Industry association lifeblood, not to mention cashflow, is membership driven. When your members love you, your association is doing well. When those same members do not feel the love, they translate that into lack of perceived value and, well, the rest you know - a downward spiral of membership numbers and with it, income.
It's not easy. And just like politics itself, you need to provide service offerings that your constituents actually value. Then communicate this regularly across multiple channels and in differing and tailored ways. Don't delude yourself by offering an easy add-on for you and try to sell the sizzle to your members as something special. Remember, they are already running their own successful business and they didn't get there by buying into every greatest/latest deal that was pushed in front of them. Unless it adds value to their business or reduces costs - why should they invest in it? The same applies for attracting new members.
Running membership campaigns is often perceived by association management as a brad-and-butter' issue. But this must be challenged. These campaigns are expensive; you need the right people to make it work; it is time and resource heavy; and often the number of new members does not justify the enormous outlay required.
Targeted campaigns to particular sectors, offering a genuine value add service or product, supported by existing member referrals will frequently produce far greater new members than blanket, amorphous, tick-the-box campaigns.
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