Component Relations Section November 2013 Virtual Roundtable

"Components and the Race to Membership: 10 Tips to Develop and Effectively Use Components in Membership Marketing"

 Presenters:

Erik Schonher, Vice President, Marketing General Incorporated

Trevor S. Mitchell, CAE, Executive Director, Member Programs & Services, ARMA International

 "Components offer associations a multitude of opportunities to drive their missions and increase their revenues. From the development of content to driving membership, when properly designed and managed, components become essential channels through which associations develop and deliver their value."

Excerpted from "Components and the Race to Membership"

 Join our guest presenters, authors of the recently released white paper, "Components and the Race to Membership: 10 Tips to Develop and Effectively Use Components in Membership Marketing" as they discuss their conclusions, tips, and suggestions for partnering with components to develop, demonstrate, and deliver membership value.

"Whether components are organized/defined by location, industry, interest, or other delineators, they are a valuable untapped resource. Those that work with them, leverage their power, and unlock their potential are positioned for success."

Excerpted from "Components and the Race to Membership"

Bring your questions and comments to this enlightening and important conversation about components and membership marketing strategy and find your association's path to success.

To register, follow this link http://tinyurl.com/kdmby3u. or you can register via the ASAE Calendar at www.asaecenter.org

Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2013

 Time:  2 pm - 3 pm Eastern time/1 pm - 2 pm Central time

12 noon - 1 pm Mountain time/11 am - 12 noon Pacific time
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Cecilia Sepp
Vice President
Association Laboratory Inc.
Silver Spring MD
(301) 346-9656
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Selecting a New CRM - Some Good Advice

Given what I do as a membership marketing consultant with a background in Information Management, I'm often asked to give advice on selecting a CRM.  To that point, I read a great post on ASAE's Collaborate (Membership Section) by Paula Aviles, Membership Director for The Special Libraries Association (10/25/2013), which is worthy of repeating.

She prefaces it by writing that these are "Some lessons learned..."

TIME: It always takes longer than expected.
DEMO: Be watchful as it shows you what it can do, not how, so it may end up taking more time or staff hours then anticipated.
REPORTS: Most systems capture data. It's pulling it out "where things take a turn." Check the queries and reports and be sure that they are reporting the metrics YOU USE to communicate with your leadership.
HISTORY: What data points will it capture, maintain or discard/overwrite when updated?
TRAIN AND TEST: Make sure you allow for training and testing (all we need to do is look at what's happening with the health-care website to realize that testing BEFORE launching is essential).
LAUNCH DATE: Remember the first item mentioned - 'Time' so keep the launch date movable as long as you can. Yes, at some point you need to fish-or-cut-bait, but don't rush it.
This is for the MEMBERS: You're doing this for them.

This is what Paula advises and I think its pretty good. The only item I usually add is:

EASE OF ADAPTABILITY: Change is constant. What will our Association look like in 5 or 10 years and can this system handle the change? How many of us are paying the price with poorly constructed or operating websites because they can't interface properly with the CRM?

In summary, its about properly setting the expectations of leadership, staff and your membership.

Good luck and my sincerest appreciation to Paula for her great post and clarity of thought.

Erik Schonher is Vice President for Marketing General Incorporated. A sought after speaker and writer, he has over 30 years of successful experience in marketing to include associations, designing and implementing member acquisition and retention programs, research initiatives, promoting conferences and guiding leadership. To speak with Erik about your programs, you can call him at (703) 706-0358 or through his email erik@marketinggeneral.com .  

How do I enhance my renewal rate? Just ask your member.

There are many factors to take into consideration when soliciting members to renew their memberships. Some of these we simply can't control (ie: employement status, dues compensation, etc.). One that we can control is, which in my humble opinion is the most important, making sure that the member realizes benefits from their membership.

The key here is our knowing what benefit the member looking to realize through their membership and if they ever realize it? 

