We’re now midway through the year and it feels right to revisit the Membership & Association Sector’s 7 Key Priorities identified at the start of the year.
These key priories were established via the statistically significant findings contained in the Digital Excellence 2019 Survey Summary Report (free to download via our online professional community, MemberWise Connect).
Increasing Member Engagement is our key priority and this has been so since 2016 when ‘Increasing New Member Acquisition was previously at the top of all our agendas. It’s interesting to note that this is still so for Association CEO’s, however that is an article for another day!
There is no real surprise that member retention and satisfaction features highly, however if you’ve attended any of our recent best practice seminars and national conferences you will be aware that we’re championing the improvement/enhancement of member value and asking membership bodies to prioritise this more highly. We think it should be higher than No 5!
Recommendation: Download the MemberWise Member Value 2025 Resource (#MV2025) if you are looking to enhance member value. It is free (delivered in partnership with Silverbear and Cantarus) and hosted on our popular Member Value and Engagement Hub – www.memberwise.org.uk/hub
Growing subscription fee income is a sensible priority and so is looking to de-risk this by deriving more income from non-subscription fee related sources.
Many successful membership bodies have completely refreshed product/services and improved online member/non-member purchasing journeys in alignment with this goal. However we have noticed a worrying growth in ‘magic money tree’ ideas that have not been linked to core member value propositions (MVP) and/or been rushed, ill thought through and not resourced properly. We will be writing more about this later in the year!
Your call to action is to review your Key Goals for the second half of 2019 (and beyond) and consider if the 7 Key Priorities identified above either do or should feature as part of your medium to long term planning.
What is the role and purpose of the MemberWise Network?
As the leading free professional network for membership and association professionals we support 5,000+ professionals working in over 2,000 medium/large membership organisations and associations. 2/3rds of our members work within medium/large professional bodies (individual membership) and 1/3 represent leading trade associations (corporate membership).
The network enables membership and association professionals to:
– Increase new member acquisition
– Improve existing member retention
– Optimise and develop member engagement
– Enhance member value
– Facilitate greater member participation
– Enable sustainable long-term growth
This is achieved via practical tools and resources including our comprehensive website (www.memberwise.org.uk), our growing programme of conferences and seminars, our thriving online community (MemberWise Connect), the MemberWise Video Channel, MemberWise Recognised Supplier Directory, membership sector research reports & publications, monthly newsletter and Jobs Board.
These resources are supplemented by a range of advisory, consultancy and membership focused training services (view membership body case studies/clients).
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