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The MemberClicks Blog

Knowing how to effectively manage your membership renewal timing can be a bit of a game.

When do start talking renewal?

How often do you reach out?

How do you reach out? (As in, what communication channels.)

It’s a bit of trial and error. Effectiveness can even differ from member to member! But, according to Marketing General Incorporated’s 2018 Membership Marketing Benchmark Report, there are a few statistics that we think point to an approach to hone your renewal process in on:

Renewal season is in FULL FORCE. But even though you knew it was coming, that doesn’t exactly make it easier. How can you bump up the chances that your members will actually renew?

Well there’s no guaranteed approach, but there are several best practices. Take a look!

You’ve heard of most valuable players. They’re the stars of a team; the ones who directly impact the team’s success. Well today, we’re talking about most valuable members.

How do you determine who your most valuable members are? For every organization, the answer varies. For some, they’re the members who’ve been around the longest. For others, they’re the members who are the most engaged (attend the most events, volunteer, hold a committee position, etc.).

Ever wish you could read your member’s thoughts to see what they REALLY thought of your association? Enter end-of-year surveys! Now is the time to get a quick view of what your members are looking for from your association next year.

Check out our short, but effective, end-of-year member survey that will help you determine what’s working and what’s not for your association.

If you’ve ever been to any Disney park, you KNOW they go above and beyond to provide an exceptional customer experience. What makes their approach so special is Cast Members (aka, park employees) are given the authority to go above and beyond for guests.

To give you an example of something I experienced personally: It was my son’s very first time at Disney World in Orlando, and he was SO excited to explore the Star Wars area. It was a particularly busy day, so when it came to meeting characters he had to choose between Kylo Ren and Chewbacca. He ended up choosing Kylo Ren because, as he informed us, he’s “his biggest fan.”

Afterward, we were looking at some of the movie props in the building when a Cast Member struck a conversation with my husband. When he mentioned that we didn’t have time to meet Chewie, the Cast Member simply said “Follow me,” and walked us straight to the front of the line! (True story, I have the pictures to prove it.)

This small act made all the difference for the then 7-year-old - and us, too! And it wouldn’t be difficult to apply some of the same principals at your association. What unexpected gestures can you do for members to show them that you care? We have some ideas:

If you’re like most chamber or association professionals, you may be inadvertently focusing on acquiring and engaging your current members without trying to actively retain them for the next season. To pick up your retention efforts, try making your renewal messages SO compelling that it’s obvious that they must renew!

That said, remember that there are a lot of ways your renewal messages could do more harm than good. To avoid this, check out our list of what NOT to do with your member renewal campaigns.

Trying to look into the future to see how you can be the most prepared in 2019? With the average age of the association workforce starting to shift toward the younger generations, it’s crucial that you’re considering what it will take to keep Millennials plugged into your association.

Check out these values that your association should focus on to keep association Millennials around in 2019.

Note: This post was originally published on 5/18/16; Updated 10/15/18 for added value.

Member satisfaction surveys are valuable for a number of reasons. They allow you to collect important feedback from your members, make improvements to your association (thus boosting engagement and retention), and at the most basic level, show your members you genuinely care about their thoughts and happiness.

Can’t really go wrong conducting something like that, can you? The key, though, is making sure you ask the right questions - questions that are going to get you the feedback you need to advance your association.

Not sure what to ask your member satisfaction survey? Here are 15 questions we highly recommend:

As a leader, you should always be trying to gain new perspectives on how to best engage with your team, otherwise your association might start to feel disconnected. The needs of your staff and members will be ever changing, so it’s in your advantage to try and keep ahead of the curb by continuing to evolve your leadership style.

Take a look at these three beneficial types of leadership that anyone can start incorporating into their association leadership today.

Remember how we mentioned that more and more Millennials will be entering the workforce? Well, it’s now estimated that by 2020 at least half of the adult workforce will be Millennials. That means it’s REALLY time for you to start adapting tasks in your association or risk being left in the dust of a new generation.

Let’s start with something simple: your association's meetings! Take a look at these four ways that you can immediately start making your meetings more appealing to the Millennial crowd.