The ‘science’ of membership marketing
Acouple of feedback from participants in our recent PCAAE webinar on “Top Tips for Recruiting and Retaining Members” has prompted me to write today’s column article. When we asked the attendees to name their key takeaways from the webinar, they mentioned that they now realize that membership marketing is a “science” and it involves a multi-channel and multi-touch approach.
our speaker, Elisa Joseph Anders, DCMP, Senior Account director at Marketing General Inc. (USA), who has over 30 years of marketing, management, and consulting experience in the non-profit and for-profit sectors, presented the membership lifecycle: a diagnostic and planning tool that MGI has successfully used to grow its association clients.
A lifecycle is a recurring series of stages in form and functional activity through which something, e.g., an individual, a culture, a product, a process, etc., passes through during its lifetime. In the case of membership lifecycle, it consists of two main aspects: member acquisition (under which are areas of awareness and recruitment), and member retention (engagement, renewal and reinstatement).
Awareness makes potential members be acquainted with your association and for them to engage with you. Recruitment finds them and invites them to join. Engagement encourages members to interact and get involved, as well as use their benefits; renewal asks members to extend their membership; and reinstatement urges lapsed members to re-join. Noting that “science” means “a systematically organized body of knowledge on a particular subject,” I agree that membership marketing using the membership lifecycle framework qualifies as one.
Relatedly and on the aspect of multi-channel membership marketing, Elisa cited direct mail, in-person, digital/mobile and tele-marketing as the channels that associations need to be present and active. This is similar to the omnichannel selling approach in online shopping where a customer can use a desktop or a mobile device, via phone, or in a brick-and-mortar store that provide a seamless shopping experience.
Regarding multi-touch membership marketing, Elisa mentioned the “7 times” rule of thumb which associations may follow. It is a basic marketing principle that states it takes seven “touches” before someone will be able to internalize and/or act upon your call to action. So, for example, if you do email marketing, you have to send your message, say, once a week for seven weeks. With tons of emails one receives a day, you need of course to reach the right people with the right messaging in the right places at the right time. Good research and data will also help in this process.
Elisa also said that membership is a “push” product since, for example, no one actually wakes up in the morning thinking of joining an association. As such, an association really has to do membership marketing. By using the membership lifecycle and following a multi-channel, multitouch approach, there is a greater chance for associations to succeed in recruiting and retaining members.
Thus, is membership marketing using the membership lifecycle and the multi-channel, multi-touch strategy a ‘science’ in itself? I believe so!
The column contributor, Octavio ‘Bobby’ Peralta, is concurrently the secretary-general of the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific, Founder & CEO of the Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives and President of the Asia-pacific Federation of Association Organizations. The purpose of PCAAE— the “association of associations”—is to advance the association management profession and to make associations well-governed and sustainable. PCAAE enjoys the support of Adfiap, the Tourism Promotions Board, and the Philippine International Convention Center. E-mail: