10 Creative Strategies to Cut Through the Clutter
As you think about engagement and registration offers for your organization, be sure to avoid the worst — and most abused — involvement device: “Join our mailing list.” Instead, focus on the many more compelling reasons you can give your constituents to take that first step in their engagement with you — and you, in turn, can begin to build a list of qualified prospects for giving.
2. Test a relevant premium early in membership renewal.
Some favor reserving premiums for new-member acquisition or a notice late in a membership renewal series when you want an added boost to help persuade people to join or renew. But we have good reasons to rethink this these days:
- In this current economic climate our members, even our best ones, are more likely to lapse.
- It’s always easier and less expensive to retain a member than to find a brand-new one, and that’s only magnified in this economy.
Guard against this by testing bringing a good, relevant premium offer into your membership renewal dialogue (i.e., don’t just reserve it for acquisition), and introduce your offer early in the renewal dialogue (i.e., don’t just save it for the seventh notice).
The Friends of the High Line 2010 membership renewal campaign created by MKDM contained a back-end postcard offer (set of five postcards, depicting artwork inspired by the High Line by NYC artists). We tested the offer with and without the postcard offer in an e-mail to donor populations. The postcard offer achieved a 40 percent higher clickthrough rate, doubled the response rate and increased the average gift by 50 percent.
In addition to the higher response rates, this also meant getting membership renewal done faster and earlier in the year, which meant spending less on reminder notices and leaving space/time for members to consider other giving offers later in the year.
