Meeting Member Expectations with a Flexible Membership Model
Is your current membership model meeting the needs and desires of the different types of people and companies in your association’s industry? I bet it is not and you are likely leaving money on the table and creating renewal blockers. Membership tiers that worked before the pandemic may not be the best or only ones to offer now.
“You are not who you were,” said Dean West, FASAE, president of Association Laboratory. Keynote Brian Solis echoed West’s theory when he spoke at ASAE TEC about the rise of a new kind of consumer—and member. Many of us have changed how we work, socialize, learn, and shop. We value different things now, especially how we spend our time. Don’t assume the membership tiers and pricing that always worked will continue to work for everyone. Your membership model must reflect the new needs, desires, and expectations of prospective and current members. When it does, your association will have more success recruiting, engaging, and retaining members.
Your Membership Model Must Be Flexible Enough for the Diverse Needs of Your Target Market
Mary Lue Peck, president and CEO of the National Speakers Association, told Associations Now, “Essentially, membership is the ultimate subscription business.” People want to tailor membership to their needs, like they do with subscriptions and other services they use. Some won’t buy the whole membership package if they only anticipate using a few benefits, while others will pay extra for special services. Become an inclusive association by having membership tiers that offer something valuable for everyone in your target audience at a price they can afford.
With a spectrum of membership tiers and pricing, you can offer low-risk, low-price memberships to young professionals who want to learn about the industry and expand their network. Eventually, they’ll graduate to more expensive tiers that provide more benefits and value. You can offer a membership disguised as a learning pass for people employed by companies that pay for professional development, but not membership.
People (and their employers) are concerned with the return on their dues investment. They don’t want to spend money on benefits they’ll never use. Your membership model must offer the flexibility needed to attract, engage, and retain professionals in your market—and your AMS must be able to manage a complex membership structure with various tiers and dues pricing.
What Individuals Seek in Membership
Here’s why revamping your membership model is so important right now: Before the pandemic, 81% of association CEOs said younger members were not interested in traditional membership models, according to Association Laboratory’s Looking Forward 2020 report.
Young people don’t care about member rates for events or products they can’t afford. They’re focused on improving their skills and knowledge and expanding their network. They rather purchase a virtual membership offering specific benefits for students and early-career professionals. Most of all, they want to pay monthly, just like their other subscriptions.
If you want to attract and retain young professionals, I suggest you start building relationships with them while they’re still in college. Base dues on their year—sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate school.
You can define professional membership tiers by years out of school (for recent graduates) or years of experience. In some legal societies, dues are based on a member’s position in the firm. I see a growing number of associations offering three to five individual membership tiers with the dues based on the value of the benefits received and other variables—you’ll see some examples below.
Professionals in transition, such as those laid off during economic crises, can’t always afford membership dues. Many associations have a discounted membership tier for them that provides benefits related to online career services, networking, and education.
What Companies Seek in Membership
A small business can’t afford the same membership dues as a global conglomerate. With a flexible membership model (and AMS), dues within a membership tier can vary depending on the company’s revenue or number of employees. Other pricing variables I’ve seen within an organizational membership tier are:
- Dues determined by the number of permits pulled for a construction association.
- Dues determined by the facility’s number of beds for a medical association.
- Dues determined by the member’s organization revenue.
Some trade associations limit membership benefits to a handful of designated employees of member companies. Others open up basic benefits to all member company employees, but only a few have special privileges. And some open up all benefits to all member company employees in their database.
A Flexible Membership Structure Requires a Flexible AMS
You can only offer membership tiers and dues pricing that match your market’s diverse needs if you have a configurable AMS. Your AMS must have the flexibility to offer and automatically calculate different dues pricing within a specific membership type, like the student, law professional, construction business, or medical facility examples above.
Customization could make this type of complexity possible, but AMS customization exposes you to additional problems. Besides being so expensive and time consuming, it takes your software off your vendor’s upgrade path.
You can only respond to the needs and expectations of individuals and companies—both existing and prospective members—if you have a flexible, configurable AMS that can handle a complex membership structure. For example, you want the ability to have variable dues pricing within a membership tier, like a young professional’s dues based on their number of years out of school or a company membership dues based on its number of employees. You also need flexibility to A/B test promotions such as multi-year discounting, first year free, 90 day free-trial and more to attract the younger and less financially stable members joining.
With a configurable AMS, your association isn’t locked into one membership model. You can experiment and change your offerings as the needs and desires of your members and market change.
If you’re having trouble finding an AMS that can accommodate complex membership tiers and dues pricing, watch a demo of the most configurable AMS on the market.