Does it Make Sense to Hire a Consultant to help your Membership Marketing Team?

In an article in the November issue of ASAE’s Consultants Connection newsletter (member sign in required), I make the case that there are at least five good reasons to add a consultant to your team.

1. To supplement existing staff.
2. To bring perspective and objectivity.
3. To provide a proven methodology.
4. To raise accountability.
5. To share special knowledge or skills.

As a consultant, I have an opinion, but I would enjoy your feedback.  What do you think? Do consultants play a role in helping organizations with membership marketing or should this be entirely an inside job? Have you used consultants successfully? What positions on your marketing team do you look to fill with a consultant? What do you look for in choosing a consultant?

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Using Social Media to Recruit Staff

A former client contact of mine helps to manage a blog and related social media to recruit staff for the company where she works -- Sodexo.  I think it is a really creative use of a blog, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Here is the link. If you get a chance, take a couple of minutes to browse all of the tools that are deployed.

The Top 25 Lessons Learned in Membership Marketing: 200 Marketing Pro’s Share their Wisdom

We asked 200 membership professionals to share in their own words what were the most important or successful lessons that they have learned in membership marketing. I have reviewed all the comments and have distilled these direct quotes down to the top 25 responses. I think you will find them inspiring and insightful.

If you would like to see all 200 responses, please email me and I can forward them to you.

1. A multi-channel approach is best. There isn't any silver bullet. A variety of techniques, well executed elicits success.

2. You can't spend too much time or money on marketing.

3. When you actually do a recruitment campaign, they join. When you engage with your members, they stay. When you analyze the data, you find a nugget of information that can change all of your preconceived ideas.

4. There is no such thing as a Non-Member....only potential members. You must keep trying and promoting; they will never buy - if you do not (personally) believe in what you are trying to sell; this includes the Association itself...not just the 'goods' of the Association offers.

5. Members need to be reminded multiple times about their membership dues. It always amazes me that you can contact a member 7 times and then 1 year later, they are "surprised" they are no longer a member of our Association.

6. Personal contact with people. Connecting with individuals at conferences, meetings, in their workplace, or on the phone has been the most successful for us. Staying connected through e-mail was second in our marketing plan.

7. Market early, market often!

8. Like the economy, membership marketing goes through cycles. You need to make sure your message speaks to what is motivating people in tough times and be prepared for when the changes come.

9. Focus on what makes your association unique. What niche do you fill that no one else can - market that to potential members?

10. Positive word-of-mouth is worth its weight in gold. If you can get your existing members to recruit new folks then you can just sit back and count the cash.

11. That the membership model is rapidly changing as a result of increased access to free information.

12. 80/20/10. Staying motivated even when you see low membership involvement. Remembering that 80% will not be active members, 20% will be active participants and 10% will take on leadership roles.

13. It's not easy.

14. It is incumbent upon any association to first provide value to its membership and then to communicate that value to the members on an ongoing basis. Building community and member engagement is the key to successful membership marketing.

15. Membership marketing is not a silo unto the membership department alone. It requires coordination across multiple departments, lest it appear that the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. This remains an ongoing challenge in my association.

16. This survey has reminded me of what I have learned, and ashamed to say not implementing half of it. I'm the only full-time staff, but I know better.

17. That there are very few "new" ideas and listening to what others are doing is the best way to improve your business.

18. The most important lesson I've learned is test EVERYTHING! Also, agility is paramount. You have to be agile enough to change your strategy, approach or messaging quickly.

19. Never stop doing it. We are seeing results today of marketing we continued to do through 09 even though there was a downturn.

20. Direct mail works for our association. And it works especially well if you continue to test your campaign ideas. The process to change is constant and important. We've learned what works well with young members, what works well with older members, whether advocacy is important to certain contingencies, and more.

21. I have learned to apply the same discipline in marketing as we do in software/standards development.

22. You must continually examine your marketing mix to ensure that you are maximizing ROI, utilizing the most cost-effective channels for different audience segments, and placing retention and acquisition efforts and expenditures in the most appropriate balance to meet organizational goals.

23. Without accurate and comprehensive performance data and statistics on membership activities (financial, marketing, costs, lifetime value, recruitment, retention, on boarding, etc.) it is virtually impossible to determine the health and success of the membership program.

