When it comes to effective membership management, every membership organisation will generally agree that it’s no walk in the park.
Keeping members of all ages, who are at differing stages of the member lifecycle and who all have their own communication preferences engaged at all times is a huge challenge. And that’s before you look to grow your membership through member acquisition.
If you’re reading this, then you don’t need me to tell you that membership retention is incredibly important. An article in Forbes included statistics revealing that a five per cent increase in customer retention can lead to a profit increase of 25 to 95 per cent. So, keeping your existing members certainly pays.
The secrets of membership retention success
Our CRM solutions are designed specifically for membership organisations, and we’ve seen an array of approaches from membership organisations of all sizes.
From a content perspective, here’s what we’ve learned..
Get the best CRM system that you can afford
It may sound a little obvious coming from a CRM solutions supplier, but it’s true. CRM is now an essential tool for membership organisations for the simple fact that it’s the digital fabric on which everything else should be built. A good CRM solution allows you to quickly and easily profile each and every member and then tailor content to suit them. Through automation and multi-channel communications campaigns, you can continually keep your members informed, enthused and engaged in a way that simply wasn’t possible only a few years ago.
Content is king (but engagement is queen)
No, it’s not one of ours but a quote made social media leader Mari Smith. And we agree. Of course, producing the right content for the right audience is pivotal in retaining your members. But if you spend time producing content and then proceed to give it all away in one hit, you’ve missed out on multiple opportunities to engage with your audience. So, build it up, break it down and serialise it in a way that any TV programme, radio show or blog would look to do. Producing content is the hard part. Thanks to the latest membership management software, distributing content on a regular basis is easy to do. Who knows, maybe your members will look forward to that regular Friday dispatch!
Don’t be shy
A drop in activity, whether that’s through a lack of event promotion or you simply haven’t communicated with your members in some time, runs the risk of your membership questioning the value you’re adding. One way to avoid this is to not give your members any reason to question it. If you’re using a CRM system effectively, then you’re communicating messages that resonate with your audience, at a frequency that’s not alienating (or irritating) your audience, using channels that your audience likes to use. Thankfully, with a CRM system, this is straightforward and allows you to be accurate, timely and relevant – and in only a few clicks.
Listen up
Whether your membership organisation has 500 or 500,000 members, take the time to find out what they want. If they want to receive more updates, then wouldn’t it be nice (if not mission critical) to know. Equally, speaking with your members may reveal that dialling down the amount of content you send each month is probably for the best. Regardless of whether more or less communication is required, taking the time to find out could mean the difference between keeping and losing a member. Whilst we don’t want to overdo the references to membership management systems, this rapidly advancing technology makes finding out important information quick and easy to do.
Need a hand with fine tuning your CRM strategy using the latest in digital technology? For advice contact our team of experts here.
