Free samples are a time-honored tradition at bakeries. You walk in and there, on the counter, are bite-sized samples of some of the wares available for sale. You might have come in for a loaf of bread or a cup of coffee, but that taste of a croissant or a bear claw or a palmier prompts you to add a few treats to your order.
Associations can do the same thing.
I was recently talking to a membership director of a trade association for a highly regulated industry. His association has a very defined universe, where all the players (members or not) know about the association, and fairly high dues. In other words, there aren’t 100,000 potential nonmember individuals out there who just need to be informed that the association exists to fork over a small amount of personal cash to join.
This association has a VERY high retention rate – nearly 100% most years – and has already captured about 70% of their potential universe.
But what about that other 30%?
So far, their recruitment plan has mostly been for the membership director to call CEOs of nonmember organizations and ask them to join. And it does work, for some of them (they do recruit at least a few new members every year). But he was looking for some ideas to juice things up a bit.
I asked him: “What would members (not staff) say your main member value proposition is? Do you know?”
He did. There are two main groups: People who come for the professional network, and people who come for one particular tangible benefit they provide.
Next question: “Is there a way to let prospective members have a taste of your association before they buy?”
For the prospects who are looking for community, we talked about their events. Nonmembers are allowed to attend nearly all of them, for a fee. But they also have regular “pocket” meetings, informal in-person gatherings of CEOs in various locations around the area their association serves.
One idea: Ask attending CEOs to bring a nonmember colleague for free, as a guest. The CEOs won’t be tasked with making the membership sale – that’s on the membership director, for follow up to pitch membership after the gathering. Member CEOs are just the ones making the introduction, and then when that prospect does come, she already knows someone in the room.
For the prospects who are looking for that “stuff” style tangible benefit, we brainstormed ways the association might be able to offer limited, metered access to prospects, i.e., you get one freebie to try it out, after which the membership director can follow up and pitch membership.
What can you do to allow your prospects to get a taste of what your association provides to entice them to join?
Photo by Ekaterina Tyapkina on Unsplash