My idea of a fun weekend is cuddling up with a membership database—not really but that’s what I did this weekend. We’re in the process of redesigning several of our association publications and were stuck looking at competing magazines and websites and not finding any new ideas—which was almost as sad as spending your weekend doing database analysis.
It was very illuminating. It always is. So why don’t we do more of it? We do membership surveys and readership surveys and all that information is great context but there’s nothing like the basic pie chart to show you where your problems—and your solutions—lie.
I figured out why one of our magazines has so much trouble selling ads: almost half the readers don’t buy anything. They’re either students or “affiliates”, i.e., manufacturers and retailers. These are worthwhile membership categories but unless they’re paying the association a whole lot of money in the case of affiliates, or increase the member lifetime value in the case of students, half drags down the bottom line. Such members are along for the ride. They don’t volunteer. They don’t have anything to contribute. They may pester the core membership at conferences asking for jobs, asking for business, generally using your coat tails and not paying enough for the privilege.
- How many affiliate members is too many?
- How many student members is too many?
I also discovered that the high margin members, the leading companies in the industry, are under-represented. Less than three-fourths of the largest companies are members and some of those that are only have one name on the database—probably a receptionist who lays the magazine on a coffee table somewhere.
- Are you going for lots of members or ones that matter?
- Are your membership tactics focused on acquisition or on penetration?
I found that a significant chunk of the members don’t define themselves as the association’s target. A quarter of them call themselves “apples” when what we’re after is “oranges.” Things change, industries and professions evolve, new skills are acquired. If you are the Professional Orange Association but your members now actually do more “apple” type work, they might not find all that orange stuff relevant anymore.
- Are you evolving your membership categories and your programming quickly enough?
- If the members define themselves differently, should you too?
And I found a lot of typos. In the immortal words of my third-grade teacher, “Neatness counts.” How does your largest member feel when you can’t even spell her name right? How does your chairman of the board look when his company’s name is wrong? I know, it’s a pain to proof read thousands of names but what might it cost you if you don’t?
