What the Bee Gees Taught Me about Membership Renewal Processing
Back to BlogWhat the Bee Gees Taught Me about Membership Renewal Processing
11/17/2020
Wh
y the Bee Gees?
At the time of writing, I happened to be listening to a few Bee Gees tunes in my distance-running mix (don’t ask), and somehow made a few connections in the back of my mind. It’s part humor, but part learning tool, and I hope you’ll bear with me. So, let’s quit our Jive Talkin’ and begin our adventure in music and membership management…
Basics
In general, if a member is getting value out of their membership or otherwise believes in what your organization is doing (the cause), they will renew. So, the goal for the membership department is to communicate to members that they are up-for-renewal, and beyond that, do what can be done to make sure that as many members as possible are getting value out of their membership. There is a lot that can be covered in regard to how to sell and re-sell the value proposition of membership to members, but that can be covered in other blog posts to come. For this blog post, I wanted to go over some of the basics of membership administration by going over procedures.
Renewal Procedures
A renewal procedure is a set of actions that you can perform every month/year, so that you can achieve consistent results, learn, and improve the process over time. Every association is different, with different kinds of members, and different resources available… and to craft a procedure that is effective for every situation can be difficult. Let’s go through a few iterations of timelines here with a fictional association, adding different actions/methods as we go. The timelines illustrate what actions the membership person (or automated system) will take at a time before the member's expiration date.
Plan A - “I’ve Got to Get a Message to You”
This basics here are to get the message to the member... to have repeated notifications to the member, to make sure that they’re aware that their membership is expiring soon, and give them ample time and easy options to renew membership. In addition, allowing for online renewal will reduce the office work in handling check-pay renewals.
Plan B - “Tragedy”
This plan adds a few more opportunities for communication- 1) earlier notifications preceding expiration, 2) opportunities to renew after the cancellation date, 3) more direct communication about cancellation – sometimes this is necessary, some members won’t act until they get a more blunt ‘final notification’ or ‘cancellation’ message. Make the member sense the “Tragedy” of their membership ending, so that they will act.
This plan builds on top of the last one, by doing two more things to be more effective at getting a message to the member, and making the message carry weight such that their membership with us is “Staying Alive”
1) adding different modes of communication. In this case, a postcard. The benefit of this is that if the emails are getting caught by a spam filter (or ignored by a busy member); the messages might not be getting through. So, a snail-mail approach can help defeat this problem.
2) adding a level of personalization – a personalized renewal notification. The more personal the contact, the more effective. If you have the ability to make reference to something the member has done with their membership (such as attend a conference), or refer to a known hot-button for the member (something that you know they gain from membership) or make a comment to the member such that you can make a personal appeal; you stand a greater chance of achieving success. Note that the more expensive and time-consuming activities like these are attempted later in the process, and the most automated activities are encouraged earlier in the process. The more members you can get to renewal earlier in the process, the fewer members you will need to work with later in the process where the costs are higher (more time-consuming).
The key to really effective renewals is to make sure the member is getting value (and perceiving it as well). The way to do this is to get them active (showing up to events, participating in trainings or activities, bonding with fellow members) as soon as possible, ideally as soon as they join, when the idea of membership is still fresh in their mind. So, we place several steps at 330 days before renewal (shortly after they join), and a follow-up at 220 days before renewal to see if they’ve followed through on any of it.
Also, at renewal time, we use renewal propensity to determine how much of an effort to make in the renewal process. Renewal propensity is a way to find out from the member, wait for it…. “How Deep is Your Love” for our organization. This ends up translating to the likelihood of such a member renewing. For example, a high propensity renewal would be a member who is active, and had been active over the years. A low propensity renewal might be a member who joined, but never participated in anything, and their interest was only luke-warm.
Some of this may not feel right, since you may feel you are ignoring your more fastidious and loyal members in favor of the less-so. But, what we’re trying to do is get the most we can out of limited resources… all in the name of your cause/association.
Hopefully, with a well-executed procedure, you’ll have renewals flowing and happy members participating. Perhaps so much so that you will be experiencing Too Much Heaven, or perhaps so inspired that you find You Should Be Dancing. Either way, I hope that this has been helpful. If you found it helpful or entertaining, please connect with me on LinkedIn.
-Chris Vieth, MemberLeap.com
Wh
y the Bee Gees?At the time of writing, I happened to be listening to a few Bee Gees tunes in my distance-running mix (don’t ask), and somehow made a few connections in the back of my mind. It’s part humor, but part learning tool, and I hope you’ll bear with me. So, let’s quit our Jive Talkin’ and begin our adventure in music and membership management…
Basics
In general, if a member is getting value out of their membership or otherwise believes in what your organization is doing (the cause), they will renew. So, the goal for the membership department is to communicate to members that they are up-for-renewal, and beyond that, do what can be done to make sure that as many members as possible are getting value out of their membership. There is a lot that can be covered in regard to how to sell and re-sell the value proposition of membership to members, but that can be covered in other blog posts to come. For this blog post, I wanted to go over some of the basics of membership administration by going over procedures.
Renewal Procedures
A renewal procedure is a set of actions that you can perform every month/year, so that you can achieve consistent results, learn, and improve the process over time. Every association is different, with different kinds of members, and different resources available… and to craft a procedure that is effective for every situation can be difficult. Let’s go through a few iterations of timelines here with a fictional association, adding different actions/methods as we go. The timelines illustrate what actions the membership person (or automated system) will take at a time before the member's expiration date.
