Must-have for membership marketing
THE perennial question of a prospective member an association’s membership recruitment officer must answer is: “What’s in it for me?” or “WIIFM.” Your prospect’s needs should be top of mind as you make your marketing pitch, as it will be considered from the point of view of WIIFM. That’s why it’s critical to talk about the benefits of membership rather than the features of your products services—literally telling your prospects what’s in it for them.
The unique values that associations offer to their members and which attract members to join can be classified into four general benefits: community, advocacy, learning and knowledge. Highlighting these values in marketing to prospective members will enhance membership recruitment, engagement and retention.
Community. People are social beings. They would like to interact with like-minded individuals and those in same-purposed organizations. Associations and other member-serving organizations exist and thrive for this reason. Associations build communities where members interact with each other, help one another and share their experiences. Marketing a community is an essential strategy for associations. Some community-building services include special interest groups, professional sections, member listserves, social networking sites, online and offline networks, networking and engagement opportunities, memberonly connection events, discussion forums, volunteer opportunities, benchmarking and best-practices data and committees, councils, or task forces.
Advocacy. The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) defines an association as an organization or group of individuals affiliated with one another that share a common purpose, interest, or mission and exist for the mutual enrichment and advancement of their membership. Advocacy is being able to advance a cause and is one of the top three reasons (the two others are education and peer networking) why people join associations. Advocacy could be in the form of lobbying, formulating policy, presenting testimony and case studies and providing specialized standards and technical information.
Learning. This consists of both online and face-to-face education programs, as well as certification or credentialing programs. Many association joiners find value in advancing their careers and facing their challenges through seminars, workshops and conferences. A well-structured curriculum of educational courses covering principles and practices of association governance and management is relevant and important for training and development as well as for problem solving.
Knowledge. This comes in the form of publications such as bulletins, newsletters, journals, books and magazines as well as website resources and research findings. For professional societies, some of knowledge resources are with regards to individual salary, compensation and fringe benefits, member demographics, education and training requirements of the profession, trends in the profession, cost of doing business for a professional office and public opinion polls. For trade associations, these could be executive salary and compensation, business conditions, trends and forecasts, cost of doing business, industry demographics, industry practices related to advertising, use of technology and factory safety analyses.
The pandemic has accelerated the imperative for associations to review their value propositions to cater to the current and emerging needs of their members. These WIIFM benefits may be able to help your association better deal with your membership recruitment, engagement and retention goals.