Are membership programs still viable in today’s world? Yes, associations who are focused on understanding the new and ever-evolving needs of their members are developing highly effective member programs and delivering significant recurring revenue.

But how do you actually do it? We spoke with Tony Rossell, Senior Vice President at Marketing General Incorporated and here’s what he said:

Membership Recruitment Is The Lever For Growth

In this clip, Tony Rossell discusses how understanding that membership marketing is now more challenging than ever before, but using this leverage is how you succeed in growing your association. 

• Membership growth is achievable despite the many new challenges. 
• There is a clear connection between organizations that are growing their member count & seeing overall membership growth. 
• It’s important to put people at the top of the funnel. 

“Well, number one is, and the poll is really interesting because I would agree that, that membership marketing is more challenging than ever. And there's more tools available, there's more challenges, there's more opportunities. So number one piece in the book that I really tried to communicate is that membership growth is achievable. And we, coming out of the pandemic, I think that was a question in many organizations' minds, can I grow my membership of? Does membership still work? So that was number one. I wanted it to communicate that membership still does work. It's a powerful tool for your organization. It's interesting because membership recruitment we've found to be the lever for that growth. So we do benchmarking report, which maybe we can chat a little bit about later, but we see a clear correlation between organizations that are growing their new member count and seeing overall membership growth. So putting people on the top of the funnel is critical. And that's why I focused on membership recruitment.”

- Tony Rossell

In this clip, we wanted Tony’s take on the value of associations during these trying times and here’s what he said:

 “71% of associations last year told us that their engagement with members had increased. So there was a big, big jump in engagement. Now, many of those groups lost some members, but the members who stayed were engaged. And that tells me two things. First of all, it tells me that in trying times, in difficult times like we had, members knew where to turn. They turned to their association for advocacy. They turned to their association for critical information. They turned to their association to help maybe find a job, if they were laid off. We had one client that would, during the pandemic would have up to 150,000 participants for their webinars because they were talking how do you stay safe as a nurse? How do you treat your patients? They had people worldwide attending. So I don't think you have quite that number for this webinar, but still it was the association, members turning to their association for help.”

- Tony Rossell

How are you and your organization keeping up with The Great Resignation? Here’s what he said:

“You know, it's interesting because there are more challenges now and I'll freely admit that, and you sort of referenced this, Michael, there's also technology that's really helpful. So database hygiene, you can do appends, you can do email verification, you can do NCOA, you can do, you can look at emails that are bouncing and then go back to that company and get the person's replacement. So technology is adequately used as a tool to help in that realm.”

- Tony Rossell

To watch the full conversation with Tony Rossell, check out this on-demand resource.