ACI Blog

March 4, 2024 - Association Management

Improve Membership Marketing With Three Strategies

Sharing content, customizing your options and leveraging word-of-mouth influence are three steps that can take your association’s marketing efforts to the next level.
In today’s tech-centric world, digital marketing and communication tools have become essential for associations. To survive and thrive, associations must be able meet their members where they are….online. 

Only with a strategic and innovative membership marketing plan can associations achieve viral growth. These three options will help to modernize your membership marketing efforts.  

Experiment With an Open-Door Strategy

One key decision when developing a membership marketing strategy is how to present your content. The right mix of free, paid, and premium content converts visitors to members and keeps your existing members coming back for more.

Once you’ve considered your pricing structure and decided what to offer at each price level, it’s time to start generating interest. A simple way to build an effective membership funnel that converts visitors into paying members is to give them a preview of your member benefits. This open-door strategy allows prospects to sample your valuable content and determine if they want to buy in.

To create your own open-door strategy:

1. Decide what content to unlock for free visitors. This could be a few videos, downloadable resources, free events, or even the first session of a training course.
2. Market the free content. You can do this on social media, on your website, through emails, or wherever you meet potential members. 
3. Continue engaging with potential members. Now that your visitors are interested, continue connecting with them. Send them a mix of free and premium content to incentivize them to join your association.

Customize Your Membership Options

Does your association offer multiple membership opportunities? If not, it’s a strategy worth considering.  By offering several membership categories, you allow potential members to customize their association experience.  

Here are a few member categories to consider creating a tailored marketing campaign around:

• renewing members
• new members
• students
• accredited members
• suppliers
• multi-staff membership – several staff from the same company

Initial renewal and follow up notices combined with a hands-on approach can ensure these members will continue engaging with your association.

Leverage Word-of-Mouth Marketing

For associations, word-of-mouth marketing is often the most beneficial. Referrals are particularly effective because they’re trustworthy, authentic, and memorable. Your association can leverage this powerful strategy by encouraging your current members to share their positive experiences with their network and connections.

Word-of-mouth marketing is easy to leverage when you’ve built a positive member experience. That experience, when cultivated, becomes a vibrant community of like-minded users. Once your association forges a community, word-of-mouth marketing comes naturally. So, before you launch this strategy, be sure you’re creating real value for your members.

Membership marketing doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does take strategy. You must prove your association’s value by allowing access to some of your content, personalizing every member’s experience, and building a community where every member can’t wait to refer a connection. With these strategies in place, your association can become a place where members find value and look forward to engaging.