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Making Your Post-Event Debrief Worth Your Time

Posted on by Miranda Pruitt
Making Your Post-Event Debrief Worth Your Time

You put your blood, sweat, and tears into your events. So when things don’t go to plan, it can be hard to swallow. You might be tempted to put it behind you and never look back – but that’s the worst thing you can do.

Even if you think you already know what worked and what didn’t, holding a post-event debrief meeting to review the event while it’s fresh in your mind is absolutely essential. Be systematic about it, and take notes on what you want to repeat at your next event, and what you would change.

Making Your Post-Event Debrief Session Effective

Schedule a post-event debrief with your key stakeholders and event committee members within a few days of the event.  It can be helpful to set a date in everyone’s calendar before the event even happens. Debriefs aren’t just about pointing out the mistakes that were made, but celebrating successes.

We’ve all been to those debrief meetings that seem directionless. To avoid inefficient use of everyone’s time, assign a facilitator to ensure it’s well-structured.  With your facilitator, prepare some discussion questions in advance to promote open sharing of insights and opinions.

Here are a couple of questions you may want to think about:

  • What went well? What didn’t? Why?
  • What aspects of the event didn’t go according to plan? How will you prevent this next time?
  • How well did your committee work together leading up to the event?
  • Were there any parts of the planning process that could have been more efficient? How could you improve efficiency?
  • Did everyone have enough time to complete their tasks well and reach their individual and group goals?
  • Were instructions and expectations always clear?

You’ll want to assign someone to capture the key discussion points and distribute the notes to the whole group for review afterward. Once everyone has had an opportunity to give feedback and make suggestions to the document, re-distribute the final document and save it to refer to when you start the planning for your next event.

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The Keys to a Good Membership Pricing Strategy

Posted on by Miranda Pruitt
The Keys to a Good Membership Pricing Strategy

How confident are you in your organization’s membership pricing strategy? Are you doing everything you can to generate the most revenue while satisfying existing members and drawing new ones in?

Promoting the right membership packages and add-ons to the right people at the right price is fundamental to both member acquisition and member retention. Once you’ve taken the time to understand the needs of your members, you can develop more flexible pricing strategies to generate reliable revenue streams.

It’s important to consider your overall business objectives before setting prices and packaging benefits. Is your goal to capture more market share? Are you looking to expand into new markets? Do you want to encourage your lower-level members to upgrade?

Review and Revise your Membership Structure

Every association is different, and there is no concrete formula for effective membership structures. The key is to cater to the kinds of members you want to appeal to.

First, you’ll want to compare your organizational assessment with the member profiles you’ve developed. Analyze each member profile, and make a note of where your organization is falling short of delivering value. Then, you should think of ways that you can enhance your current offerings or introduce new benefits to fulfill more of your members’ needs. This is particularly important for members who make a large membership investment but have a low perceived value of their membership.

Look at which products and benefits could be bundled together to match the needs of each group, and then see if you can put a value on the total package. You may just need to tweak your current membership levels, but if you find that your current membership options don’t align with your key targets, overhauling your membership structure might be your best option.

It’s not realistic to make your membership packages meet every last need of your target audiences. Even within your segmented groups, interests and needs will still vary. Try to balance price and perceived value, and leave room for purchasing add-ons separately to account for these variances.

Ideas for Developing Your Pricing Strategy

Many associations use a cost-plus pricing model, a simple method in which a markup percentage is added to operational costs to make a profit. This is by far the easiest price structure to calculate, however, it is often not in an association’s best interest. Many associations purposely try to keep their costs low for members, but this thinking has its downsides. For example, in cases of unforeseeable economic downturns, it can cause members to drop off when times get tough.

Value-based pricing has emerged as a much more effective way to set membership prices. It enables an association to set prices based on the value it is offering members, instead of the actual cost.

“Because members and prospects vary in their price sensitivity and preferences, you should consider a variety of pricing strategies to enhance your marketing efforts and sell memberships and products.” (Jacobs, 2014) Here are just a couple ideas to consider …

1. Price for value. Don’t undervalue what you are offering, particularly if it’s a need-to-have product, your competitors can’t match it, or there is prestige associated with being a member. This rule is especially important when determining the price differences between your membership levels.

2. Increase dues by a small percentage each year rather than making infrequent large increases. Many members already expect incremental increases, and they are much easier to swallow than large increases that come as a surprise.

