For many, it’s hard to remember a time when getting and keeping members wasn’t regarded as a pure marketing function; including us old-timers who began our association management careers working in membership departments! Surprisingly, the concept and its strategies have only been around since the late 1980s – over half a century after the precursor to the American Society of Association Executives was founded.
In the 1989 version of ASAE’s Attracting, Organizing, and Keeping Members, James W. Coursey, Kathleen R. Lane, Ph.D., and Kenneth E. Monroe (then American Medical Association staff professionals) led the way to defining the concept. They felt that incorporating newly popular marketing practices would generate better results. They did so to address issues of their time that they felt could dissuade member participation, including a soaring Federal deficit, the 1987 stock market crash, and the looming recession.
Yet, they also cautioned their peers of the consequences of its use. Despite the potential benefits, everyone needed to remember that they could not and should not, “…sell membership like cereal…”
They were not alone in their concerns.
In 2003, Ralph Nappi, then president of the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Association, felt compelled, during an association management-related panel discussion, to address another panelist’s (a popular business consultant) urging to view and treat members as customers. He reminded those attending that, despite the growing popularity of doing so, associations were designed to provide a different, more seamless experience than for-profit organizations.
What harm could there be in adopting traditional transaction-based marketing practices; as they have proven successful at getting and keeping members?
Let’s examine the initial concerns and then reflect on the unintended consequences.
Isn’t a member just a type of customer?
Simply put, no.
Customers, by definition, are individuals who make purchases of items they need or want. They exchange money for that desired product or experience. Their interaction with the organization selling the item may terminate once the purchase is made. Some companies take steps to keep connected with their customers hoping to promote additional items or other services. Generally, the relationship that is established is solely between the organization and the customer.
While members make purchases, it’s only one aspect of the role they must play. Membership-based organizations’ (MBOs)* founders recognized that their members possessed all of the information, knowledge, experience, expertise, and connections relevant to their emergent practice setting. As such, they intentionally established an organizational model that depended heavily on members’ contributing that intellectual property not just to the organization, but also with fellow members. These dynamics have not changed.
James R. Hudson’s groundbreaking findings from his research on MBOs (based on over 400 of their published histories) led him to propose that members were not customers. Instead, the founders defined their members’ role to be more like citizens because their members played a pivotal part in defining, developing, and shaping their practice settings’ future direction.
In essence, MBOs’ founders consciously chose to give members rights and privileges as well as impose specific duties and obligations. The founders also realized that their members possessed the very information that they needed to produce their various programs, products and services…information that other members would consume. Further, they understood that members would not just establish a relationship with their MBOs, but with fellow members as well; something a transaction-focused marketing approach did not and could not address.
How does using the term customer influence members’ behavior?
Roles, like member, citizen, and customer, are realized when expectations and behaviors are recognized and learned. The Melos Institute’s applied research, driven by members’ stories, has revealed that most members don’t fully understand or appreciate what it means to be a member.
But they are very familiar with what it means to be a customer.
It should be no surprise then that when members are viewed and treated as customers, they behave as such. Far too many view their participation as a series of independent experiences; most of which require additional financial transactions over and above their dues payment.
Without adequate instruction, members’ behaviors are not likely to change.
Most onboarding or orientation experiences focus on all that the organization has to offer. Few, if any, define other forms of engagement (i.e., voluntary roles) as additional opportunities for members to further their professional or personal development. Instead, they are positioned as ways for them to “give back;” help their MBOs achieve their goals.
MBOs seeking greater member engagement can do so by adjusting their transaction-focused communications to be more relation-centered. Orientations for new and existing members need to provide insight and guidance on: 1) what it means to be a member, and 2) how to navigate the organization to address their needs, interests, goals, and aspirations.
The good news is that members are capable of unlearning that they are customers and relearning that they are members/citizens of their MBOs.
Teaching members how to enjoy a seamless membership experience, as Ralph Nappi long ago suggested, is a fundamental responsibility of every association management professional.
Association management professionals are uniquely positioned to design and deliver the kind of guidance and support new and existing members need to understand how they can make the most of their membership.
Everything you do directly impacts the degree to which your members choose to engage.
At the same time, these same efforts help you gain insight into how your members’ information, knowledge, experiences, expertise, and connections can help advance your MBOs’ goals and priorities.
How do you do that? That is the focus of the next article.
*A formal definition of MBOs is available on this website in: What are Membership-based Organizations & What Makes Them So Special? (please make this post title a link to the article)
For more detailed information about MBOs, association management, and member engagement from a relation-centered perspective, check out: Member Engagement Paradox: Overcoming 7 Obstacles to Build and Maintain Thriving Membership Communities.
Patricia A. Hudson, MPsSc is the founder and president of the Melos Institute.
