If your membership is large I suggest not surveying everyone, but break membership into subsets and manage last survey dates. Then you can get information and support your members, but not badger your membership and cause dissatisfaction.

Some organizations can get away with surveying their members more often, but I don’t know how your response rates have been in the past to comment here.

There is a definite threshold and you don’t want to go over the line.

The key is to understand their appetite for research, look at the size of your membership to determine if you can segment out and only survey a portion of membership and still get the statistical significance necessary for a quality study, and look at the incentives you give to members who participate.

Having a study on a website many times doesn’t work as well and typically an email with the link is the way to go if you want higher response rates, reminder management, tracing. E-newsletters with a link may work, but it may compromise the data or cause box stuffing.

If you can share the results of the research it would help as well. We have found that if a member filling out a research study sees value in the results and will get a copy of the report free, they are more apt to participate in more studies. In one association they go to members just about every 90 days with a study, get high response rates, but always share the report with anyone participating. Others pay for the published study.

They pick the right studies and put out a quality report so members look forward to them. Members see value in participating and the research has become a membership benefit! In this case the research studies got the #1 rating on satisfaction of all the services offered to membership. That is what may want to strive for.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Recently an association executive was trying to learn how to approach a membership award program for their conference.  Below are a few things to consider.  Granted this is a professional organization so take what you would like from it.   Here is the response.

Hopefully the ideas below helps as you decide how to approach.

1) You may want to start off with maybe a few awards that focus on the key, most important awards. I have seen members dread going to their big dinner / award dinner because they state “I see more firewood being handed out and I never go to them”. Firewood meaning plagues. Be careful and pick your battle. Members will appreciate it and you can test the waters and expand from there.

2) Depending on your membership a plague is a nice gesture and something visible. Certificates may work if in a nice frame and something they would hang in their office or out in front. I noticed you are a teacher association so maybe the certificates would be nice right next to their degree. Also, academia may be more open to recognition versus trade associations so you may be onto something.

3) I don’t think the money is the thing. A nice plague or certificate should be fine. It is the recognition more than the money in most cases with professional organizations.

4) Definitely would give them a little token or money to come out and stay.Again, nothing crazy, but maybe the flight and motel room.

You know your membership and what gets them jazzed more than anyone so I suggest going with your first instinct or go out to members and ask, but start small if you can and then grow from there if possible. First year maybe 5 awards, and then increase as feedback comes back and you see the response from members and winners.

Also, promoting the awards is important and giving PR to those winning members. Maybe a short case study posted on your website explaining what they did to win and why they are a star peer.

Without getting long winded on this issue, membership retention communications starts with truly understanding their opinion on a regular basis rather than when renewals go out. I may be biased toward the survey model, but I have seen this as very effective if resources are dedicated to watching for those answering neutral or negative on questions relating to future action such as rejoining, recommending, or overall value of the association. This can be done on your typical annual assessment, but it isn’t timely.  Short, 5 question surveys delivered after transactions, events, or any experience can uncover their feeling about the association at that moment. Why not address a membership need 6 months before renewal or right after a horrible experience so you can make it right immediately? Response time on issues is what helps retention, plus understanding what the expectations are and delivering on them.

Associations that understand membership needs and then hone their offerings to fit like a glove have the highest retention rates.  Not rocket science, but just throwing stuff out there without assessing the value is a mistake.

I am probably stating the obvious, but hopefully it helps someone.     Back to the coffee.     Take care,

Many associations conduct their own membership loyalty surveys and exit surveys, manage their own member satisfaction metrics and research studies.  Sometimes the response rates are low and difficult to understand why.  Here are a few things to consider when  running a survey or research study.

1)Keep surveys as short as possible and know your audience. 

2)Know both their appetite for the kind of survey you are doing and also how strong your relationship is with them.

3)Look at your e-mail invitation to the survey.  Messaging is so important to grab attention.

4)Look at the words used. You may be getting caught in spam and it isn’t being delivered.

5)Look at the subject line to make sure it is enticing and connects with the responder.

Most of the time you should only need to remind once and then you become an annoyance.  If you need to go with multiple reminders then something is going on.