Some of this can be gleaned by analyzing the offer they responded to (source analysis) then through data-analysis look at what products or services the member purchased or participated in to see if there is a trail to follow. A good point to this kind of analysis is that you can then look to see if the member renewed in previous years. This kind of data-analytics is very powerful and can lead you to a more indepth understanding of your entire "business" (ie: RFM Analysis). 

In other cases we need to go to the members themselves, usually through a survey. But, we're not looking at just one survey but two. The first survey right when the member joins and the second six to five months prior to expire.

But what questions should I ask in the first survey? This is dependent upon what you plan to do with the data and what can your CRM effectively capture?

First and foremost, don't let this turn into a game of "dogpile" where various departments want to measure what is important to them. This needs to be very sleek and targeted so as not to "be a pain to fill out."

Next, what is the best methodology to accomplish this? That depends upon several factors including the number of new members, budgets, etc. Many associations use telemarketing or email. Like anything else in what we do, which offers the greatest bang for our buck.

While every association is different, I would focus on the 3 to 5 primiary benefits you present when promoting your association. I would then ask the member to provide "how" they plan to realize the benefit.  For example, if a benefit is "Networking," then give them a chance to respond by listing 3 or so features that promote networking: "Attend Annual Conference" "Attend Chapter Meetings" "Volunteer for Member Committee."

As you can see this will get pretty big pretty quickly.

In the second survey what we want to find out is if they've realized any benefit from their membership. To that end, second survey is similar to the first, asking why they joined and offering up the opportunity to explain what features they participated in. Of course, you'll also want to ask if the member "intends to renew." If yes or no, why?

In addition, you may also want to ask in the second survey "How important is this feature to you and how well did we deliver it to you?" This "gap analsyis" will help you determine the value of benefits you promote and how well you deliver them.

Now we analyze the first and second survey results to help us understand:

1. Why members join?
2. What features (if any) do they use?
3. Are we effectively delivering the benefits they are looking for?
4. Do they plan to renew?

Secondary benefits of this kind of program include:

1. Potentially identifying "high risk for renewal" members (which might allow you a chance to fix this)
2. Promotion of some underutilized features

   

New Membership Models

JUST PUBLISHED!

10 Tips to Develop and Effectively Use Components in Membership Marketing

Components offer associations a multitude of opportunities to drive their missions and increase their revenues. From the development of content to driving membership, when properly designed and managed, components become essential channels through which associations develop and deliver theirvalue.

But exactly what is a component? What are the elements associations need to consider in creating a

component? What is necessary in the management of a component? How can they be used to increase

membership?

Written by two respected leaders in the field of association and membership marketing, Erik Schonher, CeM MBA,VP Marketing General, and Trevor Mitchell, CAE, Executive Director Member Programs & Services ARMA International, the purpose of this white paper is to act as a primer and provide association executives with an appreciation of the growing importance of components in the development and delivery of membership value and how to take the initial steps necessary to develop and integrate a component strategy into an association’s overall membership marketing plan.

If you'd like a free copy of the whitepaper, or discuss how you can grow your components and increase their effectiveness in driving your membership, please contact me at 703.706.0358 or Erik@MarketingGeneral.com

New White Paper: 10 Tips to Develop and Effectively Use Components in Membership Marketing

JUST PUBLISHED!

10 Tips to Develop and Effectively Use Components in Membership Marketing

Components offer associations a multitude of opportunities to drive their missions and increase their revenues. From the development of content to driving membership, when properly designed and managed, components become essential channels through which associations develop and deliver theirvalue.

But exactly what is a component? What are the elements associations need to consider in creating a

component? What is necessary in the management of a component? How can they be used to increase

membership?

Written by two respected leaders in the field of association and membership marketing, Erik Schonher, CeM MBA,VP Marketing General, and Trevor Mitchell, CAE, Executive Director Member Programs & Services ARMA International, the purpose of this white paper is to act as a primer and provide association executives with an appreciation of the growing importance of components in the development and delivery of membership value and how to take the initial steps necessary to develop and integrate a component strategy into an association’s overall membership marketing plan.

