Improving Member Engagement

IN OUR PREVIOUS MEMBERSHIPS ARTICLE, WE LOOKED AT HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR MEMBER RENEWAL PROCESS. NOW WE MOVE ON TO ENGAGEMENT, LOOKING AT HOW IMPROVING MEMBER ENGAGEMENT EARLY ON CAN IMPROVE HOW RENEWALS ARE RECEIVED.

MEMBER ENGAGEMENT

Research shows that lack of engagement is one of the main reasons individuals don’t renew their membership (1) – and that by the time renewals arise, without ongoing communication, there’s little you can do to change their minds.

Ensuring you have an ongoing member engagement strategy can not only increase the likelihood of members renewing, but it can also act as a research tool to address any issues with membership and continuously improve your services. Perceptions of membership are inherently tied into your value proposition and how much members have used the benefits available to them.

BENEFIT AWARENESS

On average, only 55 per cent of members are involved with activities offered by their membership association (2). While in many professions, members will still be keen to renew, this does leave you more vulnerable, particularly if there are any changes in the wider market which could displace existing loyalties.

Think about how to engage with your members throughout the year and let them know what you have to offer and why they should value membership with your organisation. Whether that’s events, content, CPD or networking opportunities. Reminding members to renew won’t make a difference if they’ve already decided the membership fee isn’t value for money.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Whilst keeping healthy, regular contact with your members is great, avoid bombarding them with information of little interest or no relevance.

The key to any successful engagement activity is ensuring that it’s tailored to each individual and their interests; targeted using both demographic indicators (such as location or career stage) and behavioural signals. If you have online member accounts, these can provide a goldmine of data about individual members, their level of engagement and their areas of interest. You could also use other member engagement touch points to capture data on what’s of interest to them, for example, events, networking and industry updates. Gathering these permissions can also make sure your data is more compliant from a GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) perspective.

Look out for behavioural signals and monitor how individual members have engaged with your organisation – whether they’ve attended events, responded to emails, or read a newsletter – scoring the most effective type of engagement can help you distinguish how your members prefer to be contacted. Similarly, if someone’s registered for an event, don’t bombard them with information about every future event, instead, use this information to understand which events would be most relevant to that individual.
All this information can help make your communications as tailored and relevant as possible, but remember, don’t confuse a high volume of engagement with high-level engagement!

MAINTAINING INTEREST

In some industries, it might be necessary to have qualifications that can only be completed through accredited professional associations. In these cases, interest in membership may initially begin with a shelf life. To encourage these members to renew, think about how you can convert their interest into broader engagement. Try tailoring communications to highlight other areas of interest, such as events, networking and CPD services. These steps can help tighten your grip on new members and show that you have more to offer throughout their career and once they’ve completed their qualifications.

You might also consider additional touchpoints, such as contacting a member just after they’ve joined to point out additional features of your organisation, then following up with a satisfaction survey after three months. Your strategy should consider the channels you use to engage members and make sure these fit with what your members want. Aim for a multi-channel communication strategy that ensures all members will have several personalised, tailored touchpoints throughout the year.

If members aren’t consistently engaged, there’s not much that can be done last minute to get them to renew, whereas a successful engagement activity can make the renewals process easier and less costly. Thinking about member renewal within the wider context of a member engagement strategy can help improve retention rates. This means you get the most out of your members – and they get the most out of you.

(1) Marketing General Incorporated; MGI’s Research Team; The 2017 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report.
(2) Marketing General Incorporated; MGI’s Research Team; The 2017 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report.