Speaking Engagements

Retention Rates by Membership Size and Association Type

The other day a comment was left on one of my posts requesting more detailed information on renewal rates based on membership size and also on association type. So here are a couple of tables on these items.


For those of you who follow the association industry closely, you will not be surprised that trade associations show higher renewal rates compared to individual membership associations. Associations with smaller memberships also report better renewal rates.

As always when I report on renewal rates, I add the disclaimer that comparing renewal rates is a challenge because there are many variables from association to association including business rules, dues amounts, and marketing environments.

4 comments:

Darryl Walter said...

Tony - Thanks for posting this. I just put together some retention analysis that I am sharing at a Council retreat in two weeks. This will be great to have as a back-up to measure us against industry averages.

Wes Trochlil said...

Tony, thank you for adding your caveat to this post. As I've written here (http://tinyurl.com/EDMRetention), the question of retention rates, and how one association compares to another, really grates on me. Too often I think it's a crutch for mediocre performance (i.e., "Well, our retention is actually higher than average for associations our size, so we can just keep doing what we're doing.").

Tony Rossell said...

Wes – Thanks for the reminder. Readers who want to know more about the challenges of comparing renewal rates between associations can look at my post "No Good or Bad Renewal Rates". I list a number of the challenges involved in this type of comparison there.

http://membershipmarketing.blogspot.com/2007/11/no-good-or-bad-renewal-rates.html

Tony

Tony Rossell said...

Darryl -- Thanks for the feedback. You should be able to click on the charts and save any of them that would be of help for the meeting. I know that you are already aware of this, but also note Wes's and my comments here. Tony