Insights from the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report

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. 

12th Edition of the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report Now Available

It is my pleasure to announce the release of the 12^th edition of the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. A free download of the report is available using this link.

Each year the goal of the 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 of responding associations but through cross tabulating the survey responses with the outcomes that associations share. As a result, the report highlights some of the best practices that correlate with increased new member input, higher renewals, and overall growth rates.

This year over 800 associations responded to our survey and shared their practices, experiences, and results. The report helps to answer critical questions like:  

• What are the top reasons members join, and why do they lapse?
• What are the most effective marketing channels for recruitment and renewal?
• Which products and services are driving increased member participation?
• How are associations supporting innovation?
• What new membership models are associations adopting?
• How are membership marketing budgets changing?
• What are the trends in membership counts over the past decade?
• What renewal rates are individual and trade associations achieving?
• What communication methods used to engage new members?

Many associations use this data to help them improve their membership marketing plans and to compare their achievements to other organizations.  You can access the full report using this link.  We hope that you find it of help. 

 

Four Questions to Answer before Setting a Membership Growth Goal

The late, great Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up someplace else.”

His thoughts certainly hold true in membership marketing.  Everyone likes a catchy phrase.  A leader may have stated a goal like, “20,000 members by the year 2020.” However, the frustration and challenge for many membership marketers is the goal may have been set without understanding the context of what it will take to achieve the goal.

Setting a membership development goal is a great idea, but to make it realistic, it requires the answer to four foundational questions.

·        Who are the prospective members that you want to recruit and are there enough of them to achieve the goal?

·        What is the value proposition that will appeal to these prospects and are there products and services to support the value proposition?

·        How will these prospects be reached (marketing channels), how often (frequency), how will they be incentive to act (offer), and how will the results be measured?

·        What is the economic model to reach the goal including the necessary budget availability, the required ROI, and the projected life time value of a member?

These are not easy questions to work through for an organization.  And there may be some resistance to the process because everyone is looking for a “silver bullet” answer or they may feel they already have the answer, “if we only do this, we will solve our membership problem.” 

But if these important planning questions are not addressed, the likelihood of ending up “someplace else” other than where you hoped is very likely.

The bottom line: before setting or agreeing to a membership growth goal, do the homework to make sure that it is reasonable, sustainable, measurable, and economically feasible.

Integrating Membership Marketing Channels to Grow Your Association

The truth is that there is no stand-alone marketing channel that can fully support membership marketing.

You may hear marketers say that they have done away with direct mail and now only communicate with email.  Or they only use content marketing and do not send messages to prospective members through traditional outbound efforts.

However,  the integration of multiple marketing channels or pathways working together produces the best results in getting and keeping members.

Here are six marketing channels that can work together to support a thriving membership program. 

1.      Word of Mouth – Sometimes opportunities are handed to you that you can capitalize on quickly through Word of Mouth efforts.  One client – the American Nurses Association – used a negative comment on a national television show to gain significant exposure and appreciation for defending their members' professionalism through their social media word of mouth efforts.  In fact, Word of Mouth and membership referrals are consistently reported as the most productive ways to recruit new members.  The challenge is to consistently harness and motivate this people-driven channel. 

2.     Online Digital Marketing – One of the fastest growing marketing channels used in membership is Digital Marketing.  This takes advantage of paid advertising with search engines, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other online opportunities.  It can even be effective in engaging and renewing current members who may not open an email, but will respond to an opportunity they see from you on Facebook.  Digital marketing can be used to drive prospective members directly to a join or renew page or it can offer free, valuable content in exchange for the respondent agreeing to opt-in to future communications.  Those who show interest can then be followed up with through traditional "push" marketing efforts.  And because they raised their hand and demonstrated interest in your materials, those who opt-in can respond to your other marketing efforts at five times the rate of “cold” prospects.

3.      Direct Mail – This channel remains one of the most effective and scalable methods to recruit and renew members because it is easily targeted, trackable, and tactile.  In fact, our 2018 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report highlighted that for individual membership associations, direct mail remains one of the most effective tactics for recruitment. And previous research shows that associations with renewal rates of 80% or higher are significantly more likely than those with lower renewal rates to say direct mail is the most effective membership renewal channel.

4.      Email – Once a prospect is added to the database after a lead is captured, a purchase is made, or someone joins the association, email becomes the most commonly used marketing channel.  It makes sense because email is fast, inexpensive, and includes links back to the website where a sale can be completed.  Email also allows you to read the behavior of the recipient.  Did the email bounce? Did the recipient open the email?

