Membership drives are a great way to recruit and retain members. They are particularly important if your current focus is to raise funds and keep your association in the black.
To make the best use of your time and energy, you will want to plan your recruitment efforts strategically.
With a few simple steps, you can brainstorm membership drive ideas that will draw new members into your association and keep them there.
Best of all, Impexium’s premium AMS software can help make this process smooth and easy.
You’ll be adding new members before you know it.
A membership drive is a planned, strategic, limited-time campaign during which you intentionally grow your network by adding new members to your association.
By setting clear goals and knowing exactly who you’re trying to attract, you can craft an effective campaign that brings people in and keeps them there for the long haul.
As the old saying goes, if you aim at nothing, you’ll be sure to hit it. Before launching a campaign, always make sure you have an organized plan in place.
If you haven’t run a successful membership drive before, these three steps can help you get started.
Before you plan a campaign for membership growth, you must know exactly who you’re trying to attract.
In other words, who are your ideal members?
You can determine this by using your current data.
Analyze your current core members for clues about who your association is primarily serving. This gives you an idea of exactly who your target audience is, and who is already bringing the most money into your organization.
There are plenty of ways to segment audiences within your organization’s members. Some key demographics to target may include:
Of course, depending on the nature of your particular organization, there may be other aspects of your association membership to analyze as well. Take a moment to note what they are and be sure to factor them into your data analysis.
The good news is that Impexiuim’s powerful analytical tools can create easy-to-understand visualizations to help you target your key demographic fast.
Once you know exactly who you want to base your drive ideas around, you can create tangible goals to guide your campaign.
Here at Impexium, we recommend that you always create SMART goals for your membership drives.
SMART goals get their name from an acronym.
The term SMART stands for goals that are:
Writing goals with these aspects in mind will not only help you set clear expectations for your recruitment drive but also measure how successful it has been.
Setting your SMART goal will give you and your team criteria by which you can craft and refine your membership drive ideas, simplifying the next step exponentially.
It’s important to remember that when it comes to membership drive ideas, there is no one-size-fits-all plan.
The best ideas will always be the ones that best suit the demographic of the people you’re trying to attract.
For example
And don’t forget to think outside the box!
Every year, design studio Fell and Fair Productions hosts live, immersive fantasy-themed events such as their Hobbit Day Party held in Greenville, South Carolina.
Whimsical events like these not only attract like-minded people from around the region, but the buzz around the online content they create at the event also helps them expand their network nationally and even internationally throughout the year.
Take what you know about your ideal members and what sort of approach might best meet them where they are. You can begin to sort through membership drive ideas and hone in on the one that will work best for you and your association.
Create a limited-time offer during which someone can join your association at a steep discount.
There are various ways to set this up.
The short-term nature of such offers will motivate new members to join during your membership drive, increasing your membership and helping you meet the time-sensitive portion of your SMART goal.
The best connections to new members can often be found through your current members.
Create a system by which you can easily gather and pursue referrals from current members. (By relying on automation tools, you can even make this process feel automatic!)
With this plan, you will offer incentives to current members to promote the association and attract others.
For example, a new member who signs up through a referral may receive their first month for free, while the member who brought them in will receive a gift card.
Plugging in with an established organization, such as a local business, can create an audience overlap from which both of you can benefit.
Consider hosting a popup or an event in a brick-and-mortar location near you, thereby raising awareness of your association within a pre-established community.
Free, one-off community events may require a bit of organization and planning, but when it comes to membership drives, they can pay huge dividends over the long haul.
A free resource is called a “lead magnet” for a reason.
Offering free resources will draw new leads into your pipeline, giving you the opportunity to follow up with an offer to join your association.
When your membership drive ends, don’t drop the ball.
The best time to begin refining your next membership drive idea is right now.
Remember, SMART goals are always measurable. With a SMART goal in place, you have all the data you need to measure the overall effectiveness of your drive.
Once you know how successful your drive has been, you and your team can meet and brainstorm ways to adjust, tighten, retool, and brainstorm your next membership drive ideas.
This might all sound a bit overwhelming, but you don’t have to run membership drives alone.
Impexium is here to help.
Our powerful Association Management Software (AMS) empowers associations to attract and retain members quickly and easily.
With Impexium, you can
From start to finish, Impexium’s Microsoft integrations (including Power Platform) can support your membership drives, vastly simplifying the amount of work you need to oversee.
Impexium’s membership management software will help you:
We’d love to show you more about how our premium tools can help you with your next membership drive. Stop by, tell us more about yourself and your association, and request a demo today! We look forward to hearing from you.
Impexium’s association management software (AMS) empowers associations to focus on what matters most—your constituents. We help you streamline operations, reduce development costs, and improve business outcomes.
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