Engaging New Members to Improve Renewals

Most membership organizations will find that the most likely members not to renew are first year members. In fact, it is not unusual for new member renewal rates to be up to 20 percentage points lower than longer term member renewals.

To help increase new member renewal rates, some organizations put “conversion” or “engagement” programs in place. The goal of these programs is to get new members involved and participating in an organization’s events and services.

So it was interesting to note the results of a quick online survey that ASAE did with one of their newsletters. They do not present it as statistically valid due to the limited number of responses, but it is interesting to note that only 26% of associations report running a special new member program for their organization.


ASAE Membership -- Recruitment and Retention



More Marketing Channels Available for Membership Recruitment

There are now more marketing channels to use in membership marketing than ever before. These options give us wonderful opportunities, but also some real challenges.

I thought that a former colleague of mine, Dave Taylor, expressed the potential challenges with adding more and more marketing channels well in his blog. He wrote,

“I believe that many, if not most, of the organizations pursuing this strategy will not be able to sustain this pace (or spend) to keep up with all these new channels. Even more dire: they will become so focused on managing all the new media (often with the same resources they had before the influx of the new media) that they will eventually dilute their attention to their core (and perhaps more pedestrian) programs – the same marketing programs that have proved all the ROI to this point in time.”

Ideally, careful tracking of membership recruitment will help define what marketing channels are most effective for your organization. And, in line with the quote above, I believe you need to track two key pieces of information. First, you want to look at ROI by channel. Where do the most members come from at an acceptable price? Secondly, you need to track where you invest your time. For example, social media can be fun and it can produce a good membership ROI, but if it takes up time that could be spent on more productive media, then it may not be the best investment.

Three Steps to Engage Volunteers in Membership Marketing

There is a big world out there and volunteers can make a significant impact in helping you reach out to others and grow your membership.

In fact, word-of-mouth marketing tied for the top spot as the most effective method of new member recruitment in our 2010 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. So getting volunteers' help is not just a good idea, but an essential part of membership development.

Here are three steps to get volunteers plugged in your membership marketing efforts.

1. Motivate them with “why” membership is important.

Someone once said, “Anything in life is too difficult without an adequate answer to the question ‘why’”. To get a volunteer motivated to help in membership we need to help them answer ‘why”.

I would postulate that there are at least two aspects of answering this question for the volunteer. The first is helping them to understand your organizations story. This is the vision, values and mission of your organization and how they are changing society, your profession, and your members’ lives. We all want to be a part of making the world a better place.

The second aspect of motivating a volunteer is helping them get in touch with their own story of how membership has influenced their life and success. I can speak from a personal example here. I am a long term member of ASAE. Through my membership, I have had the opportunity to publish over twenty articles in ASAE periodicals, contribute chapters to two ASAE membership books, stay on top of important issues through list servs, and meet hundreds of colleagues who I have learned from with almost every interaction. This year alone I will speak at five ASAE sponsored events and serve on a council that meets regularly. But that is not all, I can also track about half of my new clients to my involvement in ASAE. Keeping in touch with my membership story motivates me to share ASAE with others.

2. Tell them “how” they can be involved.

Here is another reason why knowing and using the membership lifecycle can be so important. One size does not fit every volunteer when it comes membership marketing. Some volunteers will be great at cold calling potential members, but calling people you do not know may be outside the comfort zone of others. But when you look at the membership lifecycle -- awareness, recruitment, engagement, renewal, and reinstatement -- many volunteers can find a place that is right for them to be involved in the membership program.

Some members may be more than happy to focus on engagement – helping new members get involved in the association. Other members might be great at following up with their friends and colleagues to get them to renew. Keep in mind that our benchmarking report highlighted that personal contact appears to be a key ingredient for increasing renewals. Associations with renewal rates over 80% are significantly more likely to use peer to peer member contacts to help with renewal efforts.

Volunteers also might be perfect to follow up with lapsed members to gain important insights and understanding of why the member did not continue with the association.

3. Help them establish a plan of “what” to do.

Motivation by the organization’s story and the member’s own story and matching volunteer’s gifts with a specific role or job is a great start. But we all know that the best intentions without clear plans and goals do not work.

So added to these steps is working with volunteers to establish a written plan of action and specific goals. In a fully developed volunteer structure, an accountability system with regular check-in with other volunteers could be put in place. But a simple first step might be having the volunteer write out their membership goals, put them in a self addressed envelope, and having staff mail them to the member a month after setting the plan as a reminder.

Many of my readers have extensive experience in working with volunteers in membership development. Please feel free to share your insights and add your comments here.