Member retention is crucial to the longevity of event and education systems, ensuring you keep the clients and customers you gain. Membership renewal cycles should be strategically structured, timed, and crafted to frame renewal as something positive rather than a costly ask.
This guide explores the top membership renewal best practices, including why some campaigns succeed and others fail.
What Makes A Membership Renewal Process Actually Work?
Multiple factors go into effective membership renewal processes. Many of the best processes minimize friction, streamline steps, and clearly establish value to keep customers around.
Renewal outreach should be personalized and consistent. Nearly every message should speak directly to each member, such as by highlighting their personal engagement metrics and what they've gained over the past year. You should also include clear calls to action (CTAs) by listing next steps and adding links that let members easily renew. Campaign timelines should also give members ample time to consider their renewal decision, establishing urgency while ensuring they don't feel pressured to act without thinking.
How is renewal rate different from retention rate?
Renewal rate and retention rate get used interchangeably in board reporting, which muddies the picture. Retention rates track activity across your entire customer base, while renewal rates focus solely on customers with contracts, agreements, or subscriptions that expire. So, while your member retention rate provides crucial insights, you should also track renewal rates to identify differences in this unique customer base.
Another distinction is that member renewal rates and retention rates typically use different time scales to measure activity. Organizations usually measure retention within monthly, quarterly, and annual timelines. Renewal rates instead focus on specific customer decisions, such as one- or two-year contract renewals, while still examining how renewal shifts over time.
This difference affects reporting and how quickly you can get specific metrics. Even with effective reporting, it may take longer to identify changes in renewal rates for contracts with long gaps between renewals.
When Should Your Renewal Outreach Begin?
Associations' renewal campaigns often start too late, often beginning only 30 days before the agreement expires. By this point, members have already made the decision to either renew or move on.
Instead, renewal outreach should begin 60 to 90 days before renewal. This gives members enough time to make an informed decision about renewal without bombarding them with year-round campaigns and marketing. Your offerings should ideally speak for themselves the rest of the year, with your outreach campaign coming in during the final months to clearly establish your membership value proposition.
At the same time, you shouldn't include everything in your 90-day renewal outreach message. Consider starting with a personalized check-in, a status update, or a gentle reminder that renewal is right around the corner. The rest of your campaign will make the case that renewal is the undeniable best option.
What should a renewal sequence look like across the full membership year?
The best campaigns use renewal reminder sequences across fixed timelines. These subtly guide clients and members as they weigh the pros and cons of renewing, while highlighting the benefits and value of membership. A sequenced approach gives members time to review data and budgets so they don't feel pressured into an uninformed decision.
Campaigns may also need to include sequences for members who have not yet renewed. Winning back lapsed members is reactive and usually takes the form of a discount offer.
While specific points and timelines vary, strong campaigns follow similar renewal sequences:
- 90-day check-in: The initial check-in should be low pressure, reminding members about the upcoming renewal and the value they've gained over the past nine months.
- 60-day update: About two to four weeks after the initial reminder, follow up with clear details and instructions for renewal, making it easy for members to take the next steps when they're ready. This is the best time to introduce any new offers, pricing changes, or features that will entice members to renew for another year.
- 30-day reminder: Gently and quickly remind members that renewal ends in about a month. Include clear next steps, including a link to the renewal page.
- Two-week follow-up: Send personalized check-ins to any members who haven't yet renewed or responded. Lay out clear next steps and benefits of renewing, along with any consequences of not renewing, such as losing access to data. Treat this as your last chance to plead your case for another year.
- Expiration day: Send a short, direct message the day the agreement or membership ends. Include a direct CTA to renew today.
- Post-lapse check-ins: Send personalized outreach messages to any members who did not renew, ideally two weeks and one month after lapse. Give them easy next steps if they want to renew, and consider asking why they chose not to return.
How Do You Show Members The Value They Actually Received?
Making the case for membership renewal often requires a personalized approach that highlights each individual's usage and membership benefits. Use customized messages to share specific membership details that make it clear that the last year of membership was a positive investment and that the next year will be, too.
