It’s no secret in the business world that keeping existing customers is cheaper than getting new ones. They know your product and they’ve already shown the ultimate form of commitment in giving you a chunk of their hard-earned pay.
Although associations operate as nonprofit organizations, when it comes down to it, your chapter is a business and your members are your customers. Are you letting your members slip away without a fight? Use these three proven retention strategies to keep your chapter revenue growing year after year.
Get New Members Involved Early
Sell Your Organization’s Value
If you’re not reinforcing the value of your organization on a regular basis, your members are likely to forget about key benefits that they might not be taking advantage of. Always take time out from chapter meetings to give air time to some of those benefits. Work with your national organization to see if they have messaging or collateral that you can use. Remember, even your long-time members need a reminder from time to time. Providing ongoing value at different stages of a member's career is key to keeping your retention rate high and driving further engagement in your key programs and benefits.
Keep in Contact with Lapsed Members
How do you track your members after they’ve lapsed? More importantly, what are you doing to bring them back into the fold? Many members might not even realize that their membership has expired. It’s crucial to put a system in place to understand how many of your members are expiring in any given year, and develop a strategy to target them with the communications or prompts to convince them to renew. This segment represents one of your easiest wins in membership marketing. Make sure that you have a plan to keep them coming back.
