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Actual Photo of the Iceberg that Sank the Titanic

The Hidden Obvious – Search and Discover it Before Adding another Layer of Complexity.

I said this in the last Tipster I wrote: I am nearing retirement after 41 years of professional marketing. It has been an invigorating, aggravating, and enervating run. I vowed never to become “that guy” who pretends to aphorisms and witticisms about the many experiences I have had in this field.

But…

Finding the Problem to Fix Instead of Fixing the One that’s Not There.

More than one membership client has approached Marketing General and said: “Membership is dropping, our renewal rates are dropping and we can’t seem to grow.” We’re not rocket scientists, we’re…

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There are many reasons members lapse, but so often the answer is some version of, “I didn’t see the value of membership, or I didn’t use my membership.”

The organization’s internal response to this reasoning is usually something along the lines of, “But we sent you twenty emails telling you the value of membership and outlining your benefits.”

If this sounds like you or someone you know, here are a few questions to ask yourself:

Are you articulating the value of membership benefits or just listing features?

For example, do you simply tell members they have access to your job site, or do you tell them they can save time finding the most qualified candidates for open positions, or find an…

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Tip #1 – Engage!

If renewal time is the first time throughout the year you’re checking in with your members, you’ve just become the relative no one talks to because he only asks for money. Have an on-boarding and ongoing engagement plan in place, check in with your members at various points throughout the year, and increase your efforts with your at-risk member groups.

Members who engage even one additional time with an association throughout the course of the year are significantly more likely to renew.

Tip #2 – Personalize your renewal communication to the user’s experience.

Know what your members did that year and remind them. Include the points of engagement someone had with your…

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The client was dubious. “Our members don’t use mail. They’re used to electronic everything. We don’t think mail will work as part of our renewal series.”

They agreed to test the inclusion of mail alongside email and Facebook advertising for one segment of our campaign target audience. If it didn’t move the needle, we wouldn’t repeat it.

So what was the result? The cell that received mail in addition to digital reminders responded seven points higher than the groups that did not.

Was that group’s cost per renewal higher? Yes, but the ROI was still positive with $12 made for every dollar spent.

When you consider the fact that according to the American Marketing Association, people are sending/…

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The Calculations Every Membership Professional Needs

Math doesn’t usually make it to the top of the list when people think about membership. And yet, if you work in a membership organization, you know that math and metrics are at the heart of what we do every day. We use math to understand where we’re starting, to figure out what’s working, what our ROI looks like, and what we need to change.

The math gives us insight into the health of an organization; is it growing, shrinking, or stagnating? Here are a few of the basic calculations we regularly work with to help us understand the current state of associations.

Renewal Rate

Renewal Rate measures the number of members kept over a given period of…

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