Another Good Example of Group Membership

Last week I wrote advocating offering group or bulk memberships. This membership packaging system comes in a number of variations.

One package I have come across that I like is offered by APICS The Association for Operations Management. Their web site describes the group and enterprise membership package this way.

“APICS group membership enables up to five employees at the same company location to have full APICS membership privileges, including member publications, access to members-only Web content, and savings on APICS products and services. Group memberships are company-owned and transferable from one employee to another at the same location. A company may purchase multiple group memberships. Group members enjoy the convenience of a single billing contact.”

It appears that APICS does offer some discounts for these group members. The group membership is purchased in sets of five memberships. The typical per member pricing is $200, including chapter membership, but the pricing for enterprise membership is:

• 25 to 99 members – 5% ($190)
• 100 and above – 10% (180)

From the latest data on APICS web site as of March 2008, there were 1,496 Groups Site Companies with 7,480 Group Site Members. Group members made up 17% of APICS 44,017 members.

I do not have data on this, but I would expect that APICS enjoys a superior renewal rate on group memberships. They also should find that the initial ROI on acquiring group memberships compared to selling individual memberships should be higher.

APICS has established a goal of growing membership to over 53,000 by 2010. To achieve this growth, a lot of time and attention will need to be spent on acquisition and retention, but group membership is one important tool to help build stable, long-term growth.