4. Overreliance on a Single Channel
Mistake
• Overuse of email
• Reliance on Annual Conference
Solution
• Omnichannel Marketing
8. 5. Insufficient Frequency of Contact
Average
reported
Email Online Mail Phone
5 3 1 1
Typical renewal touchpoints
9. 6. Inadequate Special Offers
“Offers can mean the
difference between success
and failure. Depending on
the offer, differences in the
response of 25, 50, or 100
percent and more are
commonplace.”
Bob Stone
Successful Direct Marketing
10. Successful Association Membership Offers
• New Member Dues Discount
• Additional Free Months (15
for 12)
• Discount on Conference
Registration
• Product Savings Voucher
• Gift or Premiums
• Sweepstakes
The Membership
Offer – How do you
incentivize a
prospect to join?
11. 7. Lack of Testing and Analysis
• Subject line
• Sender
• Time of day/day of
week
• Format/layout
• Landing page
• Messaging
• Call-to-action
• Images
A/B tests Format Test
Click-
through
rate (CTR)
57%
Boost
57%
Boost
12. Action Items
• Interview Members to Define Your
Value Proposition
• Calculate Your Membership’s Future
Level with Steady State
• Test a Membership Recruitment Effort:
• Using Email, Digital, and Phone
• Including a Special Offer
• Add One Additional Touch to Your
Renewal Efforts
Here are some
next steps to
REPENT of your
Membership
Marketing Deadly
Sins
13. Bonus: Lack of Innovation
Associations reporting
membership gains:
More likely to consider
their association is
extremely or very
innovative.
Only 13% of associations say that they have a compelling value proposition. However, most associations provide terrific value to their members. We know they offer great value because they continue to pay dues at a high rate -- the average renewal rate is 84%. However, many groups do not understand or know how to message that value, especially to prospective members. Not understanding and communicating the value they deliver holds back membership recruitment efforts. Research is an excellent tool to help an association define its value proposition.
Edwards Demming developed the concept of PDSA. A good plan is needed to grow membership. A plan includes defining your value proposition, identifying target markets, and developing a schedule and goals. However, many associations spend so much time developing a plan to answer every objection and contingency that they delay selling memberships. They end up with a book-sized document that is out-of-date when and if ever implemented. Instead, consider a “ready, fire, aim” philosophy and do something now.
Perhaps the most significant problem holding back membership for associations is not consistently asking prospective members to join. An association may believe that it can grow its membership by increasing retention rates and that recruitment is too expensive or challenging. One of the best predictors of overall membership growth is a successful recruitment effort. Years of benchmarking data show a correlation between new member input and overall membership growth.
Membership managers need to become fluent in using this calculation. It is a tool to predict the outcome of strategies and make the cases for investment in membership recruitment.
Many associations have been damaged by relying on a single tactic to bring in new members. Those groups that depended on an annual meeting to attract members each year were hurt by pandemic-caused cancellations. Others that were reliant on email acquisition efforts have burned out their email lists through overuse. The solution is to develop a marketing portfolio using an omnichannel strategy that uses a variety of methods like mail, phone, social media, paid digital ads, and sales efforts to get potential members.
Once and done is not an effective marketing strategy. Membership recruitment requires ongoing and consistent outreach. Growing associations maintain digital ads throughout the year, consistently call members every month when they lapse, send out regular invitations to join, and build their prospect database with new content offers.
Membership is a push product. It is sold, not sought. A prospect can likely join 24/7 on your website. So, an incentive is needed to get someone to join now. The fear is a special offer like a new member discount will lead to a less committed member. But test after test by many associations demonstrates that a strong offer both in the near-term and long-term benefits membership growth. For example, companies run sales promotions not because they like giving away money but because it grows the number of customers and their revenue.
When carefully measured, even well-run recruitment efforts show dramatic variance between their best list, offer, and message. So, structuring statistically valid tests can determine what is working and what is not successful. Some test outcomes impact results – even with minor changes -- by well over 100 percent. Without a testing strategy, a recruitment program will substantially underperform.
Only 29% of associations consider themselves Extremely or Very innovative. Innovation correlates with membership growth.
Successful innovation often means updating your membership model. The most popular are tiered membership and a hybrid model.
Membership Recruitment by Tony Rossell is available for sale on Amazon.