In a previous blog, I posed the question Which is more important: gaining members or retaining them? In a bit of deflection, my answer was that there was another question you should ask first. (Intrigued? Check out the blog!)
In this blog, I want to answer the original question: Which is more important: gaining members or retaining them? In an ideal world, the answer is Both! But the world we live in is usually less than ideal. You may be working on implementing the suggestions I make in my previous blog, but you’re not there yet. In this world, where demands on your energy, time and sanity require you to chose between gaining and retaining members, the answer is It depends on your association. That might seem like another deflection, but it isn’t: Your association may be doing an awesome job attracting new members, but you’re struggling with getting them to renew. That means you need to focus on retaining. Or you might be rocking renewals but not succeeding at bringing in much new blood. That means you need to focus on gaining.
If you’re not doing a bang-up job of either, I generally recommend that you focus first on retaining members. Let’s talk about why.
Why Focus on Retaining Members First
There’s a lot of overlap in the activities you do to gain and retain members, because what makes an association membership attractive to a prospect is the same thing that keeps a member renewing year after year: value. We’ll talk more about that below.
But the reason that I recommend putting an emphasis on retaining members, over gaining members, is that they’re already in the house. As an association, you’ve done something to bring them in the door. They’ve filled out the form and paid their dues because they believe you have something to offer. Compare that to the money, time and energy you have to spend on spreading awareness about your association to your target market, and on nurturing and converting those prospects. It’s a bigger lift to get people to sign on the dotted line that first time than to reup once they’re already in.
That said, renewing isn’t a given. You have to give them a reason to stay, and that’s what we’re talking about here.
Let’s look at retaining members on two different levels: a basic level that is the minimum you need to do to foster renewals, and a deeper, expert level that supercharges your ability to retain members. I’ll also share why doing a great job at retaining members helps you gain them, too.
Level 1: The Basics of Retaining Members
The basics of retaining members is as easy as 1-2-3:
- Be welcoming.
- Make it easy to get involved.
- Make renewing easy.
1. Be welcoming.
I’m not talking about first impressions on new members. Of course, welcoming prospective and new members to meetings and events is vital, and you can learn more about being welcoming in general in my blog Leveling Up Your Member Engagement. But here I’m talking about a deeper level of welcome. The kind that helps members feel like they’re an important part of your association.
You achieve this by being welcoming in every interaction, with every member. Just because someone’s been a member for a while doesn’t mean they truly feel a part of your community. Recruit long-time, deeply engaged members to keep an eye out for people hanging out by themselves, to spend time getting to know them, and to introduce them to others. Help all of your members build the kinds of relationships that make them feel supported and valued.
2. Make it easy to get involved.
Some people are natural volunteers; when they join an organization, they look for opportunities to get involved right away. Others only get involved once they get to know a few people and feel that they’ve gotten value from the organization. Some people like to jump right in, volunteering for big projects; others want to dip a toe in and test the waters. Accommodate all of these different approaches by making it easy to get involved. Make sure you have volunteer opportunities of varying commitment levels, especially what we might call entry-level activities: activities that are easy to do and short-term.
Then communicate, communicate, communicate. I find that many members don’t know what opportunities are out there or how to volunteer. Make announcements in meetings; highlight opportunities in newsletters and emails; ask volunteers to give testimonials about why they love volunteering; reach out to specific members in person to invite them to participate.
And of course, be appreciative. Recognize volunteers for their great work.
Read more about making it easy and fun to volunteer in that same blog I talked about earlier, Leveling Up Your Member Engagement.
3. Make renewing easy.
Do your members know when their renewal is coming up? Are there any barriers in their way that make renewal frustrating, opaque or even mildly annoying? Please fix those now; after the hard work you put into making membership valuable to your members, the last thing you want is for them to not renew because they didn’t get a reminder or because renewal is too complex or time-consuming.
If you think this might be a problem for your association, please check out my blog Tap Into the Power of Processes for Your Business and Association to learn how to design and implement a process that works.