24. 1. Test new things and track everything--it's the only way you'll know what works and doesn't work. 2. Recruiting new members by direct mail trumps e-mail marketing 100 times over. 3. Many of those in management do not understand the value of marketing--or the difference between good and bad marketing efforts/techniques. So, it's important to educate them and toot your own horn to help them understand. But don't get your feelings hurt if they do not! 4. Member testimonials add considerable value and spark to all.

25. The right list and the right offers are key to prospecting. Retaining members is the work of the organization. Delivering the value promised through marketing is key to renewals.

Okay, here is a 26th bonus comment.

26. Most important lesson is how critical membership marketing is to our success (and how frustrating it is that we don't have enough staff to do it well.

Building Your Online Membership Lead Generation and Conversion System

In my last post, I noted the importance of building a mechanism to capture leads that come to your website through SEO, SEM, social media, third party links, or online ads.

The vast majority of visitors are not going to join the organization on their first visit to the website. However, an attractive offer of free additional information related to their search can be enticing.

Therefore, the initial goal is to get an opt-in from the visitor for future communications. This list building function can often be done by having these web searchers directed to a microsite specifically designed to capture an opt-in.

The next question is what to do with these leads and how to maximize the effectiveness of the conversion system.

One way to look at this lead to paid member conversion system is as a funnel. Each stage can be monitored and measured for optimization.

A good system might look something like this.

Responses and effectiveness can be measured at each stage of the funnel:

• What online ads, pay per click, or co-registration sites are the best sources for leads?
• What offers – free articles, newsletters, discounts, event notifications -- produce the highest opt-in rate?
• What cultivation efforts -- email, mail, phone follow-up -- produce the highest click through rates and membership sales rates?

Many membership groups make huge investments in their websites, but do not fully take advantage of the traffic that the site may produce. Adding a lead generation and conversion system to an attractive website helps maximize the economic value of the site.

Please let me know if you would like to talk more about setting up this type of program and how to optimize it.

Maximizing your Website as a Tool for Membership Recruitment

Many membership organizations invest a lot of time and energy in building web traffic through SEO and some also with SEM. But surprisingly few use a visit to a website as an opportunity to capture an opt-in from a prospective member.

Joel Book commented on this in DM News. He wrote, “Research from Web analytics technology provider Webtrends shows that on average, 95% of website visitors leave a site without indentifying who they are and taking some form of action, such as subscribing to your e-newsletter. That’s why subscriber conversion is one of the most important metrics that impacts marketing ROI.”1

When an opt-in is captured, we have found that these leads are some of the highest responding lists for membership recruitment campaigns.

So how do you get a visitor to opt-in to receiving additional information from an organization?

We recommend a concept that I call trading content for contact. This involves trading valuable information in exchange for the right to continue a dialogue with a prospective member. This information typically comes in the form of a free email newsletter or a white paper on an important topic of interest to visitors.  This process is fundemental in achieving the awarness stage of the membership lifecycle.  Here is one example of offering whitepapers or an email subscription to visitors of a website. 

If a visitor to your site desires to access valuable information, you do not have to give away the store.  It is not inappropriate to ask them to share who they are and have the opportunity to opt-in for future contact.

1. Joel Book, Advanced e-mail tactics can shed light on new customers, DM News, Strategic Content, October, 2010, page 10.

To Collaborate or Not to Collaborate that is the Question

I have a confession. I do not function well on a committee. The challenge for me is that many times, I think I know the right answer and I do not have the patience to wait for the group to come to a conclusion.

So I appreciated Joe Rominiecki’s post today on the Acronym Blog titled, “Collaboration for collaboration's sake”.

He writes, “assuming collaboration is always positive puts a greater value on process than it does on results. It ought to be the other way around. Surely collaboration is great in the right situations, but not all the time.”

So his post makes me feel a little bit better about my aversion to committees.

However, over my career I also know that over confidence can be a big trap. Often I don’t know what I don’t know. This is expressed really well in an old proverb that says, “The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly” (ESV Pr. 26:16).

Which do you find the biggest challenge in your organization – too much or too little collaboration?

Why Share the Wealth through Membership Recruitment?

