How to generate an income for your membership organisation during a pandemic

As we approach 2021 the devastating impact of the Coronavirus pandemic continues to be felt by membership organisations around the world, and the need to look at creative and disruptive ways to generate income has become essential.

Take events for example. Some organisations have firmly found their feet in the virtual event space during 2020 while others held back, hoped to ride it out and get back to large-scale events by this autumn.

That didn’t happen.

What’s clear now is that riding it out isn’t an option for membership organisations and large-scale physical conferences and speaking events are unlikely to resume anytime soon. This means income previously generated from physical events needs replacing for memberships to not only survive but thrive.

DTW’s How to Generate an Income for your Membership Organisation During a Pandemic guide looks at specific tactics, but the key to survival is to go back to basic economics – find out what customers want and supply it!

This 4-step process will help you identify the right strategy for your organisation.

1. What do your customers need and want?

Your members and sponsors are your customers and you need to find out what your customers need and want right now. Call a few and ask for their advice.

Summarise what you think they need – what problem you think they are trying to solve – and ask if that’s right. If you focus on something your customers don’t care about and that isn’t of value to them, they won’t pay for it.

Once you understand what your members and sponsors need and want you can start creating tailored solutions, whether that is in training, events, qualifications/CPD opportunities or lead generation.

2. What quality are members prepared to pay for?

To monetise your offer to members you need to know what the quality expectation is, so extend your research to discussing quality.

Identify what quality levels are expected as standard where there is no charge to members, and what the expectation is once additional charges are incurred.

3. When and how do they want it?

Your members have told you what they need and want. They’ve told you their quality expectations. Now listen to them when they tell you when and how they want the solution. If you can’t provide the solution when and how they want it, it has no value.

For example, your members might want you to run a virtual digital marketing conference showcasing expert speakers from top digital marketing and technology companies. You know from your research that short bite-sized sessions are important to your members where they can pick and choose the sessions they are interested in.

However, this virtual event could be provided in many different ways: a full day event split into bite-sized sessions, an event spanning several days, a rolling programme of one-day a week evening sessions over a two-month period, on-demand sessions on personal member dashboards so they can tune in whenever it suits them… the list goes on.

Also, what platform should you use? Do you need a dedicated website?

4. What is the optimum price?

Customers are happy to pay for something they get value from. Think Netflix with 182 million members – members all pay a fee and keep their subscription because they feel they get value from it.

Your members and sponsors need to pay a price they are happy with – where they feel they get value – and you need a price that is profitable as an income generation stream. So do your research and select the optimum price.

Get the above right and your members and sponsors will be more than happy to pay for what you’re offering because, ultimately, they will reap the benefits.

DTW is an award-winning marketing and communications consultancy that specialises in work for membership organisations and regulatory bodies. To see how we can help you create brilliant campaigns aimed at your members or their customers, visit our website at www.dtw.co.uk or email [email protected].