Now more than ever your membership is under threat with the squeeze on budgets. Members will be asking themselves ‘can I justify renewing my membership?’
However if you are considering any discounts or promotions beware. No price is cheap enough if you don’t see the value in what you are getting, equally a higher premium is more sustainable should your membership be truly valued.
Urgent attention should now be paid to quantify the value members gain from your membership, in order to personalise renewal journeys.
Knowing what members find valuable about your organisation is the first step. However, here lies a common trap. Not all members value the same aspects of membership. In fact the perception of value will differ somewhat between each member persona (i.e. a fictional profile representative of a cohort of members with similar characteristics and goals).
Let’s work through an example to bring this to life and show the different levels of maturity you might be at. Imagine two of your membership persona’s are Barbara (the CEO of a large business) and Jonathon (the Director of a start-up). And two of your benefits offered are lobbying on behalf of membership and providing business support (e.g. documentation or legal / HR advice).
Maturity Level 0 – Standard renewal journey across all personas
Lists all your major benefits and some of your mission critical key achievements from the last year.
Barbara – Is impressed with your big policy wins, but does not use many of the business support benefits listed as she has in house capabilities. She would really like assurance her organisation is fully utilising the membership benefits.
Jonathon – Is pleased you are representing his industry but is focused on surviving and paying his bills. He may not have noticed the business support benefits amongst more mission driven renewal content, or recall the number of times he has utilised them.
Maturity Level 1 – Standard renewal journey, unique for each persona
Highlights the specific benefits each persona is expected to value, alongside your key achievements.
Barbara – Is impressed with the big policy wins and is happy to see a summary of the key policy agenda for the next 12 months. She also gets information about the type of benefits other big businesses typically value.
Jonathon – Business support is presented as a key benefit with lots of detail on the value that can be gained. Other benefits smaller businesses tend to value are also called out. The overall mission is still mentioned but is not at the forefront of the messaging.
Maturity Level 3 – Personalised renewal journey, unique for each persona
Highlights benefits each persona will perceive valuable, but with data to demonstrate the actual value they attained last year.
Barbara – Is now assured knowing the number of staff who attended events in the last year and who engaged in discussion groups.
Jonathon – Is reminded he has accessed the business support services multiple times in the past year.
As you can see this leads to a much more compelling offer in terms of the price to value proposition, making it easier to maximise your income and secure your mission.
I know this may seem like an unattainable pipe dream. But I assure you with some readily accessible modern technology this is within everyone’s reach. You wont get to the ideal state overnight but by taking small steps now, you will soon realise it’s an achievable end, in a reasonable timeframe.
More critically it will help ensure your organisation endures to reach that goal in the future.
Spiderling Consulting specialise in helping membership organisations successfully leverage digital technologies to transform their member experience and business operations. Contact us to find out more.
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