This past weekend, I was in Chicago doing some membership presentations and spoke with members of one group who asked, “Why should I recruit members for the organization? Aren’t I just helping my competition?”

I appreciated the honest question. Here is how I answer the question, but please feel to share your perspective.

I can think of at least six reasons to invite others to be members.

1. A competitor’s ability to find out about membership and the products and services behind them is only a click away on their computer. It is not as secret as one might think.

2. A competitor having membership information is much less important than that competitor’s ability to execution on what they have learned. Win on your ability to execute not on simply knowing something.

3. No matter how sophisticated or unsophisticated a fellow member, there is still something to learn from them through interaction as members. Ultimately, you will learn and grow from the interaction.

4. A bigger and better membership organization benefits everyone since it enables the funding and development of more services and resources for all members.

5. A bigger and better organization helps heighten the image and awareness for the entire industry.

6. Helping a competitor by sharing membership may result in an acquisition, new employee, or referral in the future for you.

Please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section.

How to make sure the Price is Right!

Are you using price as a strategic tool to drive sales? A very high price may support the impression that you product is exclusive. A low price may help launch your product against an established competitor.
Pricing is a part of marketing and needs a strategy just like promotion and packaging.

Lynda McDaniel makes the point in her October Associations Now article, Perspectives on Association Pricing, that pricing for association products, services, and membership can sometimes receive inadequate attention. And yet, proper pricing can actually determine a product’s success or failure.

She shares some great examples from pricing strategies used by a number of associations related to membership, conference, and publications. She also highlights some of the findings from the Dues Increase Research that I did several years ago.

Here is the link to the article.

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.

Will You be Attending #ASAE10 this Year?

This year I will be attending the ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership Annual Meeting & Exposition in Los Angeles, CA. If you will be attending, I would enjoy meeting you in person. You can find me at the Marketing General, Inc. booth number 500. Please come by.

Membership Renewals: A Couple of Quick Tips

Here are a couple of quick thoughts you might want to try to improve your membership renewal rates.

1. Frequency – How many touches do you have in your membership renewal program and how do you know how many you should have? Here is the rule of thumb; you should continue to spend money on renewal or reinstatement efforts until it costs less money to bring in a new member. Based on this formula, I know one membership organization that now has a 40 touch renewal program that includes mail, phone calls, and email.

2. Offers – Many membership organizations are finding that renewal payments are getting later and later from members. This is costly because more renewal efforts are sent out and it hurts cash flow. Here is how one group has moved up payments. They have included a product voucher offer in their early renewal notices. If a member renews early, a voucher or coupon is sent to the member that they can redeem toward the purchase of a product or service from the organization. Offering the voucher has lifted early renewals, but a low redemption rate has cost the association very little. And any member who makes an additional purchase from an association has a much higher likelihood of renewing in the subsequent year.

3. Channels – In some social media that I monitor, I hear the question posed, “should I move my renewal efforts from mail to email?” I think that the answer should not be “either/or”, but it should be “and”. In our 2010 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, we highlighted that 88% of associations now use email in their renewal program compared to 83% in 2009. Associations using direct mail for renewals dropped from 91% to 85%. But based on these high percentages, it looks like most groups use both of these channels. What seemed to most positively impact renewals was adding additional communication channels. For example, staff renewal phone calls, fax, and peer member contacts were positive indicators for renewals with the groups that used these channels.

Feel free to add any additional tips that you might have to the comments section below.

Networking and Career Guidance

In addition to his work with me at Marketing General, Inc. my colleague, Vinay Kumar, also spends much of his time as a career coach.

I wanted to share a couple of links to some of his recent articles and posts on careers that I think you will find of help.

Today, Vinay had a piece appear in the Washington Post on how to network at a professional event or party. He provides some simple steps you can take to connect with others.

The Career Wheel

I also enjoyed his recent post, Keys to Career Satisfaction and Success. I have included his graphic here which highlights his career philosophy.

Under the “Good Blogs” section of this blog, you will find Vinay’s latest postings displayed. So when you need a good career suggestion, please click through to his blog.

Summer Reading

This summer I decided to try and read something more enduring than the latest marketing or business book. So when I received the book, The Cross of Christ, as a present, I decided to dive into it. The author, John Stott, served as an Anglican priest in London, but because of his writing has been recognized by Time magazine as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” This is considered to be his classic work.

