Author: Rich Gott, Founder of the Memberwise Network

In this blog article, we investigate why your website is key to improving new member acquisition.

Get in the mind of your prospective online members

In an increasingly virtual world many prospective new members will find out about your organisation either by searching for and/or visiting your organisation’s website direct. It will almost certainly be their gateway into membership. When they visit your website let’s consider what is in their minds:

– This membership organisation may be relevant/of interest to me
– I want to find out more now
– I expect to see a clear online and offline member value proposition (MVP)
– If I see value I want to join online now and I want immediate access to content
– If I don’t see value I will either seek an alternative or not bother

For many organisations this critical online membership journey needs optimising and has not sufficiently considered/mapped.

Call to action 1 –  consider the online joining journey and evaluate if it has been truly optimised

In the first instance it might be helpful to consider your website as a shop. The shop needs to have a window and prospective shoppers (prospective members) need to be tempted to come inside via rich content, tempting hooks, incentives and clear/intuitive navigation.

The shop door (online joining/payment processing) needs to be open and once inside (following successful online joining) the shelves need to be well-stocked (I.e. content needs to be immediately accessible and tempting/of interest).

Move away from promoting member outputs (benefits) and consider positive member outcomes instead

Many organisations use practical case studies to enable prospective members to establish the value of membership. These case studies ordinarily mirror key member personas and are much more powerful than listing member benefits alone (member outputs). The key is to clearly and concisely communicate one or more positive member outcomes as this membership marketing approach is much stronger.

Case Study: The Caravan and Motorhome Club – In 2017 the Caravan Club rebranded to The Caravan and Motorhome Club and had a radical change from member outputs (benefits) to outcomes. As an organisation they shifted focus from ‘we are a club for people who own caravans’ to ‘we are club that enable our members to go on adventures’. This is a much more powerful approach and this will impact positively on new member acquisition.

Consider the online joining process & opt-out payment options

It is important for the online joining process to be clear, simple and straightforward. The online journey requires clear instructions and a growing number of membership organisations are using illustrations/videos/images to prospective members to join.

Two thirds of membership organisations have their websites connected directly to their CRM (membership database) and this can help massively with the online joining process/administration. It can also be the reason why online joining journeys for some organisations can be clunky and unintuitive. In real terms this will impact on the number of abandonments and you need to actively work to reduce these.

A number of membership organisations are now providing live web-chat functionality that can be accessed by the joiner at any stage of the online joining process.  Some organisations are now actively tracking online joiner behaviour. E.g. if the user starts to move their mouse to the top-left of the screen relatively quickly this may indicate a potential exit (I.e. pre-empting the browser screen being closed) and so ‘Can we help?’ is displayed. Similar content may also be displayed if there is a level of inactivity on an online joining page/form.

Critical to the online joining process is online payment functionality and it is now industry-standard for the joiner to have the option to pay either via debit/credit card, Direct Debit or offline via invoice.

Call to action 2- Consider your online subscription payment options & consider opt-out payment options

Opt-out membership subscription payment options will massively help existing member acquisition, so this option should be provided as ‘the way to pay’. Many organisations also provide the opportunity for members to pay in recurring monthly/quarterly payments.