Member Acquisition Campaign Guide

A primary goal of a member acquisition campaign is, of course, to help your association acquire new members! But that's not all: it's also valuable for getting to know your entire prospect pool and knowing who may be more interested in your programming (non-dues revenue opportunities) outside of membership, and who to remove from your future prospecting efforts (as they have no interest in what you have to offer). 

Traditional member acquisition efforts often take one of two approaches: either associations send regular emails to non-members highlighting the benefits of membership, and/or they rely on resource-intensive tactics including phone calls and 1-on-1 emails. The first of these options does not provide you any insight as to what that person wants or needs; you could guess as to their interests based on click-throughs, but you don't know where they are in the decision process or why they've hesitated. The latter of the options isn't feasible or scalable for many associations, leading to process inefficiencies and blind cold outreach.

PropFuel campaigns provide an ideal top-of-funnel outreach effort so you can get to know your prospects and their needs, decide the right level of engagement for that individual (Should they become a member? Should you focus on non-dues revenue instead?), and use staff resources efficiently to close the deal with interested prospects. 

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

• Gathering more context around the prospect's interest, by simply asking them.

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

• Automating further actions based on responses, such as: alert the right person to follow-up with a phone call or email, auto-respond with an email, drive the prospect to join or find out why membership isn't a fit, tagging them for future follow-up, or writing prospect data back to your AMS and/or marketing system.

• Increasing staff efficiency by giving your team access to zero-party response data directly from the prospect as to their needs, interests, and likelihood to join.

• Supplementing the acquisition process with SMS messaging.

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

PropFuel is one tool in your tool belt when it comes to membership communications. You may still send marketing automation emails outside PropFuel. Similarly, you could mimic what PropFuel does, using other systems, but "frankensteining" systems together is time consuming and rarely yields the desired results - from both a user experience and data analytics perspective.  

Acquisition campaign efforts could either be automatically triggered in a drip campaign through a workflow action (such as creating a new user account on your website or attending an event as a non-member), or could be manually scheduled to regularly engage non-member contacts in your database. 

Throughout the campaign we want to get to know the prospect's needs and interests, and also ask them directly if they are interested in joining your association. We typically recommend 3-5 check-ins with 1-4 weeks between check-ins. 

The first step is to ASK - CAPTURE - ACT on the prospect's unique needs and connect them with your value proposition. This is an ideal conversation starter so you can get to know them, and they can get to know your organization and benefits. 

The source of your leads matters, and will likely impact the approach of your first check-in. For example, if they just created an account or signed up for a webinar, you may want to acknowledge what event they attended or how you got their email and ask them "What would you like to do next?" If, however, you've never engaged with these contact before, it'll be in your benefit to give a brief introduction to who you are (keep this to 1-3 sentences!) and then share your connection to them ahead of your question. 

You can initiate an acquisition campaign by asking:

• What's most important to you this year?

• What need is top of mind for you right now?

• What would you like to do next?

• How can we help you achieve your goals?

From there, you can ask them directly if they have any interest in joining as a member. 

• Are you interested in joining _____ as a member?

• Do you plan to join?

• Would you be interested in learning more about membership?

• Would you consider joining?

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

Now you can deepen the relationship and engagement by continuing to connect with their needs and interest:

• Which of the following is most important to you/your business?

• On a scale of 1-5, how important is _____ to you or your business?

• What industry issue keeps you up at night?

In addition to membership, you may also want to highlight one or two relevant non-dues revenue opportunities (other programs or resources) just in case membership isn't of interest!

Then ask about hesitations or barriers to joining. This will help you respond via automation or through 1-on-1 conversation for prospects who have been on the fence, and will help you further narrow down who is a viable prospect vs. those who aren’t a good fit. 

• Is there something holding you back from joining?

• Why have you hesitated to join?

• What else could we offer to encourage you to join our community?

• Is there anything we can do to help you join?

Remember: in many cases, these check-ins are going to individuals who are not familiar with your association's programs or resources. In your check-ins, try to spell out acronyms and avoid terms and phrases someone might not know until they are a part of your community. If you are reaching out to a group of dormant or lapsed members, see those campaign guides for more specific guidance on that target demographic. 

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 prospect can contact with questions.

Feel free to include more than 4 check-ins in your campaign, alternating between direct and indirect asks to appeal to a broader group of prospects. 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.

It may seem counter-intuitive to have a button that says "no" to joining your association on an email to a prospect. The "no" response is valuable for a few reasons:

1. It allows you to remove them from the campaign, as they will likely negatively skew the metrics for future engagement check-ins.

2. It lets you focus on the prospects who ARE actively interested, and continue conversations with those who don't quite know yet.

3. We want to mirror human conversation as much as possible. If they could think and communicate a "no" in real-life, we should offer that as a response option.

The National Groundwater Association reaches out to individuals that create an account on NGWA.org through an automated drip campaign.

• What is your primary reason for creating an account on NGWA.org today?

• Are you interested in joining NGWA?

• Would you be interested in saving 10% off your NGWA membership?

• What is holding you back from joining NGWA?

Out of the 1,378 enrolled contacts, 437 (32%) engaged with the campaign.  

Since being launched in October 2021, the campaign resulted in 97 new and reinstated memberships (both individual and company memberships).

The first check-in yielded the highest response rate at 26%, with a ​14% average response rate across the three multiple-choice check-ins. 

View the video below to learn more about NGWA's Member Acquisition (New sign up on NGWA.org) Campaign.

The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners added those that created a guest account on NAPNAP.org to a drip campaign through an automated workflow.

• What is your main reason for creating a guest account with NAPNAP?

• Are you interested in becoming a NAPNAP member? 

If they say "yes," they are entered into a drip nurture campaign to continue the conversation to encourage them to join:

• Are you still interested in joining?

• What's your professional status?

• What is your favorite city for a professional conference?

• What is keeping you from joining NAPNAP?

• What other resources could NAPNAP offer to encourage you to join our community?

Out of the 5,956 enrolled contacts, 800 (13%) engaged with the campaign. 

While this campaign was active, 415 individuals said "yes" to being interested in membership, and 78 joined, yielding a 19% conversion. 

The second check-in yielded the highest response rate at 9%.

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

The American Mushroom Institute created a recruitment campaign specifically designed for a segment of their member population: small growers. This campaign was highly targeted and specific to this segment and had one check-in per month for six months.

• Are you interested in becoming involved in our community of mushroom growers, suppliers, and stakeholders?

• Would you be interested in learning more about American Mushroom Institute and how you can gain access to a comprehensive knowledge base and network?

• Would you be interested in learning more about these resources and how they can help you in your business?

• On a scale from 1 to 5 with 5 being the most, how important is it to have an organization advocate for your business needs?

• Did you know American Mushroom Institute works with colleges and universities of all sizes, as well as consulting groups, on industry research focusing on business costs (labor and inputs), organic costs, compost, sustainability and carbon valuation, consumer behavior, nutrition, and more?

• Are you expecting your business to grow or explore new directions in the coming year?

• Would access to an accreditation program be useful to your business?

Of the 240 enrolled contacts, 44 (18%) engaged with the campaign, with 33 (75% of responses) expressing direct interest in joining. 

The first check-in had the highest response rate at 10%, with an average response rate of 3%.

View the video below to learn more about AMI's Membership Recruitment - Small Growers campaign.