3. Offer VIP options. Add an additional layer to your pricing, and additional revenue, by allowing members of any status to register for events or programs under a VIP category. Added benefits for VIPs might include reserved seating, invitations to cocktail receptions, or special gifts.

4. Build perceived value. You can do this by offering add-ons without charging more. Examples might include free professional advice or free publications for certain types of members. With this strategy, you’ll need to price your other programs, products, and services so that they cover the cost of the “free” offering.

5. Offer monthly memberships and billing. Many associations are already starting to offer monthly installment options on annual memberships. Why not consider taking that one step further and offering a monthly membership option? This strategy could help you attract some of your on-the-fence prospects and eventually sign them as long-term members. To them, it’s a low-risk way to try out the benefits of membership.

6. Create urgency. Think early-bird special. This strategy works well for events and other programs. Combine limited quantities with special pricing that expires at some point to encourage your members to register quickly.

7. Attract with high-value, low-cost products. For example, you may offer a large discount on the price of your annual conference to draw members in, and then subsidize the cost of the event by charging for related events and activities on an al a carte basis.

8. Offer discounts for group members with high participation. If you don’t already have a group membership option for corporate and other industry organizations, now is the time to think about putting one in place. You could offer these members generous discounts for enrolling a certain percentage of their employees.

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The Right Questions to Ask on Your Next Membership Survey (Part 2)

Posted on by Miranda Pruitt
The Right Questions to Ask on Your Next Membership Survey (Part 2)

In last week’s post, we looked at why membership surveys are important, and the basic demographic and personal information you need to understand who your members are. The key to retaining your members – and attracting new ones – is knowing what they need and value, how you can fill those needs, and what they think of your organization.

Once you have some data to paint a good picture, you can begin adapting your strategies so that you’re relevant and providing better value. That’s ultimately the deciding factor in whether your members stay or go.

Here we look at the kinds of questions you’ll need to ask to collect this vital data …

Annual Membership Investment – and RETURN VALUE on Investment

Knowing how much revenue you are generating through each member can help you prioritize where to devote your efforts. Some experts are now suggesting that perceived value on investment is an even stronger motivator than actual return on investment for members to join and renew. Perceived value is what people are willing to spend on a particular product or service.

Comparing what members are spending with their perceived value of the benefits can help you identify potential barriers to retention. It can also give you clues as to how your benefits could be packaged differently to provide your members with more value for money.

When you analyze perceived value in conjunction with your members’ challenges, you’ll be able to determine how well you’re delivering your value promise.

Questions to ask in your membership survey:

  • Which programs and benefits have you used during the year, and how often?
  • For each benefit you’ve used, what dollar value would you assign to it?
  • How much did you invest in our association during the year, including dues + add-ons?
  • Do you believe your membership investment last year was fair, less than fair, or more than fair for the value you received?

Challenges and Needs

Your association exists to meet your members’ needs. Staying ahead of the curve and leading the charge on new information and industry trends is an important feature of many associations. For this reason, it is crucial not to become one of those associations that offer the same exact services year after year.

Could it be possible that your services are designed to meet challenges that are no longer relevant or not as valued? Your survey can help you find out.

Questions to ask in your membership survey:

  • What are the top three challenges you are facing right now?
  • Rank our services based on what you feel is most important. (List all services)
  • Is there anything you would like to see added or enhanced about our service offerings?
  • What other member-based industry organizations do you belong to?

Perception of Your Organization

Perceived value is the fundamental driver of membership, and different members value different things. If you consider your organization to be a leader in your industry, you should find out whether your members agree.

Questions to ask in your membership survey:

  • What do you believe is the primary function of our association?
  • Compared to other organizations in the industry, what are the advantages of belonging to our organization?
  • How did you first hear about us?
  • Do you intend to renew your membership?
  • If not, what could we offer you that would make you renew?
  • What do you like the most about being a member of our organization?
  • What would you improve about or add to your membership experience?
  • Why did you initially join the organization?
  • How long have you been a member?
  • How often do you read our newsletter, visit our website, etc?
  • Rate each of our benefits/programs on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being most valuable and 1 being least valuable.
  • What types of information and resources do you seek to stay on top of industry trends?
  • How likely are you to refer a friend to join?
  • Which of these words do you associate with our organization? (list several words, ie. Advocate, knowledge leader, innovator)
  • How satisfied are you with our level of service?
  • What is your preferred source for industry information? (magazines, websites, etc)