Plan A - “I’ve Got to Get a Message to You”
This basics here are to get the message to the member... to have repeated notifications to the member, to make sure that they’re aware that their membership is expiring soon, and give them ample time and easy options to renew membership. In addition, allowing for online renewal will reduce the office work in handling check-pay renewals.
- 30 days before – Email with invoice attachment: Your membership will expire in 30 days, click link to pay dues or print off the invoice and mail in payment
- 0 days (expiration) – Email: Your membership has expired, click here to pay dues
Plan B - “Tragedy”
This plan adds a few more opportunities for communication- 1) earlier notifications preceding expiration, 2) opportunities to renew after the cancellation date, 3) more direct communication about cancellation – sometimes this is necessary, some members won’t act until they get a more blunt ‘final notification’ or ‘cancellation’ message. Make the member sense the “Tragedy” of their membership ending, so that they will act.
- 60 days before – Email: Your membership is up for renewal, click link to renew early
- 30 days before – Email: Your membership will expire in 30 days, click link to pay dues
- 0 days (expiration) – Email with Invoice attachment: Your membership has expired, click here to pay dues
- 30 days after – Email: Last chance to renew, your membership will be cancelled in 15 days.
- 45 days after – Auto-drop Email: Sorry to see you leave, let us know if you would like to re-join
This plan builds on top of the last one, by doing two more things to be more effective at getting a message to the member, and making the message carry weight such that their membership with us is “Staying Alive”
1) adding different modes of communication. In this case, a postcard. The benefit of this is that if the emails are getting caught by a spam filter (or ignored by a busy member); the messages might not be getting through. So, a snail-mail approach can help defeat this problem.
2) adding a level of personalization – a personalized renewal notification. The more personal the contact, the more effective. If you have the ability to make reference to something the member has done with their membership (such as attend a conference), or refer to a known hot-button for the member (something that you know they gain from membership) or make a comment to the member such that you can make a personal appeal; you stand a greater chance of achieving success. Note that the more expensive and time-consuming activities like these are attempted later in the process, and the most automated activities are encouraged earlier in the process. The more members you can get to renewal earlier in the process, the fewer members you will need to work with later in the process where the costs are higher (more time-consuming).
- 90 days before – Email: Your membership is up for renewal, click link to renew early
- 60 days before –
- Postcard: Your membership will expire in 30 days, log-in to website to renew
- Email: Your membership will expire in 30 days, click link to pay dues
- 30 days before –
- Personalized Email with Invoice attachment: Hi Jenny, how are things at XYZ Corp?... did you have fun at the conference last year…
- 0 days (expiration) – Email with Invoice attachment: Your membership has expired, click here to pay dues
- 30 days after – Email: Last chance to renew, your membership will be cancelled in 15 days.
- 45 days after – Auto-drop Email: Sorry to see you leave, let us know if you would like to re-join
The key to really effective renewals is to make sure the member is getting value (and perceiving it as well). The way to do this is to get them active (showing up to events, participating in trainings or activities, bonding with fellow members) as soon as possible, ideally as soon as they join, when the idea of membership is still fresh in their mind. So, we place several steps at 330 days before renewal (shortly after they join), and a follow-up at 220 days before renewal to see if they’ve followed through on any of it.
Also, at renewal time, we use renewal propensity to determine how much of an effort to make in the renewal process. Renewal propensity is a way to find out from the member, wait for it…. “How Deep is Your Love” for our organization. This ends up translating to the likelihood of such a member renewing. For example, a high propensity renewal would be a member who is active, and had been active over the years. A low propensity renewal might be a member who joined, but never participated in anything, and their interest was only luke-warm.
Some of this may not feel right, since you may feel you are ignoring your more fastidious and loyal members in favor of the less-so. But, what we’re trying to do is get the most we can out of limited resources… all in the name of your cause/association.
- 330 days before (a month after they joined/renewed)
- Email: thank you for joining/renewing.
- Survey: what are you interested in (find out their hot-buttons… why they joined/why they renewed)
- New Members: phone call, see how they’re doing… and try to make a personal connection
- Set Tickler: based on info collected in survey/phone call, set tickler reminders to yourself to check in with the member later in their year to see if they’re following up with their participation. Verify they’re getting value out of their membership
- 200 days before – check in email – find out if they’re showing up to events, participating… have they done something useful with their membership? Are they receiving the newsletter? Remind them what they planned on doing if they’re not doing so.
- 90 days before – Email: Your membership is up for renewal, click link to renew early
- 60 days before –
- Postcard: Your membership will expire in 30 days, log-in to website to renew
- Email: Your membership will expire in 30 days, click link to pay dues
- 30 days before, based on Renewal Propensity:
- Low Propensity: Personalized Email with Invoice attachment: Hi Jenny, how are things at XYZ corp?... did you have fun at the conference last year…
- Mid-Propensity/High-Propensity: Make a phone call and check in with the member to see how things are.
- 0 days (expiration) – Email with Invoice attachment: Your membership has expired, click here to pay dues
- 30 days after – Email: Last chance to renew, your membership will be cancelled in 15 days.
- 45 days after – Auto-drop Email: Sorry to see you leave, let us know if you would like to re-join
Hopefully, with a well-executed procedure, you’ll have renewals flowing and happy members participating. Perhaps so much so that you will be experiencing Too Much Heaven, or perhaps so inspired that you find You Should Be Dancing. Either way, I hope that this has been helpful. If you found it helpful or entertaining, please connect with me on LinkedIn.
-Chris Vieth, MemberLeap.com
