Lapsed Member Campaign Guide

Lapsed member campaigns can help your association understand a person's intent to renew or reinstate their membership. At PropFuel, we define a lapsed member as a member whose expiration date has passed less within the last year. If you are looking to win-back former members that are dormant (more than one year since being a member), see the campaign guide for Dormant Member Win-Back.

There is always a reason someone did not continue their membership, and often if you're willing to have the conversation with that former member, they will communicate why they left. Sometimes, that reason is as simple as they forgot (yes, even for months!) and a conversational check-in can cut through the noise even when all your past due notices have gone unnoticed.

Unlike traditional exit surveys, lapsed member campaigns in PropFuel are designed to not only find out why they left, but continue the conversation to address hesitations and drive action (and revenue!).

A few things PropFuel can do better than traditional email marketing include:

• Driving faster renewals and reinstatements (as shown by client data) by making the next step easy and offering a way to act right from the email.

• Gathering more context around the member's intent to rejoin, by simply asking them.

• Triggering other questions based on the member's answer to capture further insight around their decision.

• Automating further actions based on the member's answer, such as: alert the right person to follow-up with a phone call or email, auto-respond with an email, drive the member to reinstate or find out why not, lead them to a retirement solution, or write member data back to your AMS.

• Supplementing the win-back process with SMS messaging.

• And most importantly, PropFuel campaigns can be designed and deployed with minimal time and effort. And if you have new staff, your PropFuel Client Success Manager can help you build the campaign.

Throughout your PropFuel lapsed member campaign you can ask direct questions about their renewal or reinstatement, and also ask indirect questions so you can better connect your value proposition to their needs and interests. This positions your society as a long-term partner and resource and helps you best connect with that person at the individual level.

Since we've established that the goal of this campaign type is to gauge intent and drive action, we want to frame the cadence to optimize these check-ins. We recommend that this campaign is 3-5 check-ins over a 1-4 month period.

Assuming the membership has lapsed within months or even a year, it's possible these individuals are unaware their membership has ended (despite the dozens of times you've told them this). If there’s a shadow of a doubt that someone could not know they expired, start with a “Did you know you’re not a member?” question. This could be phrased as:

• Did you know your membership expired?

• Did you know your membership has lapsed?

• Did you know you’re no longer a member of _______?

From there, you can ask them directly if they have any interest in membership.

• Are you interested in rejoining _____?

• Are you interested in reinstating your membership?

• Would you like to rejoin?

• Do you plan to rejoin?

Those that say "no" or "not sure" should be redirected to an additional question to be asked why not or why they are hesitant to rejoin. We suggest removing anyone that expressly is not interested in membership from the remainder of the campaign.

Since you’ve asked directly, you could then ask more indirectly if they’re interested in your value proposition. A great way to position this is in terms of goals or values:

• How important is [mission value] to your career/business?

• Which of the following goals is most important to your career/business this year?

• What’s your #1 priority this year?

• What’s most important to you and your colleagues this year?

Your response options will then lead to a reply of how membership can best fulfill that need and/or other ways to engage with the association towards that goal (non-dues revenue!).

Then ask about hesitations. Response options tend to be along the lines of member value/cost, budget or approval by employer, retiring/leaving industry, or something else - and be sure to include one option along the lines of “I am interested in rejoining!” Generally this question is phrased as:

• Is there something holding you back?

• Why have you hesitated to rejoin _____?

• Is there a reason you’ve hesitated to rejoin _____?

• Is there something we can do to help you rejoin?

You may also want to consider adding an open-ended follow-up so they can give you some feedback in their own words.

We recommend differentiating this effort from any previous or current broadcast membership marketing campaigns. These conversations are not for you to give paragraphs of explanation about the value of membership; instead, provide 1-4 sentences of a prompt (just like you would if you were having a conversation in-person), and then ask them a question about their needs, their interests, and their intent. You can then continue the conversation in a way that's relevant based on their reply and ask follow-up questions as needed.

