New PODCASTS! — Recently Added to COAD’s website. For viewing and sharing with your Facebook Friends http://www.optimaladult.org/…/kn…/multimedia/audio-podcasts/ http://ow.ly/NCHdv
Welcome to the Membership Economy. Almost any business can develop a successful membership model. http://ow.ly/NCGNz
You don’t need to tear the whole house down to turn your organization around.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thats-how-we-have-always-done-around-here-craig-cicardo-sr-
Is Your Association Part of the Auto-Renewal Economy?
http://institute.uschamber.com/join-the-auto-renewal-economy/
Auto-renewals are part of my personal and professional life. That’s true for many of us. On a personal level, we subscribe to services like Netflix, cable, cell phone providers, wine clubs, fitness centers, vitamins, and insurance lines. Professionally, we pay for monthly services like software, cloud-based file storage, internet, and HR. Most of these services are deducted from our bank or credit card accounts monthly. No one asks us if we want to renew—they assume that we are receiving value and get paid automatically.
So, why aren’t more associations, including chambers of commerce, leveraging auto-billing or auto-renewals for memberships? Association staff members can spend up to 20% of their “marketing” time chasing renewals. When renewal letters or invoices are sent out, we’re asking our members to consider the value of membership again while staring at annual invoices. Should we alleviate members from having to make a renewal decision each year and let them tell us when they’re no longer receiving value?
It’s apparent that more and more organizations are agreeing with this quote in an Associations Now article, “Behavioral economists and marketers alike know opt-out is way better than opt-in.” By the end of 2013, about 25 percent of associations were offering members automatic renewals with credit cards or electronic bank drafts, and the trend is even growing with chambers of commerce. Many organizations like the National Association of Neonatal Nurses and the Chester County Chamber of Business & Industry offer automatic annual renewals with quarterly or monthly payment options.
If your leadership team decides to join the auto-renewal bandwagon, you can learn a lot from others who have gone before you and avoid many of the common pitfalls. Ask peers in your industry, trade or professional associations, or fellow IOMers about their experiences. Check out Frank Kenny’s blog post with compiled tips from chamber pros who have adopted auto-renewals and ongoing dialogs on his Chamber of Commerce Professionals page on Facebook. Learn about other association examples from Mary Byers, co-author of Race to Relevance and Road to Relevance, in a recent ASAE (American Society of Association Executives) article.
Yes, it will mean that you have to start having members use credit cards or electronic bank drafts to join and renew. Yes, you can decide to make the option available for renewals and not for the initial year. Yes, you can offer it as an option and not make it mandatory for all members.
If your team is still on the fence about joining this growing trend, realize that this concept isn’t exclusive to associations. In fact, membership models based on recurring payments is a big trend for-profit companies of all sizes, as noted by the author of the new book, The Membership Economy, who was the consultant who helped Netflix and SurveyMonkey develop their recurring revenue model.
Is your organization part of the auto-renewal economy?
Most likely, you’re tracking demographics about your members. If you’re not using psychographics, you really don’t know why members join and why they stay or not. Knowing more about the “why” than the “what” could also help you attract new members and increase revenue.
Most associations collect basic information from prospects when they fill out the application. Aside from the basic “fields” like Company Name, Primary Contact Name, Company address, etc., the application may ask for the contact’s Position, Number of Full-Time Employees (FTE), Industry or NAISC code, Number of Offices/Locations, and other requested information. This information is then uploaded into the Association Management System (AMS) and used to set up the member account, list the member in the Directory, and for other internal functions.
The majority of the information collected from new members are geographic and demographic. If the new member is also asked to indicate the reason for joining, then a psychographic variable is also collected. In other words, geographic data explains where your member is; demographics explain who your member is, and psychographics explains what’s important to them.”
When I teach the Marketing Strategies course for the Institute of Organization Management (IOM), I have students work in small groups to develop a mini marketing plan for a specific program (e.g., Leadership, Young Professionals). One of the activities is to create 2-3 Target Profiles that include demographics and psychographics. Once the Target Profiles are developed, the groups create Targeted Messages that resonate with different audiences to sell the program. A “one size fits all” marketing strategy doesn’t result in high email open rates or registrations.
Even after teaching this course for more than 10 years, I find that association professionals struggle with profiling members. Identifying demographics is easier if the information has been collected or is readily available, but knowing what certain members value and why is a real puzzler. Is it because we don’t really understand our customers or target markets, or are we lacking the data that would provide the business intelligence that other industries rely on for marketing and retention?
Demographics Give Us Much of the “What”
It’s easy to buy lists that contain demographic information such as age, gender, ethnicity, income, geographic location, as well as other types of information about who customers are, where they live, and what they do. This type of information can be found through a variety of sources like the American Fact Finder that is offered through the Census Bureau. for example. You can learn a lot about your members/prospects, and even your neighbors, just by entering a zip code in a Nielsen PRIZM. (I found it interesting to learn that I live in a neighborhood where most residents do not have kids living at home!)
You can glean similar insights from analyzing business demographics. The Census Bureau conducts a business census every five years and the last one was conducted in 2012. Reviewing the Census Bureau Economic Consensus, you can learn how many businesses are in your area by industry, number of employees, etc. This is a great way to compare the Census with your membership base to see how representative it is to the market. Keep in mind that the Census collects this information based on tax records and may not include home-based businesses that are “under the radar.”
Although demographic data like the Census will help you know more about the types of businesses in the area, it will not tell you what influences business leaders in their buying decisions.
The Secret of Engagement Lies in the “Why”
Psychographics can tell you much more about your members and help you to market to prospects that have things in common. Psychographic data used to market to consumers may include information on what type of music do they like, what other brands they buy, how much they spend on entertainment, and where they hang out. Businesses can use services like Nielsen’s PRIZM, which provides psychographic data by zip code, to better understand target groups of customers.
For associations, psychographics are more about why prospects join and renew each year; which benefits they access or what committees they serve on; why they volunteer; and which links they click on in newsletters. Psychographics help us to understand what people value and what influences their decisions.
The Member Profile Matrix describes four different types of members, why they join, and what they value. There are no demographic variables stated, although the two types on the bottom are usually small businesses and the two on the top are typically corporate entities.
To understand their customers better, association professionals need to leverage both demographic and psychographic information. The more we understand not just “who” our customers are, but “why” they do what they do, and what really matters to them, the better we can serve them. Here are some ways to employ both sets of data:
Cathi Hight helps organizations build sustainable futures, improve processes, increase productivity, and develop staff & member loyalty. She is the author of The Member Retention Kit and A New Approach to Tiered Membership. Learn more at www.hightperformance .com.
What matters to members? Some surprising answers with Wiley’s recent membership survey.http://associationsnow.com/2015/04/digging-deeper-members-value/ http://ow.ly/d/3b4V
Deal with your time thieves. http://ow.ly/LitGh
when do you tune out from emails? We all need to learn to get away from telepressure or telestress–the urge to respond to work related emails no matter when they’re sent. I do not respond to emails between 7 pm and 7 am. It can wait. http://ow.ly/LitaU
“What’s particularly intriguing about Flipped Learning is that it recognizes a powerful conference maxim: The smartest people aren’t always on stage. They’re often in the room.” http://ow.ly/L8bMD
Membership Marketing Weblink International Your Membership Frank Kenny Kaizen for personal development Membership 180 Guy Kawasaki
Cathi Hight 