Just as Spotify shares users' monthly and annual listening hours, your renewal campaign should reflect what members gained and what they'll gain again if they renew. However, this approach requires accurately tracking members' activities throughout the year. You may also consider establishing in-program milestones and metrics that you can look back on during renewal, such as an achievement for attending five or more conferences.
Which participation records make the strongest case at renewal time?
Most individuals can't easily pull up what they did during the year. This is usually because that history sits in the event system and the Learning Management System (LMS), but the renewal campaign runs out of the Association Management System (AMS). Your outreach must bridge this gap. Cadmium helps with this by providing the participation and education records behind the ask.
The best records to highlight focus on engagement, ongoing value, and return on investment (ROI). These metrics establish a tangible value for membership, making it clear it's not a wasted expense:
- Activity and usage: Highlight how much each member has used your membership, such as by sharing the number of events attended or the hours spent at conferences in the last year. Additionally, spotlight which features or offerings members used in the past year, as well as which ones they missed.
- Impact data: Cite specific outcomes of members' activity, such as the milestones or goals they met or the continuing education credits they earned. This data also adds value to the time spent at events.
- Cost savings and ROI: Consider comparing last year's membership cost to the estimated total cost of what they would've otherwise paid. For example, if a member used your service to attend ten conferences, you could add up how much it would've cost for an individual to attend each conference without membership.
Why Do Renewal Reminders Underperform Even With Engaged Members?
One of the most common reasons why membership renewal messages fail is that they're generic and transactional. Every member gets the same message whether they attended ten sessions or none. Additionally, many outreach messages put too much focus on next steps rather than what the member actually gained.
Other reasons why association membership renewal fails include:
- Challenges with billing or the overall renewal process
- Disorganized or disconnected data
- Ineffective certification tracking
- Unnecessarily long messages that bury the CTA
- Unresolved issues with your membership or services
What turns a renewal ask into a value moment instead of an invoice?
The ideal message shouldn't feel like you're asking for more money; it should instead feel like an invitation to continue a mutually beneficial partnership. Personalized renewal outreach can help members realize exactly how they've benefited from your membership, which can strengthen member retention and trust.
The following elements can help you make the membership renewal process into a positive experience:
- Quantified ROI: Compile all financial numbers, including membership cost, cost savings, and the estimated value gained from events, to establish a positive and tangible return on investment.
- Before-and-after framing: Highlight what skills members gained, what they've achieved, and what else has changed since their membership began.
- Membership changes: Spotlight any positive changes or new features that members will only experience if they renew for a second year.
- Streamlined renewal process: Friction and technical challenges can push away members who were already on the fence about renewing. Keep next steps simple and include clear CTAs so members don't need to do much to renew.
- Open communication: Individual members may have unique reasons for being unsure about renewal, which you may need to address directly. Consider ditching the "no-reply" email address and adding clear "Contact Us" links at the end of each message so members can easily continue the conversation.
- Leaving next steps open to members: Rather than assuming what members want to gain from another year of membership, consider sharing multiple next-step options, such as the types of conferences they can attend next year. You could also add a CTA to reach out to discuss specific next steps and maximize what they get out of the experience. This open-endedness is especially important for education, as the skills members want to build upon this year may differ from last year.
How Can Your Event And Education Systems Strengthen Every Renewal Cycle?
Renewal cycles give event and education systems an opportunity to strengthen member retention while learning more about why members stick around. This can help them improve each new renewal campaign and their offerings as a whole.
What should your team be able to see before the renewal ask goes out?
Membership renewal best practices adapt to each unique market. This means your team must deeply understand your audience to personalize outreach and keep members coming back. Member engagement data and other metrics paint a clear picture of why members stick around and what you need to highlight to make a real impact.
With fewer vendors and one connection system, the right LMS and AMS integration makes it easy to maintain and examine all membership data. Eventscribe, Cadmium's event management system, turns event content into documented, year-round member value, especially thanks to its connections to Elevate and EthosCE.
Learn more about how Eventscribe can elevate your association renewal campaign. Ready to take the next step? Speak with an expert here.