Level 2: Supercharging Retention
The basics we’ve been talking about are the foundation, not just of retaining members but of building a strong culture for your association where your members feel part of a supportive community. Please don’t neglect those or the other steps I talk about in Leveling Up Your Member Engagement. They are essential to a healthy, growing association. But if you really want to supercharge retention, you have to do something even more valuable to your members: You have to help them be successful in their business.
Let me share a story: Back in the day, I ran a Business Network International® (BNI) association. Our promise to our members was that they would get more referrals by being part of our association. What I learned pretty quickly was that referrals don’t always lead to closed business. Referrals that didn’t lead to closed business didn’t help our members be successful in their business. And what happened if membership didn’t help our members be successful in their business? They left.
What I realized was that my job—BNI’s job—wasn’t to create an environment for referrals to happen. It was to help my members make money. BNI did that by focusing on referrals, but we had to make sure those referrals were high-quality and highly likely to lead to closed business. And we did. In just six years, I grew my Central Virginia BNI franchise from 0 members to 1,600 members. My BNI was ranked 17 out of 200 nationwide. I was the first—and still only—area director to be inducted into the BNI Hall of Fame.
Let me repeat it, because it’s so important: The #1 thing your members want is to be successful in their business. Period.
How you help them do that will depend on your association and your members. All of the key components I’ve talked about before can be a part of that: a supportive community; continuing education; networking opportunities; lobbying for friendly legislation. But all of that has to result in actual business for your members. If it doesn’t, they won’t be members for long.
Helping Your Members Be Successful In Business
How do you help your members be successful in their business?
- Have the mindset that that’s what you’re doing. Make their success your job.
- Truly understand what your members need, and what their business needs to succeed.
- Build your programming and membership benefits around making sure you’re meeting those needs.
When you help your members be successful, your association will be successful, not just in retaining the great members you have but also in gaining more of the kind of members who will help you grow and thrive.
A Quick Sidebar on “Captive” Members
Before we talk about why retaining members helps you gain members, I want to take a minute to address the concept of associations who have what I call “captive” members. These are associations whose members are required to join because of industry regulations or in order to access vital industry resources. One example is Realtors. In order to get access to the MLS, Realtors have to join their local association; they can’t to do their jobs without it. In situations like these, there can be a tendency for associations to take renewals for granted. After all, if you want to operate in the industry, you have to join. Keeping members is a breeze, right?
Not exactly. Let’s go back to our example. In the real estate industry, 65% of Realtors fail. They don’t sell enough properties to make a living, so they close up shop and go do something else. You might think that enough new members come in to balance out the members you lose, and maybe they do. But what if those members didn’t fail? What if your association helped them succeed in business, so they stayed open and stayed members? Members who are successful in their business become more invested in your association; they appreciate the great value you’re delivering, so they get involved and help you deliver even greater value. They even help you gain new members more easily and cost-effectively than any membership drive ever could.
Why Retaining Members Helps You Gain Members
When you focus on retaining members by delivering on the basics but also by helping them be successful in their business, you do more than retain members: You create an amazing recruitment force. The same way that customers who are wowed by service will spread the word and bring in new customers for a business, members who are wowed by the way you help them build their business will spread the word in your industry. They will bring in new members who want to experience that great value for themselves and their businesses.
When you focus on the success of your members, you start to enter that ideal world we talked about above, where you can gain and retain members at the same time.
Bringing It All Together to Retain Members
When we talk about how to retain members, the basics are essential: being welcoming in all interactions and helping members feel like part of your community; making it easy to get involved by offering a wide variety of volunteer opportunities and ensuring your members know how to get involved; and making renewing easy by having a process that works.
But the secret to truly supercharging retention is to help your members be successful in their business. How you do that will depend on your association and the needs and wants of your members. If you’d like to learn more about how to discover the specific needs and wants of your members so you can help them be successful in their business, please
