The challenge of member acquisition
July 25, 2022
For any membership organisation, growth is synonymous with the process of acquiring new members. While keeping current members engaged is vital. And having a well-developed retention strategy ensures that they have every reason to renew at the end of their subscriptions. But in order to grow and achieve more as an organisation, you need to reach new people, persuade them to subscribe, and have them add to your community.
There are three ways that new members can be acquired, and each demands a concise strategy and dedicated resources:
Passive acquisition
The most basic type of member acquisition comes when a user independently learns about your organisation or visits your website. They do a little desk research, find a value proposition that resonates with them and make the choice to subscribe. Optimising this user journey requires you to present an extremely clear and concise reason for joining, and to complement this with a compelling list of benefits that the new member truly values. Crucially, you must then remove all friction from the sign-up process.
This transaction, as well as any questions that arise along the way, need to be handled expertly and immediately. It acts as a trial run for the service the potential member can expect to receive and provides a positive perception for the new member.
Acquisition via recommendation
The second way that members can be acquired is via word of mouth. This only happens if an organisation is doing a great job of keeping their membership engaged and continually providing benefits that make the subscription feel like excellent value for money. Again, this requires a proactive approach to member engagement and a support team that can reply to queries and solve issues as soon as they arise.
We also need to consider the old marketing adage that “a happy customer tells a friend; an unhappy customer tells the world”. The effect of this is that it is much easier to lose potential new members from a bad recommendation than to win them from a great one. So even more attention is required. While this is not always easy to resource, it is an essential component of any successful organisation and turning current members into advocates is transformational for your ability to grow.
Proactive membership campaigns
The final method of member acquisition combines membership and marketing skill sets to create targeted recruitment campaigns. Again, having a compelling value proposition is crucial and being able to reach people via their preferred method of contact is critical to success. As with the online signup process, this first contact with a potential new member can serve as a type of audition for your organisation. It needs to be personal enough to let the recipient know that you understand and appreciate them, and professional enough to convey the promise of great service, well-designed products and properly run events.
The competition for subscription is often fierce and so these recruitment campaigns require a sophisticated strategy, intelligent audience segmentation and flawless execution. Getting people interested in joining is one thing; supporting them with expert information and prompt updates so as not to lose them along this journey is just as important.
How does ClearConnect help?
ClearConnect works as part of your extended team to deliver on these member acquisition strategies and can support you in a number of ways including:
- Providing telemarketing recruitment campaigns to drive membership
- Administering new member applications and answering any queries
- Sending out welcome emails, letters and new member packs
- Making personal phone calls to new joiners
- Providing additional support services in member engagement, acquisition and administration
Today’s trade unions and professional bodies are able to achieve levels of member service that would previously have been unimaginable without extensive support teams and huge operational budgets. A modern CRM combined with the latest association management systems (AMS) is able to automate so much of the daily workload that it’s easy to slip into a complete reliance on digital communication.
Much of the strategic emphasis in membership organisations is placed upon growth. Leadership teams support this with worthwhile discussions on value proposition, marketing and member acquisition.
