Does Having Club Dues Increase Membership Retention

Member retention: It'south e'er on our minds, this twelvemonth more than than always. When your members face and so many competing demands for time, attention, and money, how do you plan to get them to stick around?

Renewal strategy is a critical component of revenue. When it'due south neglected, your clan risks undermining your financial health and your overall power to serve members long-term.

The 2021 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report asked associations why they recollect members don't renew. Do these answers look familiar?

50% of associations say it's because of alack of engagement with the arrangement
- Note: This number is growing – up from 41% in 2022 and 43% in 2022.
39% of associations discover it's considering ofa lack of value
- Note: This number jumped from 25% in 2022
33% of associations said it's because employer won't pay or stopped paying dues
31% of associations believe it's consideringmembers left the field, industry, or profession
29% of associations say it'south consideringmembers forgot to renew
28% of associations report thatmembers couldn't justify membership costs with any meaning ROI

If y'all're wondering how to assail the retention question this year, these stats are a pretty practiced indicator of where you should first. Based on this list, there are obviously some common problems that plague associations. While a poor retention rate is bad news, the good news is in that location are things yous can do about mostly every reason. Nosotros're non telling you these problems will be apace solved – they'll require serious attending from your association – but most of these canbe solved.

Let'south go through and address each upshot and how it can be fixed.

Reason #1: Lack of Engagement with the Organization

Engagement has a serious bear upon on retentiveness. According to the report,thebiggest reason members aren't renewing is because they don't feel engaged. Focus on improving existent engagement as a part of your membership renewal strategy, and you'll meet improved retentiveness.

Also? A reported 24% of associations do not take a tactical plan to increase date. If that's you, or even if youthink your members are pretty engaged, this is an area to focus on if you want your members to stick effectually.

Check out our tips on how to arts and crafts your winning member appointment strategy.

How to set it: Provide opportunities for members to engage

Yous desire to engage with your members – but they also want and need to engage with each other.

Give your members a way to connect with each other digitally: An online customs for your members helps yous appoint your members, by giving them a specialized space for connecting with both y'all and other members. Discussion threads, resource libraries, gamification rules, automation rules – these are merely a few of the born tools at your service to get members interested and describe them into participation. Meet how other associations used their communities to back up members during the pandemic.

How to gear up information technology: Make every outreach relevant

Adjacent, recognize that tackling fellow member appointment means asking yourself and your organization how you can create a relevant member experience. What is valuable to one member may matter very little to another. It's about finding out who they actually are, what they desire, and providing it to them at the right time.

Brand your communications personal: Employ automatic email campaigns to send more targeted, personal messages to all segments of your membership, increasing the effectiveness of your communications. Secondly, automate the membership renewal process and test your content to send more effective renewal notices, like the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists did.

With these types of powerful, information-driven tools at your fingertips, you're at present engaging members with highly relevant content that inspires them to appoint (since you're targeting them based on what you know they're interested in).

Don't miss our Guide: Reignite Your Member Engagement Strategy in 2022 .

Reason #ii & #six: Lack of Value or Unable to Justify Costs with Pregnant ROI

Allow's look at these together, since they've got similar root causes and solutions. Most 40% of members aren't renewing because they don't see value in paying for your organization. Since nosotros both know your clan offers amazing member benefits, the trouble may just be miscommunication.

Providing ROI to members entails a few fundamental communication needs:

You know what value members look from joining your organization.
You communicate where and when they can go what they want.
You make what they desire easily attainable.

How to fix it: Cover the common bases

Of form, there are a few buckets of "association membership value" you tin can generally await members want, such equally professional development, networking, advancement, or certification in the industry. From that perspective, hither are a few applied ways to provide more value to your members, using date tech:

Match each need with a tool:
- You know you lot take a network of amazing members that want to connect and mentoring each other. Give them a way to connect from anywhere in the world by developing a mentorship program through your online customs.
- If you have an excellent webinar series going on, give members an consequence calendar in your community where they can immediately see all the learning opportunities that are bachelor.
- If y'all offer incredible advancement power, connect with them through your community then they understand yous're accessible, then you take real fellow member stories to use in your advocacy efforts.

How to fix it: Meet individual needs

Merely how can yous know what members want, specifically, without undertaking a significant project where you ask each one individually and start catering to their unique requests?

Await at the data:With automated email campaigns, you can get together important engagement data. Your goal of providing members with relevant value is no longer based on guesswork or intense enquiry. Your content is based on existent, active data points that inform how you engage with them.
- For example, if a fellow member engages with your emails and visits pages on your website about a certification you offer, you can go on to nurture this interest past providing them with more than data in an email nurture campaign. You human activity on the cues they provide and share the content they want.

