Professional Associations: Tapping the hidden value in your membership database
Successful and immediately recognizable brands like Amazon and iTunes routinely analyze and harvest the data in their customer databases to increase sales performance. By doing so, they are constantly creating new opportunities to communicate and sell to an already proven and loyal group of consumers. It’s really all about understanding customer behavior and professional associations should be doing it too.
Looking at data in different ways is not unique to the retail industry – professional associations can and should do the same.
Why is this so critical to your professional association’s success?
It’s simple; the cost of acquiring new members is significantly higher than the efforts to build retention and keep your existing members. It starts with understanding customer/member behavior.
Key points to keep in mind when thinking about your association’s database:
- Building member loyalty comes from leveraging three key database axioms: recency, frequency, and amount
- The first step is to translate the data by profiling and segmenting based on utilization of your services and frequency of use by member type
- Once the data is segmented, behavioral patterns will become immediately obvious and offer an opportunity for cross-promoting services
- The results from the analysis can be leveraged to increase share of wallet, share of services and share of mind
A segment that is sometimes overlooked is members that have been lost. Having the ability to accurately pinpoint why members are not renewing and using that data to change and reengage members could be the best shot at increasing revenue and brand loyalty.
If you can track product and service utilization, there are two reports that can offer immediate feedback:
1. Cross-sell report: tracking how many services or events a member has used
2. Decile report: Dividing members into ten equal parts based on the number of services, or the amount spent with the association.
Both of these database reports show exactly who is brand loyal and who is about to walk out the door.
BeaconFey Marketing & Communications applied this decile report to a medical association client for pharmacy sales. Using this segmentation allowed concentration of marketing resources that generated 23:1 return on investment.
BeaconFey Marketing & Communications has more than 30 years of experience in translating complex data into actionable marketing programs that create true value and content, inspire current members to stay, attract new members and drive future growth for professional associations. Our award-winning team is skilled in a variety of disciplines to ensure your marketing dollars are well spent and your message reaches the right audience at the right time.
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