Stick with direct intent questions, removing check-ins that have a softer, more indirect approach.

Feel free to include more than 4 check-ins in your campaign, alternating between direct and indirect asks. You may also want to consider adding any warm or hot prospects into a nurturing campaign so you can better connect their goals with your value proposition and suggest other ways they can get involved in the association.

In real life, conversations happen between 2 people and not between one person and a group of people. Consider including a headshot and signature and have the check-in come from someone on your membership team. Using first-person language (I’m glad to hear it!) can also make a big difference from always using the organizational plural “we.” If however you prefer to have the campaign come from the entire membership team (or the association at large), make sure you are still being conversational with your wording and be clear who the lapsed member can contact with questions.

• Grace Period or Recently Lapsed

• Lapsed - Individual Members

• Lapsed - Organizational Members

• Lapsed with a Nurture Campaign

The Association of Legal Administrators reached out to members that had passed their expiration date but still had access to their member benefits.

Questions:

• Are you planning to renew your membership?

• Why haven't you renewed yet?

  • What can we do to get you to renew?

• Why are you hesitating to renew your membership?

  • What can we do to get you to renew?

Results:

Out of the 1,841 enrolled contacts, 715 (39%) engaged with the campaign. Of those, 160 typed text responses were received to the open-ended follow-up question: "What can we do to get you to renew?"

Since the campaign launched, 1,118 members rejoined (61% of enrolled contacts).

The second check-in yielded the highest response rate at 23%, with a
​17% average response rate across the three check-ins.

View the video below to learn more about the Association of Legal Administrators' Grace Period Campaign.

This large professional association reached out to members that had lapsed in the previous year.

Questions:

• Are you aware that your membership has lapsed?

• Are you planning to renew this year?

• Why are you hesitating to renew?

• What would make you reconsider?

Results:

Out of the 3,500 enrolled contacts, 1,133 (32%) engaged with the campaign.

Since the campaign launched, 369 members rejoined (11% of enrolled contacts) and an additional 196 members expressed interest in rejoining.

The first check-in yielded the highest response rate at 22%, with a
​15% average response rate across the three check-ins.

View the video below to learn more about this lapsed member campaign:

After not getting a response from the primary contact of 92 organizational members, the National Quality Forum enrolled 537 contacts from lapsed member organizations in a campaign to inquire about their organization's intention to renew and drive action.

Questions:

• Did you know your membership expired?

• Why is your organization hesitating to renew?

• Is there anything we can do to help you reinstate your membership?

Results:

Out of the 92 organizations enrolled in the campaign, 37 (40%) had at least one contact engage with the campaign.

Within the four weeks that the campaign ran, NQF staff regained direct contact with 36 member organizations (39%), helping them facilitate reinstatement. As direct communications were established, contacts from that member organization were removed from the campaign through CSV upload.

The check-ins yielded a 6% average response rate, but more importantly it spurred the new or existing primary contact from these member organizations to email or call NQF's membership team directly.

View the video below to learn more about National Quality Forum's Renewal Last Chance Campaign:

The American Academy of Pediatrics engages recently lapsed members in a campaign to understand if they plan to renew. If the member indicates "yes," they are added to a nurture campaign to continue the conversation in a more personalized way.

Nurture Questions:

• Are you still planning to renew?

• Is there something holding you back from renewing your membership at this time?

Results:

Of the 2,692 enrolled contacts, 1,288 (48%) reinstated prior to receiving the first nurture check-in with an additional 158 (6%) who have yet to receive the first check-in.

Response rates to the nurture campaign were high, with 33% responding to the first check-in and 24% to the second.

Throughout the course of the campaign, an additional 739 individuals reinstated their membership, yielding a 80% win-back rate from their PropFuel engagement efforts.

View the video below to learn more about American Academy of Pediatrics' Nurture Campaign: