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Tony Rossell of Marketing General, Inc. details ten tips for making your membership recruitment mailing campaign a success.

10 Time-Tested Membership Recruitment Mailing Tips

Marketers today have a broad array of options to use for membership recruitment. These options range from cooperative arrangements with for-profit companies to the use of e-mail, space advertisements, and telemarketing. However, the workhorse of membership acquisition marketing remains direct mail solicitations. In fact, when integrated with the web to provide the prospective member with a source of additional information and with an instant response vehicle, direct mail has become even more effective.

When taking a look at rapidly growing associations, there are 10 common practices that these associations have successfully employed and tested over the years that serve as an excellent guide when it comes to planning and implementing a successful direct mail membership acquisition effort.

Many of these lessons have been learned at great expense. Others have produced great profit. All 10 of them are worth considering before you start your next promotion.

1. Begin each and every mailing by thinking creatively and asking “WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN JOINING?” Then search out mailing lists that contain these potential members. Not taking the time to research and test lists is the single biggest mistake in direct mail membership recruitment. In any given mailing the results from one mailing list to the next can vary by 1,000%. Even if you primarily mail to an in-house prospect list, try some direct response rental lists and compare results. You may be very surprised at the results. Some of the best outside lists to test are members of similar associations, subscribers to industry magazines, and buyers of books related to your association. Tip: Ask current members what other professional literature that they read and test these lists first.
   
   
2. Once you have found the best mailing lists, carefully develop a strong Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to drive the positioning and copy of your direct mail promotion. The USP answers the prospect’s question of “WHY THIS ASSOCIATION?” The USP is the big benefit that your association can deliver compared to any other group. Tip: Ask someone who is not familiar with your organization to read your copy and define the USP in one sentence. If they can't, go back to the drawing board.
   
   
3. Develop a special offer to answer your prospect’s question: “WHY JOIN NOW?” After many tests, one of the best offers continues to be a limited-time, introductory dues discount. Ideally, this discount will bring the dues down to a psychological price point – a dues amount that ends with a dollar amount of a “7” or “9.” For example, an acquisition price of $139 will typically generate more revenue and members than a price of $150.
   
   
4. Build your mailing around a metaphor -- something a prospect will recognize and know what to do with. Try using an invitation, survey, certificate, or temporary membership card format. People process information by putting it into mental boxes. They make a split-second decision on whether a piece of mail is important or not, so you need to get their attention. An invitation, for example, typically requests a response and goes in the mental box that says: “I NEED TO RSVP.”
   
   
5. After you have found your lists and selected a format, the time has finally come to write. As you write your direct mail promotion, think of a conversation between a salesperson and a prospective member. (Tip: Sometimes it is helpful to dictate or or “talk through” the first rough draft of the letter on a tape recorder.) Ask and answer the questions any prospective member would ask. And be sure to deal directly with typical sales objections (e.g., “IT SEEMS TOO EXPENSIVE”, or “I’M NOT SURE IT WILL BE USEFUL TO ME.”) As you write, also be sure to include specific proof. Support your USP by answering the prospect’s question, “HOW DO I KNOW I CAN BELIEVE YOU?” with real examples, numbers, product data, and testimonials.
   
   
6. As you create the response piece in your package, make it as easy as possible for your prospect who is ready to buy and says: “I DON’T WANT TO WAIT FOR SNAIL MAIL.” This is where today’s technology comes into play. Direct mail is a powerful “push” marketing tool. However, it is not instant or interactive. Use your mailing piece to direct prospects to a special section of the association’s Web page where they can get more information and where they can instantly sign up and enjoy immediate access to members-only web information. The integrated use of the web and direct mail is a powerful tool.
   
   
7. Now it is time to produce the mailing. Make the investment in a computer-personalized format (i.e., lasering the name and address on the letter and reply). In membership recruitment, personalization will out pull a “Dear Colleague” letter by as much as 30% while the cost of producing the package will typically increase less than 10%.
   
   
8. To offset the increased costs of personalization, you may be able to save money on your mailing by removing one or more components from your promotion. Believe it or not, many associations have found that including a membership brochure in the mailing can actually hurt response. A brochure makes your mailing look like a sales effort instead of professional correspondence with a colleague. Test a portion of your next mailing without a brochure and see if returns increase.
   
   
9. As you near completion of your direct mail package, don’t give in to the desire to put a “cute” phrase or “teaser” on the envelope. With few exceptions, a teaser will not increase response for a membership recruitment piece. Instead, maintain the personal business correspondence look of the promotion.
   
   
10. Finally, before you mail your promotion, be sure to set up a system to accurately track responses. Accurate tracking and analysis remains one of the most underdeveloped areas in association marketing. Yet it is the key to validating all of the work that has gone into creating a promotion. If computer personalization is used in the mailing, then assigning a specific key code to be added to each reply form is simple. A separate code needs to be used for each list and for each test segment (i.e., copy test, offer test). Then, as responses comes back, these codes need to be recorded. Ideally this is done in the member record, but if necessary this can be accomplished by keeping a manual tally of responding codes. The ultimate goal of tracking and analysis is to determine what lists, copy, packages, and offers produce the best return on investment for each marketing dollar spent.

Tony Rossell is senior vice president with Marketing General, Inc., in Alexandria, Virginia. He specializes in developing integrated marketing solutions for associations. Tony is a co-author of the ASAE book Membership Marketing. He can be reached at 703-706-0360 or by e-mail at:   tony@marketinggeneral.com.

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