Developing a Participation Matrix...

During a session of the ASAE Membership Marketing Conference, one of the presenters encouraged attendees to keep a close eye on the participation levels of their members. His argument was that membership was about participation, not about revenue. Although I understood his point, membership and subscriptions are about both revenue and participation.

Keeping this in mind, I would encourage marketing directors who are responsible for growing membership or subscriptions, to monitor the participation levels of their "members" (for our purposes in this post, I will use the word members, but please note this includes subscriber programs found at most performing arts organizations around the country). I am in the process of building a participation matrix that gives quarterly reports on the participation levels of members. That way, I will know, especially with our important donors and members, how active they are with our organization. Usually a member's participation level is a steady predictor on whether or not the member values their membership, and subsequently decides to renew. If I notice at the end of the first and second quarters that a certain portion of our membership isn't participating, that will give me enough time to find ways to engage that segmentation before they are asked to make the decision to renew their membership for the following year.

I would also suggest sending a participation report at the end of the year to each member along with a renewal solicitation. Something along the lines of --

Did you realize during the 2006-07:
  • 30% of your employees participated in member's only listservs
  • your organization saved $1,400 by using your membership discount through bookstore purchases and convention registrations.
  • you attended 7 performances at the magnificent PLUG THE NAME IN HERE theatre, which received 5 critics picks and 3 RANDOM Awards during the year.
  • you enjoyed an evening with acclaimed artistic director SOMEBODY FANTASTIC and the cast of AMAZING PRODUCTION #5.
Keep your members involved, and remind them of the value of their membership when you ask them to renew. Members who don't use their benefits or tickets aren't likely to renew--so catch them early, and find a way to get them active.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thinking about creating a blog (Part 2)...

If you are thinking about creating a blog for your organization, there is one thing I cannot stress enough: make sure those who will be contributing content have bought into your idea! I have created a couple of blogs for different organizations, and I must say that I have learned this the hard way. Don't get me wrong. I think that blogging is very effective if done right, but that is a really big IF. Many organizations launch blogs and don't do it right, and when the blog fails they blame it on the ineffectiveness of the technology. Readers of a blog don't want to get hit with your marketing messages! If you try a hard sell technique with every blog, of course your readers are going to start tuning out your blog. You need to offer your readers a reason to read your blog, and a way to do that is to offer exclusive content that they can't get anywhere else. This is the reason that while at Virginia Stage Company, I started to post video clips of rehearsal and "behin...
Read more

Marketing Awareness.

Modern marketers tend to get very excited by ideas of conversation and engagement with customers. Given that they are aware how many images and messages each of us receive every day, they have become less impressed by the more basic aim of generating awareness. This, I think, is why this pun-based campaign has received such criticism from within the advertising world. Some complain that the imitation of Morgan Freeman is a deceitful hijacking of the actor's gravitas while others just deem it trite, shouty advertising disguised as something else. But that is to overlook context. It's an ad for insurance. Insurance stubbornly remains a commodity business where price trumps service because we buy it before we need it. The engagement with the product/service occurs at a time of distress and not at a time of purchase. In a commodity business, awareness is key. You want your customer to have your name come to mind when they consider the purchase. It's brutally simple. A differen...
Read more

Thinking Inside The Box.

Image
A combination self-help and business book, Michael Port's Beyond Booked Solid focusses on scalability issues and how to expand a small enterprise. It is filled with pragmatic tools and techniques designed to grow a business via innovation and leveraged income, but the key message is that of developing a mind-set that works on your rather than in your business. To some extent that's just a reframing of the old adage of keeping one's eye on the big picture, but it's something that can't be repeated too often. Constantly reminding yourself and your colleagues of why you're in business (and specifically what customer needs you meet by doing something better than anyone else) is crucial to evaluating everything that you do day to day. If your marketing tactic du jour, your latest product development or your inter-departmental meeting isn't centred on that, they're not worth your time and resources.
Read more