Review conversations:What are members talking almost in your online community? The American Order of Association Executives (ASAE) saw an increase in members' conversations around GDPR in their community, and so they were able to quickly provide something that was exactly what members were interested in.

Don't allow your members leave your association considering they don't take a clear understanding of the value yous offer. Brand certain you're communicating the value y'all offer that they want. This is a key piece of your membership renewal strategy.

Check out 8 irresistible member benefits you could offer this year.

Reasons #iii Employer Stopped Paying

Of the half dozen retention issues, this one will probably be the toughest for y'all to solve, since these reasons for non renewing are external. However, the best fashion to meet these kinds of retentiveness issues is to brand your association membershipso valuable that dropping it is out of the question, even during a tough time. (Unfortunately, when a member leaves the field – you lot likely won't be able to renew them. Then this is ane where the best cure is prevention!)

How to gear up information technology: Brand member success your top goal

One of your top goals to address leaving the field should be to provide members with the resources they need to succeed in the industry.

Make joining your association equivalent to becoming the best in the field,so members are empowered for success in the long term. Await to fellow member engagement tools to assist yous with this task. Higher Logic's online community software has networking tools, mentoring opportunities, learning direction systems, access to experts, etc. and members can build the network they need to be empowered and well-continued in the field.
Accept a robust marketing automation platform that allows you to provide relevant news on a consequent basis. In a recent written report, 93.iv% of associations surveyed by ASAE listed the nearly of import part of associations as "serving as a trusted source of information." Make sure your marketing automation platform can help you provide timely, targeted news to every segment of your member audience.

Overall, the best defense against this retentiveness upshot is going to be your engagement and value offense.

Reason #4: Member Left the Field, Industry, or Profession

Of the six retentiveness issues, this i will probably be the toughest for you to solve. If you can make your clan membershipand then valuable that dropping information technology is out of the question, even when yous're no longer in the industry (for example, retired people who want to stay connected), you may retain a few. However, you likely won't be able to renew them, which means you'll need to account for that in member recruitment to grow overall.

Reason #5: Forgot to Renew

No, no, no. Yous can't allow members forget that renewal is coming up. Lack of action on the part of the association (unless the member dropped off the face up of the earth and stopped checking any course of communication for three months) is the easiest consequence to control. Your members should decide not to renew for a relevant reason, not because you let them forget.

How to fix it: Notify members about renewal

Put renewal on auto-pilot:Perhaps your staff is as well decorated to notify each member well-nigh their renewal expiration, but if that's the case, you demand to adopt technology to assistance you streamline the membership renewal procedure. In one case you lot've created your amazing automated email entrada for renewal, you tin ready these renewal campaigns on annual autopilot.
- Automated campaigns take care of your repetitive tasks similar renewal reminder emails, and they're more efficient, too. Your staff volition salvage time that they can use to reach out to members and make those personal calls that make a difference for key members. See how the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists is using automated email campaigns to meliorate membership renewals.
Make your renewal entrada multi-channel. When it comes to engagement don't just rely on email. Showtime, not everyone will receive your emails, so make sure it's a multi-channel campaign. Y'all can try reaching out through your online customs, direct mail, social media, text messaging, you name it. Higher Logic'southward marketing automation software lets you set up entrada notifications then that staff knows when it'south fourth dimension to give a certain group of members a personal call.

Don't miss our eBook: Streamline Your Membership Renewal Process: Go From Outdated to Automated.

These automatic email campaigns will build on your engagement and value strategy. You're not just providing value to members, you lot're letting them know when they're about to miss out.

Your Membership Renewal Strategy is in Your Hands

Members deciding not to renew isn't a problem yous'll always solve once and for all, and retention is never 100%. But y'all tin can take control of the problem by addressing the tiptop reasons members don't renew.

Engaging your members, communicating your value, providing tools for fellow member success, and reminding your members about renewal are just some of the ways you can improve your retentivity rate.

Beth Arritt

Association Strategist

Beth's marketing feel encompasses more than twenty-five years of marketing strategy and fellow member/client engagement in diverse industries, including puzzles and games, training, instruction and aviation.

In improver to marketing, Beth has worked in event management and web development, wearing a variety of hats in unlike positions. She has too been an offshoot professor of marketing at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.

Beth received a Bachelor of Science degree in Merchandising from James Madison University, a Certificate in Outcome Management from The George Washington University, and a Masters of Business Administration/Marketing from the Academy of Phoenix. She has earned numerous awards for her marketing, including two Top Digital Marketer of the Year awards.

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