Member Engagement & Retention

Membership organisations are balancing two closely connected priorities: attracting new members while maintaining strong engagement with those already part of the community. The Digital Excellence Report 2026 reflects this balance. New member acquisition remains the top priority for many organisations, while member retention and satisfaction continue to rank among the most significant strategic challenges. [...]

A member who lapses at renewal did not decide to leave at renewal. They decided weeks or months earlier. The renewal date is just when the paperwork caught up. That is the mistake most organisations make with churn. They treat it as a renewal problem, something to fix with a well-timed email and a [...]

Membership marketing has never had more data. So why is it still so easy to get members wrong? You know how many members you have. You know your renewal rate. Your email open rates. Which events sell. Which web pages get traffic. You probably have dashboards capable of telling you things nobody thought to [...]

Most membership bodies and charities are fantastic at driving awareness. They invest heavily in a range of marketing channels  to get people  to visit their websites. But traffic on its own doesn't drive action. If your website leaks users, pushing more visitors into the funnel just inflates your cost per acquisition. Conversion Rate Optimisation [...]

Somewhere this month, one of your members will look at their bank statement and start cancelling subscriptions. The streaming service they forgot about. The app they opened twice. The gym they keep meaning to go back to. Each one gets a cold look and the same blunt question: what do I actually get for [...]

Membership organisations are rarely short of member feedback. Many of the organisations we work with tell us they can predict who will respond first when a survey or consultation opens. These are often highly engaged members who readily share their views at every opportunity. Their feedback can be valuable, but it can also create [...]

This is the second article in a two-part series on reporting community ROI to your board. Part one covered how to reframe your metrics in board language and structure your case with a logic model. This part covers which KPIs to track and how often to report them. Choose a small, repeatable set of [...]

For membership organisations, your website is often the most important touchpoint in the member journey. Whether someone is considering joining, renewing their membership or booking an event, their experience online can significantly influence how they perceive your organisation. In the most recent Digital Excellence report, by MemberWise, it found that “lack of/limited personalisation on [...]

For trade associations and membership organisations, a website is far more than an online brochure. It's often the first place prospective members go to learn about your organisation, the hub for member communications, and a powerful tool for supporting recruitment, engagement and retention. As member expectations continue to evolve, many organisations are reviewing whether [...]

Traffic is falling. Enquiries are slowing. Yet search rankings often look perfectly healthy. This is the pattern membership digital teams are reporting across the sector. The reaction is usually the same: look for a technical problem. Fix something. Publish more. The problem is not technical. And publishing more may be making it worse. Why [...]