 

If you'd like a free copy of the whitepaper, or discuss how you can grow your components and increase their effectiveness in driving your membership, please contact me at 703.706.0358 or Erik@MarketingGeneral.com

A Good Example of Writing to the Differences between a "Feature" and a "Benefit."

Thank you to everyone who participated in yesterday's webinar.

Right now I want to share with you a very clear definition of "Feature" vs. "Benefit" that was just sent to me by my good friend Page Stull here at MGI. Page has a very long history as an editor and association marketer so I value his insights greatly.

While I'm sure this may be "old hat" to many of you, I believe it never hurts to review. So, I'll leave you Page's trustworthy hands for the rest of this post:

Most of us understand the difference between benefits and features, but let’s take that concept to the next level so our copy can be even more effective.


First, let’s define the features/benefits relationship:

• Features are the things associations give their members.
•  Benefits are what members receive using the features.

Here is a feature-laden sentence:

 When you join the association, as a member you'll be eligible for continuing education courses for just $59 per credit.

Here is a benefit-focused rewrite:

 Our continuing education programs will increase your understanding and elevate your skills for just $59 per credit.

The rewrite assumes the reader values increased understanding and elevated skills, but perhaps we can do even better by adding the element of emotion.

People have aspirations in life—to be better off, to be a better person, to gain respect, avoid discomfort, to be satisfied, and so forth. So, we add an aspiration—say, a promotion.

Here is the rewrite:

 Our continuing education programs will increase your understanding and elevate your skills for just $59 per credit, building on your experience and perhaps taking your career to the next level—all for just $59 per credit.

When features become benefits of value we can appeal to our reader’s aspirations and stir emotions. And that’s far more powerful than a mere feature.

Tactical Planning for Developing Prospect Awareness

Developing “awareness” of your membership offer is the first step in any “sales cycle.” But what is awareness and how do we use it in the membership sales cycle?

First, “context” is a very important component of any stage in the sales cycle, and awareness is no different. We need people to listen when we talk. But the only time people listen is when it means something to them, usually when they have a problem or slight concern and are looking for a solution. Therefore, in promoting awareness, we must look for those opportunities when prospects will be open to listening to what we have to say.

A good way to learn when your prospects are open to listening is to ask your members when did they first learn about your association. After all, they too were prospects once.

The 2013 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report indicated that the Top Five ways “…members initially discover (your) association” are:

Word-of-mouth recommendation....86%

Association website....80%

Email....66%

Promotion to/at your own conferences/conventions....54%

Local events/meetings....52%

To find this out, you can either “ask them” through qualitative and/or quantitative research, or analyze your database and look for correlations between members joining and other events (i.e.: attended a conference or even, purchased a product, etc.).

Once these are identified, we “reverse engineer” the channels with the goal of understanding how many members/buyers resulted from these efforts.

Word-of-mouth recommendation

• 200 prospective members were referred by current members
• Generated five new members for a close ratio of 2.5%.

Association website

• 1500 people visited the Cookbook page
• 15 followed the “Join up” link (1%)
• Generated one new member (6.7%)

With these metrics in hand, we develop tactical plans to drive awareness with an appreciation for the ultimate result of generating paid memberships.

Online Lead Generation Program

• Goal: 10,000 prospects (or 670 new members)
• Overview: Develop a landing page and bring online prospects to the site by offering FREE materials which they can download by providing their first & last name, postal address and email address. With delivery, offer the opportunity to join. Place all prospects who download the recipes but don’t join into a 7-step on line conversion program where they will receive an email referring to the original offer as well as present other benefits of membership. At the end of the program, all non-joining prospects will be placed into a quarterly promotion program and distributed to the appropriate county for follow up.
• Target Market: People looking for discounted tools
• Promotion Channels: Expired members; Google PPC (key words TBD)
• Offer: 150 Free Coupons
• Time Period: July 1 to October 31.

The key to any promotion or tactical program is being able to measure its effectiveness in accomplishing your overall goal. Understanding why prospects seek you out and what it takes to help them decide to buy is key to your business.

Good luck.