Achieving a high rate of membership renewals should be a goal for any membership organisation. Membership renewal letters should be considered a key marketing tool and not just a tax invoice.
The following advice led to an organisation being able to increase its membership renewals to 98%:
- An attention grabbing headline stating a clear benefit for renewing now.
- An opening paragraph which instilled a sense of urgency and interest in renewing.
- A series of benefit statements, listed in bullet point format, that gave compelling reasons why the member should renew.
- An offer for early renewal (not a huge offer, but something of value to ‘early birds’). This was in the form of a ‘PS’ at the bottom of the page.
- A call to action at the end of the letter, making it easy for the person to renew.
- A brochure outlining a member-get-member program, and a reward for introducing a new member (leverage word of mouth marketing and encourage members to recruit their peers)
The result? The organisation gained more renewals before their deadline than ever before. They gained a huge number of new member applications.
