Every time a new member joins, it feels like a cause for celebration. Unfortunately, many associations find that keeping their members renewing is what proves difficult. Luckily, there are a host of membership retention best practices out there, all of which should help cut your membership churn rate — but you need to decide which ones to invest in.
Let’s look at why implementing membership retention best practices is so important and where you should focus your efforts.
The importance of member retention
For associations and societies, acquiring members is the (generally!) easy part. Convincing them to stay, however, can be tricky. The key is to provide value for your members, keeping them engaged and incentivizing them to renew their membership.
If someone makes the decision to become a member, then they’ve already bought into something your organization offers. That’s worth a lot. If they have a good ongoing experience with your association, it’s going to be much easier to keep them than to try to fill the spot they’ve left with someone else.
To put it simply, improving your member retention strategies can:
- Save your association money. Without a solid member retention rate, your association will spend more funds and resources recruiting new members, greatly increasing your overall costs.
- Improve your reputation. The more you focus on member retention, the better your association’s reputation for reliability and value.
- Increase positive referrals. If individuals are renewing their memberships, that means they enjoy being a part of your association. This will likely prompt them to recommend you to others, creating a virtuous cycle of membership growth.
5 membership retention best practices that work
The key to member retention is to make your association indispensable to members by providing value. That means everything from offering them the resources and guidance they need to advance their careers to providing them with networking, learning, and development opportunities on a regular basis.
Here’s a quick look at some of the top member retention best practices and strategies to help your association keep its membership ranks full.
1. Prioritize your career center
The best way to boost member retention at your association is with a full-service career center.
The value of career support and development is far greater than it’s ever been. According to Wiley’s 2020 Society Member Survey, 71% of non-members say they would join a society that supported their career, but less than half of the existing members surveyed were satisfied with the career support they received from associations.
Providing effective career support is vital to member satisfaction. The best way to retain members in this area is by operating a state-of-the-art career center.
A full-service career center can boost member engagement by offering useful career resources, growing membership through converting jobseekers into members, and boosting revenue through paid job listings or banner advertising.
With this platform in place, you can position your association as the top career resource in your industry for relevant professionals. With advanced career center technology, you can leverage everything from a user-friendly job board to valuable content to learning and development tools, ultimately boosting engagement and satisfaction to increase the likelihood of retention.
An improved career center also allows your association to provide added value for members, even when they’re not actively looking for a job, boosting member engagement and non-dues revenue in the process.
2. Ask your members what they want
This might seem obvious, but you’ll be amazed how many associations don’t check in with their members on an annual basis.
An online survey is the perfect way to get input easily and consistently. Ask questions about why people enjoy being members and where they’d like to see improvements. This will help you focus your efforts for the coming year. Repeat the survey every year to see how well you’ve done and what still needs addressing.
You’ll also get the inside scoop on their career goals, pain points, and needs. From there, you can turn this information into useful content, address their challenges, and better serve your members overall.
3. Offer upskilling resources and tools
Another member retention best practice is ensuring that your association offers your members the resources and tools they need to advance their careers.
That means providing learning and development tools, skill assessments, career advice content, industry news, relevant job listings, and other useful resources for your members to keep them engaged and satisfied with your services as an association. (Conveniently, career centers are a great way to provide just about all of these under one roof!)
Plus, don’t forget about conferences, career fairs, webinars, and other events. The more useful resources you offer your members, the more likely they are to renew their membership.
4. Create a place where members can socialize from anywhere
Networking and community engagement are high priorities for association members, so provide spaces that promote this activity to boost member retention. Associations and societies can easily create their own private online communities exclusively for their membership using software currently available.
While in-person events are great for networking, not everyone can attend them, particularly if your membership spans different countries. Online member communities are available 24/7 to everyone, everywhere.
If members form close peer-to-peer connections through your community, it gives them one more reason to stay with your association.
5. Communicate your value regularly
Oftentimes, members become disengaged with, and ultimately leave, associations because they don’t feel like they’re getting the value they need in exchange for their membership fees. A good way to work around this is to communicate your value to them on a regular basis.
First, craft a communications plan that could include a mix of channels, such as blog posts, newsletters, social media, and the like, to communicate industry news, updates, new resources and tools, and other useful content to your members. Using a content calendar is handy for this, as is sending out surveys to gauge your members’ communication preferences.
Next, put your plan into action to inform your members of what your association is doing and what value you’re bringing to them.
Finally, measure the results and tailor your strategy based on the data and member feedback. Are quarterly newsletters opened at high rates? Consider adding more content to them or turning them into monthly releases. Do your LinkedIn posts get good engagement? Prioritize your social media channels and address directly on your channels any questions or comments members have.
Implement a member retention strategy
Implementing all of the above retention best practices can help your association boost its value so it can improve member retention, lower costs, and bolster your ranks for years to come. As mentioned, having a full-service career center is crucial for your membership engagement efforts.
Madgex is the leading provider of expert career center services and job board software for associations like yours. Since 2000, we’ve helped countless associations and societies retain members, boost revenue, and expand to new audiences with our cutting-edge career center technology.
For more information, contact our expert team.