5.      Telemarketing and Telephone Sales – With Caller ID, getting through to a prospect or members on the phone has become a more challenging task, but for a highly qualified prospect, like a lapsed member, telemarketing is very effective.  The former member may have long since stopped reading your email or opening your mailings, but a call from another human on the end of the phone to answer questions or encourage a decision can make a difference.  A phone call from a peer or a staff person can be particularly effective.

6.      Social Media – By 2018, 95% of individual membership associations have an official Facebook page, 89% use Twitter, 63% have a LinkedIn group, and 60% have a YouTube channel.  Clearly social media has been almost completely integrated into association's marketing and communications mix.  This low or no cost channel allows you to have a storefront on the main street of the internet.  The trick is to get prospects and members to move from window shoppers into the store as buyers.

In addition to these primary membership marketing channels, there are many others to consider including radio and TV commercials, exhibiting, chapter initiatives, and print advertising.

Each of these channels is a marketing tool with strengths and weaknesses.  Some of these like Word of Mouth, Digital, and Social Media can be most effective in starting a relationship with a prospect and getting the conversation started.  Others like Email, Direct Mail, and Telemarketing are tools that are particularly effective in closing a sale and taking an order.  But none of them can be fully effective without the support of the others. 

As you plan your membership marketing efforts, think through how each of these channels might best be used to help accomplish your goals. 

Leveraging Non-Member Email Addresses for Membership Recruitment

Many membership organizations have accumulated email addresses in their database of prospective members through site registrations, event attendance, or product purchases. 

Here are some strategies that you may want to consider in order to maximize these records to strengthen your overall membership marketing efforts.

1.     Improve Targeting – Email is one of the least expensive marketing tools, but also has lower response rates than other more expensive channels like telemarketing, direct mail, or face to face sales.  However, email can allow you to cast a broad net across industry segments, recency of contact, and source of records and through open rates and click through rates see where the hot spots of interest appear.  The emailed segments that demonstrate interest in membership with high click through rates or new joins will probably warrant the use of more expensive marketing channels.  The non-responding segments will be unlikely to be cost effective targets for more expensive promotions.    

2.     Gain Contact Information – Some organizations have only a name and email address in their database.  Without a mailing address available for a thorough merge-purge, there may not be clarity whether the individual is a current member or not.  Sending the individual an email that offers free content with the requirement of providing full contact information is a great way to update information and re-engage a prospect in the membership conversation. 

3.     Verify Data – Another concern of many organizations is the accuracy of mailing addresses for non-member records in their database.  People change jobs and move to new companies.  Once again, email is an effective tool to verify that a prospective member is still at the same company.  If the work email is not deliverable then it is unlikely that the mailing address is still correct.  Other data hygiene solutions should also be used like running mailing addresses through the National Change of Address (NCOA) registry.

4.     Deploy Flash Offers – Although email may not produce as high of a return as other marketing channels, it does lend itself to deadlines and instant response.  That makes email a great channel for short-term specials called “flash offers”.  These are exceptional deals made available for only 24 to 48 hours that are designed to encourage an impulse buy.  Like it or not, sales do motivate purchases and email lends itself to immediate decisions.

Effective marketing is all about connecting the tools and channels available to you with the appropriate target markets, messages, and offers.  Email is one tool that not only can be used to sell, but also allows you to read the digital fingerprints of those who receive it to leverage your overall membership marketing program.

Direct Mail Remains a Productive Channel for Membership Marketing

As we deploy new and exciting marketing channels, it is often good to step back to be sure that we are covering the basics.  That’s why I found an article by Kevin Mills, the Director of Membership for the National Legal Defense Association, a good reminder. 

In the April issue of Marketing Advents, Mills wrote an article titled, Direct Mail: The Foundation for Marketing Success.  “With more than 15 years of experience developing marketing strategies to increase membership and member benefits,” Mills says, “I have the most confidence in direct mail … Direct mail provides legitimacy to our organization and its cause, and provides the vehicle for email and social media campaigns to be successful. Again, using other marketing tools is obviously a necessity in today’s technology-driven culture.  But, in laying the foundation for marketing success, the results are best when we put together a comprehensive marketing strategy that begins with direct mail.”

He adds “that even our younger customers are responding to our direct mail efforts.”

Mills conclusions were confirmed in the 2013 Membership Marketing Benchmarking research.  Organizations that used direct mail in renewal efforts were more likely to have renewal rates of over 80%, have increased membership in the past year, and have increased or maintained their renewal rates.  Additionally associations with 20,000 or more members affirmed that direct mail was the most effective marketing channel for membership recruitment.

What’s the bottom line?  In my experience, direct mail remains an effective and scalable channel to help organizations get and keep members.  Used properly, it is highly targetable, track able, and affordable.  If it is not in your marketing portfolio of tools, it probably should be given a try.