How to use inbound marketing for member acquisition

We understand member acquisition is the lifeblood of a growing membership organisation. According to the recent MemberWise Digital Excellence Report, new member acquisition is one of the highest priorities for the membership sector.

This is why we recommend and implement inbound marketing services for our membership organisation clients, as we have seen first-hand how this strategy, based on providing real value for members is far more effective in increasing member acquisition than the more traditional outbound marketing tactics.

This is article one of a three-part series exploring inbound marketing for membership organisations where we will share our tips on how to utilise the many channels and tactics to drive your member acquisition strategy.

We have also merged the information from these articles into a helpful guide with all our tips on inbound marketing to increase member acquisition, which you can download here.

In this article we will cover

What is inbound marketing?
Benefits of inbound marketing
How to use inbound to drive member acquisition

What is inbound marketing?

A great definition of inbound marketing from HubSpot defines it as ‘Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers or members by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they do not always want, inbound marketing forms connections they are looking for and solves problems they already have.’

Whether you use the HubSpot flywheel methodology, or the more traditional marketing funnel, inbound marketing supports these approaches to help you drive market growth and revenue.

Benefits of inbound marketing

There are many great benefits from implementing an inbound marketing strategy, and here are a few of our top favourites.

Produces long lasting relevant content – allowing you to gain SEO impact and growth potential from this great content for years to come.
Generates target member leads – as your efforts are targeted to your ideal market and member, you will be attracting the right type of leads.
Builds brand awareness and authority – as you are communicating with your potential customers in a more engaging and relevant way your brand will stand out against your competition.
Cost effective and reduces your cost per lead – inbound leads costs 61% less on average than outbound leads making it a more cost-effective strategy.
Improves your EAT score – as the core of inbound is creating timely, engaging content and experience for your target audience this will help to build your online profile against the Google Expertise, Authority & Trust recommendations giving you better online visibility.

How can you use inbound marketing to drive member acquisition?

Inbound marketing utilises many marketing tactics and channels including content marketing, blogs, events, search engine optimisation (SEO), paid advertising, social media, email, marketing automation and more to create brand salience and attract new business.

In order to use inbound marketing effectively within your membership marketing strategy, you need to ensure you map the inbound tactics to your member acquisition and retention funnel placing appropriate weighting to the areas of the funnel where you need to make the highest impact.

Below is an example of a membership funnel mapped to the mindset of the member at each stage. Of course, your funnel stages may look different to this, as many of the organisations we have worked with have had slightly different funnels depending on the focus of their organisation.

Once you have your funnel mapped out, you will want to decide which inbound marketing channels and tactics to deploy to support your member acquisition targets.

We would also suggest in the planning stages of your inbound marketing strategy, that you map out your current conversion rates at each stage of the funnel. This will help you identify if there are any huge drop offs in members along the funnel. And if there are, then this allows you to focus your inbound efforts on that part of the funnel.

Inbound marketing support

We know creating and implementing an effective inbound marketing growth strategy can be a challenge, which is why we are here to help. We have supported many membership organisations with our inbound marketing continuous improvement services helping to increase member acquisition, retention, and drive growth. Get in touch today to see how we can support your organisation.

To read the full guide on how to use inbound marketing for member acquisition, visit our website where you can download your copy.