Blog

By Tony Rossell, Senior Vice President

Most economists agree, based on recent reports on GDP and unemployment, that we are entering a recession. And many association executives are wondering how this downturn will impact their membership numbers and what to project for the future.

Amidst the current challenges, there is data to provide some hope and insights. For over a decade MGI’s Membership Marketing Benchmarking Reporthas captured association membership best practices and statistics. One of the major disruptions impacting association membership was the Great Recession in 2009. Looking back at the benchmarking survey data can serve as a guide on how associations responded to this recession…

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There continues to be a lot of uncertainty about what business will look like short-term and long-term. An initial reaction by many marketers during this volatile and uncertain period has been to limit marketing efforts for channels such as email marketing.

But from our campaigns and testing, we’re seeing that email marketing campaigns, done correctly, are still proving highly effective. In fact, we’re seeing current email programs outperform those from several months ago when the economy was strong and life was operating business as usual.

So, what are some things that can be done right now to make your email marketing campaigns more effective? Here are five tips:

Test everything, especially…

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By Tony Rossell, Senior Vice President

For all of us, our lives are in a state of disruption. This is no less true for our members and prospective members. That’s why there is no more important time for associations to boldly communicate with members about the practical assistance that they can provide to them. It is a time for associations to empathetically and proactively demonstrate the value of membership. As the saying goes, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.”

This help can come in multiple forms. Here are some ways that you can reach out and engage members right now.

Provide Community– Many associations have the opportunity to help members connect electronically like never before…

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Clients often come to us with requests to do a Member Satisfaction Survey. After a discussion to gauge what their true research objectives are, we often steer them toward a Member Indispensability Study instead. But why?

Satisfaction doesn’t equate to longevity. In our research experience, we have seen that satisfaction isn’t a strong driver of member retention. In fact, we often see that lapsed members report high levels of satisfaction with the association membership, often very similar to the satisfaction levels of current members.

Satisfaction can be too broad a concept.In surveys, we often include a general question about the levels of satisfaction with one’s membership, but it is…

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MGI recently released our 2019 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. While it’s filled with nearly 80 pages of data, one stat in particular stood out. 22% of associations experiencing an increase in the number of new members this year recently adopted a new membership model.

IPMA-HR, the leading public sector human resource organization, knows the impact of a new membership model firsthand. Faced with a declining membership, concern grew that their offerings were no longer meeting the needs of public sector HR professionals. To turn the tide on their membership, they knew that something needed to change.

And change it did — within one year, IPMA-HR’s membership grew by 21%.

So how did they…

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