Blog: Tips & Insights

By Tony Rossell, Senior Vice President

Recently, I participated in an online conversation about data analytics methods to evaluate and track member engagement. Understanding how to engage members is critical for associations. In fact, according to the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, lack of engagement is the number one reason why members do not renew. Highly engaged members can be relied on to renew and are more likely to volunteer, attend meetings, and make purchases from the association. Identifying members who are not engaged provides an association with the opportunity to intervene before renewal time.

In this discussion, the question was asked: how can engagement best be…

READ MORE

By Tony Rossell, Senior Vice President

We received a lot of good feedback from our recent webinar presenting the results of the 2023 edition of the MGI Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. If you missed the webinar, you can access it here. Some of those who attended asked for additional information on the significant findings from our study. So, here is a short recap.

Certainly, the most significant finding from our research was the substantial rebound respondents shared with us in the membership counts. A total of 49% of associations reported an increase in their total membership numbers. In contrast, only 22% of respondents shared that their membership had declined, and this declining…

READ MORE

By Tony Rossell, Senior Vice President

The American Psychological Association published an article last year titled "Burnout and stress are everywhere." The piece maintained, "Burnout and stress are at all-time highs across professions."

Through our research over the past 15 years with association staff, we have seen substantial increases in the challenges of managing ever more complex membership programs and the demands of doing more with less. These difficulties grew even more intense with the radical adjustments brought on by COVID.

So, in our 2023 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, we once again questioned respondents about their stress levels. Specifically, we wanted to know, "With…

READ MORE

By Tony Rossell, Senior Vice President

The good news from the 2023 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report is that many associations experienced a remarkable rebound in membership counts. A multi-year high of 49% of associations say they saw an increase in their membership numbers. However, for some growing their membership remains a challenge. A total of 22% of respondents shared that their membership has declined.

So, in addition to reporting the characteristics and practices of growing associations this year, we also asked in our research what impediments hold back growth. In their own words, with some minor edits, here are what association executives told us holds membership back.

“Not…

READ MORE

By Tony Rossell, Senior Vice President

In our just released 2023 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, many respondents shared that one of the reasons for success this year in growing their membership is an increased budget. About one-third of associations report increases in the marketing budget earmarked for recruitment (36%) and awareness and engagement (32% each). And these higher budgets correlated with overall membership increases.

But how did membership staffs make the case for more money? We asked respondents how they successfully advocated for additional membership marketing funding. Here are some open-ended responses from our benchmarking research to this question:

“With data…

READ MORE