In 2023, 50% of individual membership organizations (IMOs) saw an increase in their membership base. This indicates stability in the membership space, which was shaken by the pandemic and economic shifts. But is your organization doing everything it can to go beyond stability and foster growth?

Whether you run an association that holds 501(c)(3) status or operate a nonprofit with a membership program, attracting new members is a key part of growing your organization. However, the work doesn’t stop when these new members enroll. In this guide, we’ll cover what you need to do to welcome them and start building deep relationships—let’s begin.

Why Personalization Is Key

Personalization is now ubiquitous in the marketing industry, and for good reason. This strategy ensures each message your potential and current members receive from your organization relates to their interests, affinities, geographic location, and more.

Fonteva’s guide to member engagement highlights the importance of tailored communications, recommending that membership organizations structure personalization around these phases in the membership lifecycle:

• New members: These members fall into the recruitment and early engagement stages of the membership lifecycle. Consider using a welcome email series, onboarding webinar, and mentorship program to engage them. We’ll discuss more ways to welcome them later.
• Current members: These are your current members who have passed the initial onboarding stage, and they are best engaged with options like advanced learning courses or leadership opportunities.
• Members at risk of lapsing: These members are nearing their renewal period. Engage them and promote renewals by providing customized value propositions, exclusive discounts, or member benefits.

By tailoring your communications to each of these different audiences, your organization can build more personal relationships, show that it values members as individuals, and effectively engage and retain more members.

Welcome & Engage New Members

As you work to engage new members, make sure you have a powerful association management system (AMS) by your side—ideally a CRM-based AMS. A CRM will help you leverage and understand your member data so you can better personalize these efforts. After all, even though all of these members are new to your organization, they are still individuals with unique interests, preferences, and goals.

Here are some top strategies you can use to kick off deep relationships with your new members:

Promptly share welcome materials.

Welcome your new members to your organization with materials that introduce them to your leadership team, core mission and values, and the work you do. In these welcome materials, include:

• A personalized welcome letter that expresses gratitude and outlines member benefits
• A membership handbook containing basic information about your organization, its mission, and opportunities available to members
• An upcoming events calendar
• A list of member resources with links (if applicable)
• Details on how to access the membership portal and any gated resources
• A list of frequently asked questions
• A discount or voucher for branded merchandise

 

Additionally, remember to include or link to relevant educational resources and provide a staff member’s contact information in case they have questions.

Share these materials using communication features included in your membership management system. This way, you can get them to members quickly or even automate the process so that the messages are triggered to send when a new member joins.

Organize a guided onboarding experience.

Onboarding new members involves many moving parts that can quickly become overwhelming. Offering a streamlined, guided experience will give members a more positive experience and help them absorb all the information they need to know about your organization.

A few ways to make your onboarding experience more organized and streamlined include:

• Building custom, guided digital experiences. Depending on the technology you use, your organization may be able to build custom digital experiences without the need for extensive coding. For example, Fíonta highlights the power of Salesforce Omnistudio, which offers drag-and-drop configuration capabilities that help quickly create guided experiences.

• Pairing new members with a guide. Assign a mentor or staff member to each new member to give them a personal touchpoint to help guide them through onboarding. Have these guides reach out often to check in and answer any questions they have along the way.
• Offering interactive sessions. Remote onboarding can feel isolating. To engage new members, consider offering live webinars or meetings to cover the basics and troubleshoot technical issues, like struggling to access the member portal, in real time. This will also give them a chance to interact with staff, leadership, and peers.

Recommend ways to engage.

To keep these members engaged beyond onboarding, you’ll need to nudge them toward other ways to get involved. Based on what you’ve learned about them, make tailored recommendations for other ways they can engage with your organization. This may include:

• Events: Promote events that are relevant to members’ interests, take place near their geographic locations, or are designed for newer members. For example, you might invite members from the southeastern U.S. to a conference in Nashville. Or, you might make them aware of your monthly virtual coffee hours used for networking.
• Learning courses: Recommend learning opportunities based on members’ career paths, interests, level of experience, and affinities. Perhaps those who are interested in environmental activism would be interested in a course or session about boosting sustainability in the workplace.
• Fundraisers and volunteer opportunities: Whether you run a nonprofit membership program or a professional association, you likely engage in fundraisers and volunteer opportunities. Give members the chance to give back by sharing about campaigns and causes they are likely to support.

Additionally, promote any involvement opportunities or benefits that make your association stand out to boost members’ perception of the value of their membership.

Making a strong first impression is key. When you learn about your new recruits, appeal to their interests, and refer them to the programs and opportunities they’re most interested in, you’ll significantly increase the chance that they renew in the future. This is why data is so important when you are welcoming new members—after all, your membership base isn’t a monolith but a set of individuals with unique preferences.

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Erin Lemons, VP of Marketing at Fonteva

Erin Lemons joins Togetherwork Association Solutions with over 15 years serving as a marketing director, event producer, and project manager creating robust marketing campaigns and initiatives that focus on the growing and ever-changing technology needs of the association industry.

She leads the marketing teams and strategy at Fonteva and Protech.