Even though the book is about themes with which I am familiar, I have found that the depth, perspective, and logic has taken the subject much deeper than I have considered before.

Here is a quote that provides an overview of the major themes of the book.

“The cross enforces three truths – about ourselves, about God and about Jesus Christ.

First, our sin must be extremely horrible. Nothing reveals the gravity of sin like the cross. For ultimately what sent Christ there was neither the greed of Judas, nor the envy of the priests, nor the vacillating cowardice of Pilate, but our own greed, envy, cowardice and other sins, and Christ’s resolve in love and mercy to bear their judgment and so put them away. . . .

Second, God’s love must be wonderful beyond comprehension. God could quite justly have abandoned us to our fate . . . But he did not. Because he loved us, he came after us in Christ. . . It is more than love. Its proper name is ‘grace’ which is love to the undeserving. . .

Third, Christ’s salvation must be a free gift. He ‘purchased’ it for us at the high price of his own life blood. So what is there left for us to pay? Nothing! . . . The same cross of Christ, which is the grounds of free salvation, is also the most powerful incentive to a holy life.”1

I will get back to membership marketing with my next post. I find that email, twitter, and phone calls take me away from thinking more deeply about big issues in life. I have enjoyed reading more deeply this summer.

1. John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ, IVP Books, pages 85-86.

Email Usage Up, but Effectiveness Rated Lower for Membership Recruitment

One of the benefits of publishing research is that people read it and provide feedback. Your ideas plus my ideas equals better insight.

One of my colleagues just pointed out to me that there is some important data in our Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report on how associations are using email and how effective it is for them.

When we look at several key membership marketing functions, our statistics show that email usage has grown from 2009 to 2010. The following chart shows the percentage of associations using email for building awareness with prospective members, getting new members engaged with the organization, and renewing members all increased.

Interestingly, when asked to rate the effectiveness of using email to recruit new members, those who said that email was the “most” effective channel, dropped from 24 percent in 2009 to 10 percent in 2010.

Bottom line, associations are using email more, but there may be a drop off in productivity.

What is your organizations experience?

Practical Uses of Social Media for Association Marketing

Last week I had the chance to facilitate a session at the ASAE and the Center’s Super Swap meeting.

Of course, the topic of social media came up for conversation. And my impression from those who shared made me feel that many associations are experimenting with various social media tools, but may not have a focused strategy in place on what they are trying to accomplish.

As I was thinking about it this week, I came across a post on the LeaderConnect blog that summed up many of my thoughts on the practical uses of social media really well. So I wanted to share the three points this blog made on practical social media strategies here.

• “In-bound marketing. You’re trying to “get found” in an age of media clutter and ever-more effective ways of blocking your marketing messages. Outbound marketing—advertising, direct mail, trade shows, PR—will always be necessary but our patience with that sort of messaging evaporated a long time ago. You want to be where your potential members are and position yourself as an organization with interesting, worthwhile things to offer. They come to you rather than you beating on their door begging to be let in.

• Lead generation. You’re trying to find them without renting a list or paying the trade magazine in your industry to do it or buying a booth at a trade show in order to collect business cards. If you are in the right social media groups and you’re paying attention and posting content that the group cares about, you will find potential members (and speakers and sponsors and contributors).

• The Deep Sell. We had a wonderful client at Pier 1 Imports years ago. He called content “the deep sell.” You are not selling Papa-san chairs. You are selling relationships, access to a network of smart people who share interests and want to have substantive, valuable exchanges of information. You can’t do that in a one-page ad. Social media enables you to explain yourself, to market yourself based on value rather than on price.”

The unifying strategy here is using social media to connect potential members and prospects with you. I describe it as an economical way to put a store on a major highway. Prospective members are driving by and social media can give them a place to pull over and connect with you. If you would like to read the entire post, here is the link.

Please let me know what you think.

7 Proven Ways to Grow Your Membership

In the July issue of Associations Now, I had the opportunity to write an article highlighting some of the key strategies needed for a growing and thriving membership ranging from acquisition to engagement to renewals.

I think you will find the article helpful.  It is available on ASAE and the Centers’ website. Feel free to download a copy. If you are a member, you can also comment on the points that I make.

