Uncovering how to increase membership in Non-profit organizations is essential to their survival. In order to grow and thrive, as well as continue to fulfill its mission, your Non-Profit needs to find innovative ways to attract new members and retain existing ones. Below are three tips to help increase membership in Non-Profit organizations.
Tip #1: Use social media as a marketing tool
You’ve heard it before, but it bears repeating: Social media is largely where people consume their news, learn about events, and find organizations like yours. Although more traditional methods of marketing, such as direct mail, are still relevant, social media is where things are happening … and that’s not going to change any time soon. Social media is a huge market for those who take the time to learn to properly navigate it. In fact, up to 16 percent of membership associations are using social media to find their target demographic and encourage large batches of renewals, according to Associations Now.
Before you can execute a successful social media strategy, you must clearly identify what you’re aiming to achieve. Here are top seven reasons Non-Profits use social media:
- Sharing news
- Brand recognition
- Education about the cause and mission
- Fundraising
- Volunteer recruitment
- Donor recognition
- Employee recruitment
Once you’ve identified what you’ll be using social media to achieve this goal, you’ll want to determine your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – namely, the metrics you’ll track to gauge the success of your social media marketing.
Your social media success KPI should reflect your Non-Profit’s success in creating long-term, sustained interactions with audiences, so using metrics to accurately measure the conversion and retention of customers along this journey will be most beneficial.
For example, a Facebook post may garner likes, comments, and shares – and these, in turn, might equate to generating “awareness” about your Non-Profit’s cause. Awareness is, as you know, the first step in how to increase membership for Non-Profit organizations. Similarly, a social media post containing a call-to-action – like a link to a sign-up page on your Non-Profit’s website – presents an opportunity to measure the conversion of casual viewers to new members.
Tip #2: Learn to use Google Analytics
In order to truly track conversions – assuming your company uses a website to manage new memberships – you’ll want to get comfortable with Google Analytics. Google Analytics can provide an accurate line-of-sight towards how people find your website and what they do on your website after they’ve arrived there.
If, for example, you’ve created a social media post on Facebook, and “Facebook Insights” indicates that 500 people clicked the embedded link to visit your website, Google Analytics can be used to understand what happens after the user has left Facebook and arrived at your webpage.
Further, let’s say that of these 500 people, only 3 became “new members.” Google Analytics can tell you how long these individuals stayed on your page, how much of the page content they viewed, and where they navigated after leaving your page. From this information, you can draw useful inferences about how successful your website really is at generating new memberships.
Tip #3: Find a good CRM and use it!
Another important tool for how to increase membership in Non-profit organizations is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. In fact, leveraging membership management software should be a fundamental ingredient of your strategy.
Your CRM will give you a birds-eye view of your membership and track all of your interactions with existing and prospective new members. Whereas “legacy” software typically leverages isolated excel spreadsheets where the information about constituents (including what and when they donated) is disconnected, a good CRM will integrate all this raw data into a single view. Understanding your membership pipeline at a glance will help you to optimize your time to tap, nurture, and serve your prospects, donors, and members.
For more information on how a CRM can be used to increase membership for your Non-Profit organization, reach out to our team today!