Like many organizations, IPC, the electronics industry’s global trade association, has a membership growth challenge. While the pandemic has thrown new challenges into the mix, last year IPC overcame some of its growth challenges with a new marketing campaign that netted a 17 percent growth in membership.

To drive membership growth, we needed to increase awareness among nonmembers (and current members too) that being a member of IPC delivers a proven ROI. Many viewed IPC as simply “a standards development organization.” Our goal was to demonstrate how IPC helps members build electronics better using not only our standards but also through our discounted products and services and support of new initiatives.

To reach our goal, we invested in a marketing campaign to communicate the overall value of membership, add new members, and boost retention.

Campaign Goals

The marketing campaign had four goals:

Increase membership. Kicking off the campaign in January 2019, our goal was to recruit new members by marketing to IPC’s database of prospects, which included thousands of individuals who had purchased IPC products or services but whose companies had not become IPC members. We also marketed to the industry at large. We set a baseline objective to increase membership in 2019 by at least 7 percent over 2018, which meant 400-plus new member sites (company locations).

 IPC used data collected from existing members on the value of their membership and how the membership “pays for itself.”

Improve retention. In addition to attracting new members, we wanted to reinforce the value of IPC membership to current members and improve our retention rate.

Position membership. IPC wanted to position membership as a key contributor to the manufacture of consistently high-quality, highly reliable electronics. The electronics industry is divided into three classes: Class 1, with a short lifecycle, such as toys or flashlights; Class 2, designed for a longer life like microwaves and laptops; and Class 3, where quality, reliability, and consistency are critical, such as in aerospace and medical applications. IPC’s campaign focused on Classes 2 and 3, where we saw high adoption and usage of IPC standards that contribute to members’ financial success. Our goal was to communicate that adding an IPC membership makes improved quality, reliability, and consistency possible.

Demonstrate value. We wanted to show prospective members a demonstrable ROI with the savings IPC membership brings through discounts and other benefits. IPC used data collected from existing members on the value of their membership and how the membership “pays for itself.” Our research indicated more than 60 percent of companies saved tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars by using IPC products and services. Additionally, more than 40 percent have reduced costly rework.

The Marketing Plan

We developed a two-phase integrated marketing plan, partnering with David James Group agency. Phase one was prelaunch and included campaign and theme development, media planning, an “IPC Membership Pays for Itself” testimonial and infographic, a teaser video, testimonial videos, and a campaign landing page.

In phase two, we rolled out the campaign, including our IPC Ambassador toolkit, which provided tools to make the case for IPC membership to internal decision-makers. Our marketing agency created the theme “Start with the Standards” (SWTS), which communicated how better electronics mean a better quality of life for all.

A key strategy in this campaign was making a compelling offer: a 50 percent savings on a first-time member’s initial year of dues. The offer was valued at a minimum of $675 for the typical single-site membership.

Results

Membership. The SWTS campaign performed well beyond expectations. At the end of 2019, we experienced a 24 percent gain in new member sites. After adjusting for lost retention, our net growth in members sites was 17 percent, which means we more than doubled our minimum growth goal of 7 percent. 

Retention. We exceeded our retention rate objective by 150 member sites. A significant improvement over the original goal.

Finances. Sixty-five percent of our new members were first-time members, which means they were eligible for our 50 percent discount offer. Based on the campaign’s budget and the dues revenue generated, we estimate the campaign’s ROI at 485 percent. We expect to benefit from significant additional membership revenue over the lifetime of these new members based on today’s average annual member rate, retention rate, and member tenure. Additional membership revenue helps drive investment in new and better ways to serve our members.

Results. While we did not assign goals to recruit enterprise members (i.e., the membership type covering all of a company’s sites), we ended the year with a 50 percent increase in enterprise members as well. Adding enterprise member companies is another important avenue to the success of our membership growth strategy.

We see the success of this campaign as contributing to the success of the electronics industry. IPC is here to provide the products, services, industry advocacy, innovative solutions, and thought leadership necessary for the world to build electronics better.

IPC won ASAE’s 2020 Gold Circle Award for Marketing and Promotion in the category of Member Retention.