New members are the most at risk members of most associations, but some members do engage. Knowing why they engage, might help us guide more new members in this direction. So what prompts new members to engage?
- Someone they respect encourages them to join, and they do not want to let that person down, so they try to learn more about the association and maybe even get involved.
- Someone they respect encourages them to join and because that person finds value they assume they will too, so they invest time to learn more.
- Upon joining they have a great experience. Someone calls them and that person was super friendly. Or they are warmly welcomed to a chapter event. They start to feel feelings of belonging, and so they approach interactions with the association with eagerness and an open mind.
- Immediately upon joining they receive value. They have a problem, and an article provided the solution. They had a problem they didn’t know they had but read about it in one of the emails from the new member email series. They heard about a course that everyone is raving about and upon joining they got a discount coupon to sign up. Since they received this early value, they realize there is, even more, value, so they seek out more.
- The new member got to sample the association’s benefits before joining. They went to the conference as a non-member. Or they had access to an important piece of research. Becuase they got to experience value as a non-member they assume the member value is even greater so invest the time to learn more.
Reverse engineer these reasons new members engage and engage more new members.
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