How to Measure Membership Drive Success
Running a membership drive can be a great way to increase your memberships and provide value to your existing members. But when all is said and done, how can you be sure you had a successful event? Here are three things to measure to gauge your success!
Did you gain memberships?
If you’ve finished your event without a single registration, it might be time to go back to the drawing board on the efficacy of your events. Since this is your main metric, you should be focused on this during the event itself, and not converting any attendees to members is a sign your organization needs some work. Whether that’s on your tier structure , pricing model , or even the organization itself, you’ve got some work to do.
Did you gain enough memberships to cover the cost of your event?
At the very least, the registrations you gather at the event should cover the cost of the event itself; otherwise, you’re losing money.
For an event that costs $1000, you would need to sell ten memberships at $100 per person to break even.
Did you gain more than enough memberships to cover the cost of your event?
To call your membership drive successful, you should break even on the cost of your event and then some. This extra profit will be a good indicator of general interest in your group, the efficacy of your events, and the ease of your sign-up process.
Before your event, decide what is enough for you. Do you want just barely to break even? Do you want your profit to equal the cost of your event? Or double it? This will help you in determining how to feel about the event after the fact!
You gained the email addresses of many new prospective members.
If you’re reporting this information to a manager, director, or board, this will also give them a useful measuring stick against which to judge the event itself.
Aside from the pure monetary angle of defining your event’s success, there are other intangible things you should keep an eye on as well!
You formed a good working relationship with a local business.
Filling out your email list is a great use of time and resources. These are people that are already familiar with your brand and have shown interest in your organization. You or your marketing team can tap these warm leads later on after the event has concluded as additional membership sign-ups you can contribute to the event!
You got positive feedback from more than a few of your attendees.
Even if they don’t sign up right away, building a solid, positive relationship with these prospective members is an important step, so make sure you keep them on your mailing list!
Local businesses are the lifeblood of any community, and building relationships with them can benefit both sides. Offer discounts on memberships to folks who bring in a flyer from the business or advertise your organization at the business’s location. Work out something mutually beneficial for both you and your local business owners so you can both support each other.
You’re sending out a post-event survey, right ? When you do, be sure to listen to what your members have to say and include meaningful questions and open-ended areas for feedback. Your attendees might say that your event was confusing, hard to find, or not very valuable for the time it took. If that’s the case, take all that to heart, and use it to better craft your next event.
On the other hand, your attendees might have loved your event and highlight specific elements that stood out to them. In that case, make sure to incorporate those elements into your next event and maybe even put more focus or resources into them.
Events can take a ton of time, effort, and resources. For this reason, it’s important to understand if your efforts have been valuable!
Check out our other blog posts on this subject:
Originally published at https://www.joinit.org.
