The Common Thread

It’s a well known fact that one way to dramatically increase member retention statistics is by getting members involved in the association right away—joining a committee, attending the annual conference, etc. Another way is by ensuring members start using, and seeing the value of their benefits from the start.

But let’s face it, many members are shy about jumping into a well established organization. They feel like everyone already knows everyone else, so they hang back, don’t get involved, don’t see the value in the membership, and then don’t renew. So how do you turn this process around? How about with a more personalized member orientation.

One of our association, the Association of Language Companies clients recently started making personalized member welcome calls. Here’s how they work:

• Once a new member joins the association, we email the welcome committee with the person’s contact information.
• The committee then identifies a couple of people—a board member, a committee member, etc—to contact the new member through a conference call.
• Once on the phone, the new member is asked about why they joined, what they hope to get from their membership, and what industry concerns they have. While the member is answering the questions, they respond with what the association is doing to address those issues and point out benefits that can help get them the answers they need. They also invite them to join specific committees, attend the conference, etc.
  

The point is they make the member feel wanted in a very personal way. And, at the same time, give the new member everything they need to have a successful and beneficial relationship with the association—increasing the chance of them renewing when the time comes.

Image credit.

There was an interesting conversation today on the twitter-based Association Chat (with the snicker-laden hashtag on Twitter of #assnchat) that was putting in question the membership model for associations. There is a good article by Erin Fuller in Associations Now on the topic as well, and there was a great session at the Great Ideas conference on the topic just a few weeks ago. Of course a few months ago the association blogosphere was quite busy discussing  Joe Flowers’ public declaration to not renew ASAE dues. I had a post in that flurry about “just what are we joining.”

There, that should keep you reading for a while!

But also check out the twitter stream on today’s conversation (search for assnchat on twitter and scroll down; it was an active discussion). There was a lot of back and forth, though I’d say most were supportive of the idea of dues becoming less important, and there was support for the “freemium” model where basic membership is free, but you can upgrade to get more service.

I thought it was interesting that there were questions about how the organization would “pay” for getting rid of dues. Do you raise prices on other things? How will we “fund operations” without dues? Comments like me make me raise my eyebrow a little. What do you mean how do we “fund operations” without dues? You fund operations with revenue. Dues is a kind of revenue. But that question almost sounds like you HAVE to have dues simply because you have “operations.” That implied sense of entitlement is one that that bugs me in the dues conversation.  It’s circular. We have to collect dues, because if we didn’t, how could we pay people to collect the dues?

Now, I know no one literally thinks that, but I do think the comments I saw are evidence that our community needs to shake up its thinking about dues and membership. Here was my only comment in the discussion:

To be clear, I’m not anti-dues, and I do think there are plenty of places where we should charge them and members will gladly pay because they get such clear value out of belonging. But it’s not to pay for operations, because in today’s decentralized world, centralized operations don’t have as much default value as they used to. So what’s the trend out there folks (particularly my AMC brethren)? Are dues on the way out?

My friend David Gammel wrote the cover story in Associations Now in May, and he did an excellent job of taking the feel-good, high-level concept of membership “engagement” and bringing it right down to the operational level. It’s a truism in association management that engagement is a good thing: engagement drives retention, engagement drives growth…but how does that really work?

David presents an “engagement acceleration curve” that clarifies the different levels of engagement and, more importantly, demonstrates a progression from less engaged to more engaged. Often, particularly in small associations, I think we just look right to the end. Who can we get on the Board? Who can we get as a major sponsor? These are very high levels of engagement, which really require a progression through other levels. We might intuitively know this, but I think it helps to be more explicit about it, so we can effectively feed the funnel, so to speak.

I look at some of the associations that I manage and I realize that we are not offering enough effective engagement opportunities at the lower end of the scale. And when we do offer them, there isn’t a clear next step, other than to join or come to an event, which are bigger steps. I also find it interesting that in one case, coming to an event (we do them monthly) one would think would be an easier step than joining (which costs between eight and twenty times the registration fee of one event), yet nearly all of our attendees are members. Hmmm.

Thanks, David, for helping me to think more clearly about these issues in concrete ways!

Although I am a fairly intuitive person in general, when it comes to leading associations, I am a big fan of data. I still think intuition is a form of data, but if you use it while ignoring volumes of quantitative data (simply because you don’t want to take the time to gather or analyze those data), I don’t think it will work out well. That’s a recipe for being scattered, following the whims of individual Board Presidents, or being trapped in “we’ve always done it that way.” Bringing hard data into the conversation typically generates better strategic choices.

But the data side of things isn’t so simple, either. At ASAE’s Executive Management Section Council meeting yesterday, ASAE staff reported that according to their research, giving a discount on membership dues was the highest predictor of non-renewal of membership. This makes me think twice about offering discounts on membership. But one of the council members then reported of a trial membership program where they gave away membership for a year (100% discount) but still had 11% renew (by paying the next year). She was pleased with the fact that she got that many new paying members. The ASAE research staff pointed out, however, that within that group 89% did not renew, which was consistent with her research finding.

My point is (and the ASAE staff made basically the same point) that the data by itself can be just as dangerous as the intuition by itself. If you take the statistical correlation that she identified (discounts and non-renewal correlate) and applied it blindly, you wouldn’t give any discounts, and you would miss the opportunity to get those 11% of the trial program as members. The 89% non-renewal rate–in that particular context–is fine.

I love data, but you have to take it through to a complete understanding before it’s really useful.