Circle of Membership SuccessThe Five Phases of Membership

EngagementBy Tony Rossell

Circle of Membership Success

Awareness

RecruitmentEngagement

Interdependence

Renewal

Awareness

• Defined: The process of establishing your brand in the minds of prospective members.

• Question: How do people learn about your organization – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT)?

Awareness

• No one enters into a relationship unless they know who you are. Awareness is the measure of how successful your branding efforts have been to gain share of mind in your target audience.

Recruitment

• Definition: The process of inviting new and former members to join your organization.

• Question: How do you get new members now (SWOT)?

Recruitment Thought: “Successful companies are learning companies. They collect feedback from the marketplace, audit and evaluate results, and take corrections designed to improve their performance. Good marketing works by constantly monitoring its position in relation to its destination.”

Philip Kotler, Kotler on Marketing, page 34

Engagement

• Definition: The process of moving members from observers into users of the resources made available by your organization.

• Question: How do you move members into relationship with your organization and its members (SWOT)?

Engagement• There is very little statistical difference

between non-engaged members and lapsed members. “Those who are not involved lie perilously close to former members in their overarching assessments of the value they derive from associations. If former members are thought of as being dead, the uninvolved are close to comatose” (DTJ, page 4).

Engagement• Member Engagement comes through

generating interaction between you and the member using:

– New Member Orientation– Convention and Meetings– Product Purchases– “800” number– Web site usage– Survey responses

• Mass Customization – One to One

Interdependence

• Definition: The process of growing a member’s involvement in your organization through the three glues of relationship: 1.) Common Vision, 2.) Reward, and 3.) Recognition.

• Question: How do you enable your members to grow and reach new levels of interdependence (SWOT)?

Common Vision

• Common vision is a very powerful force that ties many of us to an organization. Many charitable groups are fully supported by selling their vision.

Reward

• Reward is something that we all want. It is getting something back for our dollar. The most common reward that members look for from their professional association –according to Decision to Join -- is valuable training and information resources.

Recognition

• Recognition means that you know me, and I want to be known as one of you. Social media and Web 2.0 are perhaps the tools that will best help members connect with their association and build recognition going forward.

Renewal• Definition: The process of confirming the

value that has been delivered to the member over the past year and requesting the continuance of the relationship.

• Question: How do you continue the relationship (SWOT)?

• Thought: "Look not where you fell, look where you slipped." - African Proverb

Renewal

• There is a unique challenge to renewing members. Any renewal program needs to take into account that people are very busy and overwhelmed with communications. They need to be regularly and creatively asked to continue the relationship.

The Presenter

• Tony Rossell serves as the senior vice president of Marketing General, Inc., in Alexandria, Virginia. A frequent writer and speaker on marketing topics, he is a contributing author to two books, Membership Marketing (ASAE 2000) and Membership Essentials (ASAE 2008).

Contact

• Contact Tony at 703-706-0360 or Tony@marketinggeneral.com. Tony blogs at:

http://membershipmarketing.blogspot.com/.