If you’re a membership professional at an association, you already know how challenging it is to drive sustainable membership growth.
Despite the fact that association membership is still in an impressive post-pandemic rebound, according to MGI’s 2022 Membership Marketing Benchmark Report, economic uncertainty and barriers to member communication pose persistent challenges, and future success will depend on innovative approaches to member acquisition, communication, and retention.
With this in mind, it is vitally important for associations to start thinking creatively about more effective approaches to acquiring and retaining their members. While there are many ways to grow your association or society’s membership, in our increasingly connected world, innovative digital strategies can be particularly useful.
From launching an online referral program to spearheading a content marketing strategy and upping your social media game, here are five ways digital can help you grow your association’s membership:
Launch a Digital Referral Program
According to MGI’s 2022 benchmarking report, “word-of-mouth recommendations” are the number 1 most effective member recruitment strategy. This is no surprise, considering that 9 out 10 customers trust peer recommendations.
Now the question is: how can you harness digital to increase your word-of-mouth recommendations?
The answer lies in a digital referral program. Famously leveraged by fast-growing companies like Slack, Dropbox, Uber, and Airbnb, a referral program is an approach to growth “that seeks to encourage existing customers to recommend a brand to their friends, family and colleagues....it seeks to supercharge natural or latent word of mouth with easy to use sharing tools and referral rewards.”
A digital referral program doesn’t need to be complicated to set up - in fact, a simple “refer a friend” online form can allow you to collect information about new potential members from your current ones!
You can also initiate referral incentives, such as:
Membership discounts to members who refer others who join
Loyalty points to apply towards conference fees
Free or discounted guest passes to meetings and events - Learn more about digital guest passes.
In short, digital can help you reach the full potential of word-of-mouth recommendations, enabling you to grow your membership at an accelerated pace.
→ Further Reading: Maximizing Your Network Potential: Boosting Membership Through Digital Peer-to-Peer Referrals
Use Virtual Events and Meetings.
While word-of-mouth recommendations remain the number one channel for associations to gain new members, “association-sponsored events/meetings” are also among the top three most effective modes of member recruitment.
Unfortunately, the hassle of traveling and logistics, not to mention the lingering threat of COVID-19, may make in-person gatherings inaccessible to potential members.
That’s where digital comes in. In our online world, virtual events can have a lower barrier to participation and enable your association to reach an entirely new market of possible members. During the pandemic, a whopping 83% of associations observed higher participation in their webinars, and 57% reported an uptick in participation at virtual professional development meetings, suggesting a high demand and interest in virtual meetings and events.
Additionally, virtual events can yield significant savings on traditional event costs like space rentals and catering.
By continuing to offer high-quality virtual events, your association has the potential to attract even more members than you have through traditional in-person events.
Leverage Content Marketing
Content marketing is an approach that has become common in the commercial sector, but remains underutilized in the nonprofit world. Just what is it? According to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.”
Currently, only 11% of associations cite this as a top channel they’re using to recruit members, which represents significant untapped potential. Especially with the explosion of digital content produced by associations in the pandemic era, organizations may consider mobilizing online professional development resources, webinars, and other types of valuable digital materials in service of a content marketing strategy.
In particular, taking advantage of gated content (which is only accessible after someone provides their contact information) may be especially useful in identifying and capturing the emails and phone numbers of membership prospects. In a world where “difficulty identifying/contacting prospects” is among the top three biggest challenges that associations face to growing membership, a content marketing strategy that employs gated content could be a game changer.
Consider an Online Membership Tier or Level
Since the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic, many associations have found unprecedented success translating membership benefits into digital formats and engaging members online.
This has prompted many membership organizations, like museums, societies, and associations, to create some type of virtual membership tier or level.
Much like “individual,” “associate,” or “student” level memberships guarantee access to certain benefits, online or virtual membership tiers are premised upon exclusive access to digital benefits and content. For many organizations, virtual memberships can be priced lower than traditional memberships, making them a compelling and financially accessible way to introduce new members to your association. Often, virtual memberships serve as “starter” or “feeder” programs to build loyalty with new members.
Despite their perks, as of 2020, only 5% of associations offered any type of online membership.
If you need some inspiration to start your own online program, the American Society of Baking has a virtual membership which offers “wholesale baking professionals the ability to digitally network with thought leaders, stay connected with industry peers, and meet future collaborators,” and also includes “unlimited access to Coffee Breaks, Cocktail Hour and Trivia Nights, Table of 10, Online Resource Library and E-Member Directory.”
The Indiana Society of Association Executives also offers a virtual membership level, which includes access to online publications, discounted rates for webinars, access to an online library of exclusive educational content, and more!
Since so many associations are already producing digital resources, creating a low-cost, low-stakes membership level premised upon online access can be an highly effective way to recruit new members. Once you get them in the door, you have a significant opportunity to nurture them to become higher level members over the long term.
Encourage Social Media Amplification from Your Existing Members
In 2022, most membership organizations already utilize social media. According to MGI’s report, 90% of associations use Facebook, 82% use Twitter, and 79% use Linkedin. Additionally, “an invitation to like/follow social media pages” has become the third most popular approach to onboarding and engaging new members - now deployed by 45% of associations.
Although social media has become widespread across associations, many still think of it primarily as a tool to engage current members, rather than to recruit new members.
It is generally true that it is more time-consuming and expensive to acquire a new member than it is to secure a renewal, and existing member value is higher than that of new members. At the same time, the reality is that growth requires the addition of new members and that the most successful organizations have shown higher investment in new member outreach.
And, despite the general rule that the time and cost of pursuing acquisitions results in a lower ROI when compared to existing member renewals, according to MGI’s Membership Benchmarking Report, association membership growth in the past year was overwhelmingly driven by new member conversions.
One of the best ways to tap into the full potential of social media is to encourage your members to amplify your social media presence through sharing and reposting. Your members are most likely connected with their like-minded colleagues, friends, and acquaintances on social media, particularly on professional platforms like Linkedin. Those like-minded individuals are all potential members at your association.
By asking your members to amplify your social media posts, you can significantly improve your reach in your target markets.
You may also consider creating a more formal social media amplification strategy, such as an advocacy marketing or social media ambassador program. With such an approach, your most enthusiastic members can receive content via email in advance, and they can share that on their personal social media accounts (which typically have higher organic reach than brand-owned accounts).
At alumni associations, this is an increasingly popular strategy. For example, the University of Georgia has initiated a “Digital Dawgs” social media ambassador program to enable select UGA alumni to serve as digital evangelists for the university:
“Digital Dawgs are UGA social media ambassadors who share news and information on their social networks (Facebook / LinkedIn / Twitter). Periodically, we email our Digital Dawgs content (a link with a custom caption developed for social media), and they have the opportunity to customize the message and share it to their social networks. This helps amplify important messages and enables us to reach an audience that may be disengaged with the University of Georgia but connected to a Digital Dawg through social media.”
Social media amplification can also be an important metric of your organization’s success. This is already common in alumni relations, where 59% of alumni organizations use social media amplification as a critical measure of alumni engagement, according to the 2020 Alumni Relations Benchmarking Study.
There you have it - five ways digital can help you grow your association’s membership! As you work to recruit new members, tools like Digital Membership Cards can be critical to streamlining the membership fulfillment and onboarding processes (for example, Anne Springs Close Greenway grew their membership from 7,100 to over 12,000 in just six months, using digital cards to facilitate this rapid expansion!)
If you’re looking to learn more about digital tools to improve your membership processes, don’t hesitate to reach out to Cuseum today.