Earlier this month, I had the tremendous opportunity to sit down with associations consultant Mary Byers and contribute to her conversation on Momentum: Where to Get It & How to Keep It. Mary and I have had the opportunity to discuss several of these topics in a variety of settings over the past two years and they are very relevant to the research that we are conducting with our associations clients.
The first topic was about telling your association’s story in one sentence or less. In terms of member engagement, this is critical! One of the outcomes of engagement is a willingness to recommend membership to a non-member. Put this in terms of your leaders or other strongly engaged members: they’re willing to speak positively about you, but are they accurately describing why you exist, what you offer, and how you can help prospective members? Is the message consistent? If not, are incorrect or inappropriate expectations of membership setting up newly-recruited members for failure or churn?
In the second topic, Mary described the concept of purposeful abandonment and transient competitive advantage. This is also relevant to member research! When we talk about the drivers of member engagement, we’re referencing them at a moment in time. What might have an impact on member relationships today does not necessarily mean it will have the same impact tomorrow, a month from now, or a year from now. In part, this has to do with changes in members’ environments. It also has to do with how perceptions change over time, especially relative to other alternatives in the market. Your competitive advantages may not change as quickly as they would in the for-profit world, but they are changing at an increasing rate.
Finally, the third topic was our conversation about “right-sizing” your membership. I’m having more of these conversations with association leaders than I was five years ago. Even before the Great Recession, membership organizations were seeing stagnant or negative growth in terms of membership counts. For some organizations, the “solution” was to open up membership to international members, not considering the ramifications that the business model and value proposition would be perceived differently than in the U.S.
For some, it was expanding into new market segments, once again not considering that the new markets may have needs, expectations, and preferences that the current model was built to deliver. This has led to unanticipated challenges for many of these associations, with an inability (or not-so-cost-effective way) to reverse the decision. This is where research can identify who your most engaged members are and how to target your recruiting efforts to penetrating more of those markets; identifying who your least engaged members are and how to potentially avoid recruiting them (unless their needs and expectations are more completely understood).
It is well worth the investment of time to watch or listen to the recording of the livestream (linked below) at your convenience. How are you thinking about “right-sizing” your membership? Call, e-mail, or share with us on social media. We’re always interested in hearing what other organizations are considering or doing!
Click here to access the recording of the 1-hour livestream event!