While many associations focus primarily on acquiring new members, there is significant benefit to implementing retention and win-back strategies as part of your association’s overall membership strategy. One major factor is dollars, since the cost of acquiring a new member can be more than five times the cost of retaining a current member.
There are three key reasons to focus energy and resources on recapturing lapsed members:
1. Former members have demonstrated a need for your organization and the services you provide, making them far better targets than cold prospects.
2. Lapsed members are familiar with your organization, which eliminates the need to create brand awareness and introduce yourself and your benefits to them, thus reducing time and money required to market to them.
3. You already know them—how well depends on the amount of information you have about them in your AMS or CRM—so you have a sense of their prior engagement, preferences, and value. This allows you to target the most valuable and engaged lapsed members with personalized offers and messaging.
Now that you know why your association should focus on recapturing lapsed members, here are five ideas for how to start winning them back.
1. Collect feedback from members who do not renew. Request an “exit interview” in the form of a phone call or survey to find out why they left and what you could do better or differently. It is critical to know why members are leaving—not only to identify and address issues, but to facilitate more personalized outreach to lapsed members as part of your win-back strategy.
2. Reach out quickly—and then periodically stay in touch. Do not let too much time go by before contacting your lapsed members. Check in occasionally to politely let them know about opportunities and share information you think they will find valuable, such as industry information, updates on what’s new with your association, and micro-volunteering and other short-term opportunities to engage. Let them know what they’re missing by not being a member!
3. Take a highly personalized—not a cookie cutter—approach. This requires knowing your individual members well and using your AMS or CRM to understand them and their preferences. How many years have they been a member? How have they engaged with your association? Do they attend events? Are they a volunteer? This will help you identify your most valuable lapsed members and enable you to personalize your communications to them.
4. Let them know you want them back. Make the former member feel valued and ensure that they know that you truly want them back as a member. There are many ways to do this, but don’t shy away from explicitly saying that they are invited to come back. Use language such as “We miss you!” “Look at what you’re missing:” and include a list of benefits or recent events/news. Depending on your audience, you can have fun and be creative with your images, media, and wording.
5. Make them want to stay. Regularly show gratitude to your current members to thank them for being a member and let them know you value them. You won’t have to win back members if you keep them engaged and happy; they won’t want to leave!
Need more strategies for how to win back members? We’ve got them. Red Chair Communications is here to help with all cycles of your membership marketing from acquisition to engagement to retention and more.
