How to maximise membership acquisition and retention

In today’s turbulent political and economic environment, acquiring and retaining members has many challenges. However, if the process is conducted in a planned, systematic and strategic manner, you simply can’t fail.

Gather personal details

The key to recruiting new members is to build a high level of qualified prospects. Prospective members include non-members who contact your organisation, attend your events, book your professional development programs, or purchase your products or services. With their permission, you should send every prospective member membership marketing collateral and place them in your organisation’s contact management system, appropriately flagged as a member prospect.

Follow through

In corporate terms, the process of conducting follow-through campaigns is called ‘mining the sales funnel’. Depending on the size and type of your organisation, this involves a series of strategic actions designed to influence and persuade prospects to become your members.
Mail, email, telephone, social media, newsletters and events can all be used to conduct your follow-through campaigns.

Member retention

Acquiring new members consumes time, energy and money. After members have been acquired, it’s important to remember that investments will go to waste if effort isn’t put into retaining members.

One way to do this is to implement a ‘keep in touch’ program. Assign new members a mentor, invite them to events, chart their progress on your contact management system and ensure they are utilising their membership benefits, otherwise you will probably lose them.

Kevin Cahalane

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