Four Reasons Why Thriving Membership Organizations Stop Growing

This is by no means and exhaustive list, but I have come up with a list of what seem like the four major reasons why a healthy organization can come to a dead end in membership growth. Feel free to add your thoughts on additional reasons.

Here they are.

1. Market Saturation: There is no such thing as perpetual growth. At some point every organization will hit a point of getting all the prospects who want to join.

2. Disenchanted Members: Whether it is poor customer service, a lack of new compelling content, or a weak fulfillment operation, unhappy members can stop growth fast.

3. Competition: Millions of smart people are daily trying to come up with a better products and services. If someone else can give better information, faster service, and lower prices, then an organization can be outflanked.

4. Inadequate Marketing: You can have market potential, happy members, and the best product, but if you do not get the message to the right people, then growth will stop.

Interestingly, although each of these situations can halt growth, I think that there are potential solutions that can help an organization “jump the curve” and extend growth. The solution starts with acknowledging there is a problem and then focusing on the root causes not the symptoms presented by the problem. Perhaps we can look at some of these options in a future post.

Ten Top Tips from the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report

One of the most enjoyable projects that I work on each year is the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. As I have noted on this blog, I was very appreciative to have 407 associations participate in the research this year. If you were one of those groups, you should have received a link to the full report last week.

Today, I wanted to share ten top tips from the hundreds of findings appearing in the report.

1. Out of a list of 10 options, association executives are most likely to rank growth in member counts (22%), revenue growth (21%), and net revenue growth (21%) as the primary definition of success for their organization.

2. Findings indicate a more marked difference in membership growth of over 11% for those organizations focused on acquisition rather than those focused on retention or on a balanced strategy (18%: acquisition vs. 4%: retention and 9%: both), the five year change in membership (38%: acquisition vs. 27%: retention and 34%: both), and the change in new members (24%: acquisition vs. 7%: retention and 16%: both).

3. For associations with over 5,000 members, direct mail is considered the most effective channel for new member recruitment.

4. While Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the most commonly used social media tools, they are not necessarily considered the most effective in reaching membership goals by association executives. In fact, the most effective social networking tools are considered to be those that are basically housed within the association itself, namely the association listserv (50%) and/or a private association social network (39%).

5. Approximately two-thirds of respondents report using mailed welcome kits, a decrease from the 2009 study of 15 percentage points (68% in 2010 vs. 83% in 2009). However, findings indicate that associations with greater than 80% renewal are significantly more likely to use the mailed welcome kits (75% vs. 58%).

6. Directionally, findings demonstrate that associations with overall increases in membership over the past year, as well as those with renewal rates higher than 80% are more likely to attempt more renewal contacts before a membership expires. These increases in renewal rates appear after seven contacts.

7. Associations with renewal rates of 80% or higher are significantly more likely to offer EFT renewals (14% vs. 3%) as well as installment payment plans (55% vs. 35%). Associations with renewal rates less than 80% are significantly more inclined to offer multi-year renewals (54% vs. 18%).

8. Associations showing an increase in renewals over the past year are significantly more likely to offer automatic credit card renewals, compared to associations with declines in renewals (29% vs. 17%).

9. Unlike in the 2009 study, price is not the top driver responsible for non-renewals; in fact, one-third of the association executives indicate that they believe members do not renew because they perceive a lack of value in the organization. This is an increase of about 80%.

10. Associations did not experience radical changes in membership numbers over the past year. The largest percentage of increases or declines in membership ranged from 1% to 5% of the previous year’s total.

If you would like, you can download a copy of the 2010 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report here to see the data and charts associated with these tips. Web site registration is required for the download.

Please feel free to share your thoughts and reaction to the report in the comments section below.

ASAE 2010 Marketing & Membership Conference

If you are planning on attending this year’s Marketing and Membership Conference, I would enjoy meeting you. My company, Marketing General, Inc. will be hosting a reception from 5:15 to 6:30 on Monday, June 14th after the first day of sessions. Please stop by the reception so we can meet.

At the reception, we will also be distributing the executive summary of the 2010 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. I would like to share a copy with you. The report in its entirety will be going out next week to the 407 organizations who participated in the research.

I look forward to meeting you if you will be attending the meeting.