Dormant Member Win-Back Campaign Guide

Dormant member win-back campaigns are the perfect mix of a lapsed member campaign and a member acquisition campaign. The goals for this campaign include:

• Re-establishing the relationship with those that have left your community,

• Identify who is a warm or hot prospect for membership, 

• Connect your value proposition to their current needs (especially if your benefits or their needs have changed since they left!), and 

• Drive action towards reinstatement. 

At PropFuel, we define a dormant member as a member who left the association more than one renewal cycle (or year) ago. If you are looking to win-back lapsed members that have been expired for less than one renewal cycle or year, see the Lapsed Member Campaign Guide.

Why You Should Use PropFuel For Dormant Member Win-Back

There is always a reason someone left your association. Merely broadcasting your member benefits won't do enough to win them back. And surveying them to see what you can do better doesn't help drive action or foster a back-and-forth exchange with the individual. If you're willing to have the conversation with that former member, they may be willing to communicate if they have any interest in rejoining, what is important to them now, and if they have any hesitations that are possible to overcome. This is exactly what PropFuel is designed to do.

PropFuel help you win-back members more effectively than traditional email marketing by:

• 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.

• Making it easy for the member to rejoin by giving relevant replies and specific actions right from the email.

• 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 the campaign you can ask direct questions about membership reinstatement and ask indirect questions so you can better connect your value proposition to their current needs and interests. 

From there, you can decide to segment prospects and engage in 1:1 follow-up with those that have been responsive, or enter them into a nurture drip campaign to continue the conversation.

We recommend that this campaign includes three or more check-ins over at least four weeks.

Begin with a check-in that notes all the growth and change that has been happening and why now is the ideal time to rejoin your association (remember: keep the prompt to 1-4 sentences!). From there ask directly if they have any interest in reinstating their membership.

• Are you interested in rejoining _____?

• Are you interested in reinstating your membership?

• Would you like to rejoin?

• Would you consider rejoining _____?

• Do you plan to rejoin?

Those that say "no" should be redirected to another question to be asked why not and then be removed from the campaign. Those that are not sure should be given the opportunity to share open-ended feedback either of their hesitations or any questions they have about membership; these replies should be closely monitored for any required follow-up by a member of your membership team. 

Since you’ve asked directly, you can then find out their unique needs and reconnect them with your membership value proposition:

• What’s most important to you?

• What need is top of mind right now?

• What member benefit was the most beneficial to you?

• How can we help you achieve your goals this year?

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

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 to identify potential non-dues revenue.

Finally, ask about hesitations. Response options tend to be along the lines of member value/cost, budget or approval by employer, retired or left the 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:

• Why have you hesitated to rejoin ____?

• What is keeping you from rejoining _____?

• Is there something holding you back from rejoining our community?

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

We opt for this approach over the common exit survey approach of "What was your primary reason for leaving?" because it better frames the future opportunity of rejoining versus closing the door for future conversation. 

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. 

Our goal is to build the relationship with them in a way that's specific and meaningful to them as an individual (or as a representative of their organization). You can then continue the conversation in a way that's relevant based on their reply and ask follow-up questions as needed. 

Expect the response rate to be lower than that of a freshly lapsed win-back effort. You may also look through your enrolled contact status to see if any emails are marked as invalid. This is especially common for student emails (.edu) and for professional email addresses as individuals change jobs.

Before your campaign launches, decide how you will continue the conversation with prospects that have engaged within the campaign (warm prospects), and those that have expressly said they are interested in membership (hot prospects). Some approaches include:

• Nurture them 1-on-1 with staff member follow-up, either by phone or email.

• Nurture them via a PropFuel drip campaign that continues the conversation with them over time.

• Opting for a longer dormant win-back campaign (3-6 months). This would let you maximize the automated conversations through PropFuel and maximize the time prospects have to take action to rejoin before 1-on-1 interaction. 

Financial Executives International reached out to members from previous years in a separate dormant campaign from their lapsed win-back efforts.

• Are you interested in rejoining?

• Why did you leave FEI membership?

• Why are you hesitating to come back to FEI?

Out of the 7,500 enrolled contacts, 1,830 (24%) engaged with the campaign. Of those, 512 (28%) said they intend on rejoining.

Since the campaign launched, 159 members rejoined FEI, 75 of which rejoined within the first two check-ins. 

The first and third check-ins had the highest response rate at 11% respectively.

​View the video below to learn more about Financial Executives International's Dormant Member Campaign.

National Quality Forum reached out to former organizational members from 2017-2019. To maximize reach, these check-ins were sent to all contacts at that former member organization.

• Does your organization plan on rejoining NQF?

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

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

• Why is your organization hesitating to rejoin National Quality Forum?

1,545 contacts from 310 former member companies were enrolled in the campaign. Over the course of the two month long campaign, 100 responses were received from 96 individuals (6% of enrolled contacts). 

12 individuals from 11 organizations expressed direct interest and intent to rejoin, which were then followed up with 1-on-1 by an NQF staff member.

Throughout the campaign, 30 individuals said "no" to rejoining and 27 of those gave a specific reason why to help NQF better understand if they are a viable prospect in the years to come. 

In addition, 38 individuals expressed they were unsure if they would be interested in reinstating, and of those, more than half (20) said it was because they were not the correct decision-maker.

The first check-in had the highest response rate at 4%, with an average response rate of 2% throughout the campaign due to the wide net of contacts included.

​View the video below to learn more about National Quality Forum's Dormant Lapsed Member Campaign.

The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) has a dormant member campaign that includes a direct ask of "Are you considering rejoining NAPNAP?" If an individual says "yes," they are added to a nurture campaign to continue the conversation and get to know them and their needs in a more personalized way. 

A nurture campaign is a great idea for associations that don't have the staff bandwidth to do 1-on-1 follow-ups with interested prospects, or for associations who want to better automate their win-back efforts.

• Are you still interested in rejoining?

• What's your professional status?

• What is your favorite city for a professional conference?

• What's keeping you from rejoining NAPNAP?

Of the 297 enrolled contacts, 74 (25%) reinstated their membership, 14 of which before even receiving the first check-in. 22 contacts (7% of the enrolled contacts) changed their mind and expressed why they no longer are interested.

The first check-in had the highest response rate at 17%, with an average response rate of 10% throughout the four check-ins.

​View the video below to learn more about NAPNAP's Dormant Nurture Campaign.