Each year
the goal of the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report is to help
associations better understand what is working in membership recruitment,
engagement, and retention. Providing these insights comes from not just
cataloging the practices from the 800 responding associations but through cross
tabulating the survey responses against the outcomes that associations achieve.
As a result, the report highlights some of the best practices that correlate
with increased new member input, higher renewal rates, and total membership
growth.
Here are ten
significant findings from this year’s research that you can apply to improve
your membership results.
1. Value – Providing members with value remains
the foundation of a successful membership program. Our data shows that members
join for networking with others in the field, continuing education, accessing
specialized information, and learning best practices in their profession. For
trade associations, advocacy is an additional reason to join. But do
associations believe they deliver this value? The research found that associations
reporting gains in their membership numbers and improvements in new members
over the past year are significantly more likely to indicate that their
association has a compelling or very compelling value proposition. The
challenge is that only about half of associations consider their value
proposition to be compelling (48%). As one respondent commented, members “need
to see value. Just because someone is a member or has been a member, it is not
a given that they will renew. You need to continually show new value and ROI.”
2. Innovation – How can associations
enhance the value that they provide to members? Our data shows that a culture
of innovation is the critical driver for creating member value. As one
respondent made clear, “Try something new or you’ll plateau and decline.”
Indeed, the survey results show that associations with increases in their
membership over the past five years are significantly more likely to have a
process in place for innovation and new ideas. At the same time, those showing
declines over the same period are more likely to say that they have no
innovation process.
3. Membership Models – One area where associations
have been innovating is introducing new membership models. Among associations
that have adopted a new model, a tiered configuration has been the most common
choice (46%). A tiered membership often replaces a static structure and allows
members to choose the value proposition that best satisfies their particular
needs and budget. The second new model is moving to a combination format by
adding an individual or organizational category to the membership offerings.
4. Recruitment – The report highlights
associations use a wide variety of channels to add new members. This year when
we look at individual membership groups, two channels – one old and one new –
are helping to drive new member acquisition. The emerging marketing channel is
paid digital advertising. As one research respondent shared, “Paid digital
advertising is no longer optional.” Associations with operating budgets over $1
million are now significantly more likely to use online digital advertising for
membership acquisition, retention, and reinstatement. Facebook paid advertising
(46%), search engine optimization (37%), and retargeting (31%) are the most
commonly used digital marketing tools by associations. The traditional channel
of direct mail also continues to perform well for larger associations. Groups
with over 20,000 members are significantly more likely to report direct mail to
be highly effective for recruiting new members.
5. Special Offers – The use of
incentives to encourage a member to join is often debated. However, since your website provides a 24/7
opportunity to join, the reality is that getting a prospect to take action now
requires offering an incentive to act now. The data shows that associations
showing increases in their overall counts over the past year are significantly
more likely to consider dues discounts for first-year members to be very
effective. The other offers that respondents highlighted as the most favorable
to get a member to join were conference discounts and monthly or quarterly
installment dues.
6. Engagement – Once a member joins the way
for associations to build a strong membership foundation is by proactively
putting in place plans to engage members. Respondents have been consistent in
sharing why members do not renew. This year, once again, they say members do
not renew because of a lack of engagement with the organization or because they
could not justify the cost of membership. However, when associations establish
an active program to engage members to raise their usage of benefits,
membership retention increases. This year, 78% of associations that have seen
an improvement in their renewal rates say that they have a tactical plan to
increase engagement.
7. Participation – The report also
highlights a continual shift in the membership benefits where associations are
seeing improvement in their members’ participation and engagement. In our
research this year, there were five areas where respondents said that they were
seeing broader member participation. Most of these growth areas reflect ways to
enhance interaction with members and share information, primarily on a digital
platform. The top services seeing more usage are:
• The
use of their mobile app
• Participation
in their public social network
• Attendance
at their webinars
• Participation
in their private social network
• Participation
in their young professional’s program
8.
Generations –
This migration to more digital member services may also be supporting how
associations are effectively attracting emerging generations of members. Our
benchmarking data shows that associations reporting increases in their one-year
membership levels are more likely to have a higher percentage of Millennials in
their membership. Nevertheless, associations are still most likely to say that
the most significant proportion of their membership consists of Baby Boomers
(35%),
9.
Renewals – Two findings
related to renewing members have come out of this year’s benchmarking research.
The first highlights that, after email, direct mail represents the marketing
channel that generates the most renewals. With the average association
achieving an 82% renewal rate, it is almost impossible to lose money through
renewal efforts. The second finding is the effectiveness of automatic credit
card renewals. Fully a third of individual membership groups make this option
available. And those that offer this option see substantially higher renewal
rates for members, especially for first-year members.
10. Budgets – Right now, every line item of an association’s
budget is under scrutiny. So how do you
make a case for sustaining and even increasing your membership marketing
budget? Benchmarking data would support that funding membership marketing produces
improved results. Associations seeing one-year and five-year membership
increases are more likely to have increased their awareness, recruitment, and engagement
funding. A total of 34% of respondents said that they increased their budgets
for recruitment, and 32% increased their engagement budget. One important reason
to fund membership marketing is that it produces an outstanding return on
investment compared to many of the other products that an association offers. Customers
come and go, but the average members will remain with an association for five
years producing a stream of dues and non-dues revenue.
The 12th
edition of the MGI Benchmarking Report contains over 60 pages of additional
information segmented by size and types of associations. Take this opportunity
to download the full report to see how your organization compares with
others.
Posts
