New Member Sales

By Pam Sefrino, WebLink Director of Sales, Northeast Region (formerly with Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce)

 

In this tough economic climate, member retention rates are falling and even long-time chamber members are scrutinizing every dollar they spend and looking at the return on their annual membership investment. What are you doing to ensure that renewing membership in your chamber is an easy decision, even when belts are being tightened?

No longer are chamber professionals able to get...

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I recently got my new ATM card in the mail from my bank (Citibank) because the old one will be expiring soon.  No big deal...this happens all the time, right?

The card was attached to the letter/insert as normal. But the insert said "WELCOME" in huge letters, as if I were new to Citibank and this was my first card ever.  But, they KNOW that I've had this account for more than 10 years and they KNOW this was just a renewal card.  So, why did they treat me as though I were new?   Is it that hard...

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Most chambers of commerce and business associations are taking advantage email newsletters in order to keep members informed, increase member satisfaction, improve member retention and even generate new member sales.   In fact, some organizations have eliminated printed newsletters altogether.   Many of our clients create templates in their membership management software to make sending newsletters even easier.  Or they use an email marketing service like ExactTarget.

Because the staffs...

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Many member-based organizations post PDFs to their website to create extensive resources for their members and/or site visitors.   Did you know there are ways to use the PDFs to help increase search traffic on your site?

Marketing Sherpa has a great guide called "How to Optimize Your PDFs to Increase Search Traffic."  (Membership required, but you can quickly get a free trial.)  The first tip could be an obstacle for many chambers of commerce, business associations and other not-for-profits - use...

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How are your members helping you retain them?    Are you collecting member intelligence from them when they join that will help you improve your member retention?

First, remember that gathering data to keep in your member management software is the key to getting good member intelligence.  And where is the first place you usually start collecting data from your members?  Your membership application.

Alter your membership application to include the information you always wished you could get from...

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Our clients and prospects continue to ask about blogging.  Should we blog? How do we blog? What would we blog about?  How will it benefit us and our members?    I’ll get into more detail below, but first let me say “YES,” chambers should blog. 

1.    Communication that engages your members.   Just a few years ago, we were saying “every chamber needs a website.”  Now it’s “every chamber needs blog.”   Your current members are becoming more tech savvy every day.  And, the young professionals you hope...

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Part 1 of this two-part post dealt with gaining member intelligence by tracking drop reasons.  Part 2 will deal with Additional Potential Lost Revenue.

You’re at the monthly board meeting and you just handed out the dropped report listing all the past month’s dropped members and what they were paying in dues.  Sure, you’ve just lost those members’ dues for next year, but what other revenue could you be missing?  

Did those members sponsor any events?  Did their employees attend any events?  Did...

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What can you learn from dropped members?   Plenty!  IF you track and report on just a few items in your membership management software.   For this post, we’ll consider“dropped” members as members that have cancelled their membership or those who you’ve dropped because they haven’t renewed their dues.  (You are dropping them after they are past due, aren’t you?  You should be!)

This two-part post will first deal with Drop Reasons.  Part 2 will deal with Additional Potential Lost Revenue.

Drop...

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No, segments are not just something you get from oranges and grapefruit.  Hopefully, you're able to segment your membership in your member management software or reports. 

Why is segmenting your membership important?  By grouping your members into segments you can see how they relate to each other and even how valuable they are to your organization. 

How should you segement your members?   Any way that can help you gain insight into how a group is valuable to your organization.  Some examples are:

• N...

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Here's a great post talking about how blogging isn't going away soon.  Some key stats from the article:

• 77% of active Internet users read blogs.  I'd wager that a good percentage of your members (and prospects) are active Internet users.
• 46% of bloggers are professionals.  That means that over 50% of the 184 million+ blogs out there are written by people with other jobs, just like you.

Your organization already has a following, offers certain benefits and certainly has something to say about the...

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We're hearing a lot of talk among chambers of commerce about using Web 2.0 services and engaging your members with social media. First, what is Web 2.0?  Web 2.0 represents the changing of websites from providing information or e-commerce to interactive, collaborative, engaging communities.   Examples include social networking sites, blogs, wikis and photo-video sharing sites where visitors participate in the content generated and the “experience”.

Second, should chambers use social media?  After...

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Check out the Maryland State Chamber of Commerce blog, run by Will Burns.  It's got several things going for it:

• It's updated frequently, at least once every few days; sometimes, multiple times per day
• The headlines are concise and spark interest
• The content is relevant to their members/audience
• The posts are well written and explain the chamber's position on issues
• There are links to additional pertinent resources or information

Pay particular attention to the headlines that "take credit"...

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How can technology help member-based organizations with marketing during tough economic times?    By Blogging and employing SEO. 

Chris Baggott from Compendium recently posted about a new study by TopRank that asked over 400 marketers about their marketing plans for the next 6 months. The question was: "What 3 internet marketing tactics will you emphasize most in the next 6 months?"

Number one answer across the board was SEO followed,  by blogging as a close second (36%&33% respectively)  

“Corpora...

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During my presentations at chamber and association conferences, I talk quite a bit about technology for member-based organizations. Frequently, websites are a main topic.  I usually cover streamlining the look and feel of your site, making it easy for the site visitors to find information and have a good first (or eightieth) experience.

Here's a site that doesn't quite manage that.    OK, when your eyes come back to normal, now think about sites that you find easy to use.  What do they have in...

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Your website is a membership sales person whether you know it or not and it’s probably the best ‘employee’ you have.  Never calls in sick, never asks for a raise and lets you know everything that is going on.

The first two are simple to understand, but the third point can be confusing.  How does your website tell you anything?  By leveraging the web analytics, or web stats, from your website you can tell a LOT about what is going with your organization and what your users are looking for.

By using...

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I'm sure you know how much each member pays you in dues each year.  But, can you somewhat easily find what other revenue each member brings to your organization?    Can you calculate, on average, what each member pays your organization over the life of their membership?

In other words, do you know who the most (and least) valuable members are?   

If you can find this, it can open a whole new world of member recruitment and retention.  You can begin to show that members in a certain demographic are...

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This is the first post on the brand new WebLink International blog.  Our intent is to use this blog to deliver best practices for marketing and managing member-based organizations through technology, including membership management software, websites and releated services.

We'll post information on how to use your member database to find member intelligence, increase new member sales, generate non-dues revenue and more. 

There is a shift in association management sofware packages as well as...Read More » »