Once you understand how to target your membership acquisition strategy your current member base can provide key information that will assist you in finding more people like them that are most likely going to be interested in becoming new Members in response to your marketing campaigns.
Different organizations hold a variety of information in their Member database and all of it can be used to help improve your acquisition marketing. The best demographics to focus on are ones that can be found in the market place and targeted in some fashion with a compelling offer. Some common traits would be geographic mapping, age groupings, total household income, how long have they been a Member and type of membership. (If there is more than one level)
There are several choices are available to reach the prospects that you have found from your Member research, addressed or unaddressed direct mail, email, calling campaigns or even referral programs. There is rarely one single focus to maximize return, rather a combination of all of the opportunities in a balanced annual strategic plan. Once the delivery method is determined you need to decide what is the call to action going to be? A promotional price offer, a gift premium, a special timeframe offer.
Where Gilmore perhaps adds the most value for our Partners is in the seamless execution of the chosen strategy. We work collaboratively with each Customer to deliver top quality print or digital content while still meeting or exceeding deadlines. We review the project from start to completion to make sure we are achieving your marketing objectives and assign all tasks to the subject matter experts on our Operations team.
One last item that is often a challenge is to set realistic expectations on performance, base goals off previous campaigns actual performance. Wanting to improve performance through test and control strategies is a great plan but if you are not realistic it can derail a new marketing creative before it even has a chance to be successful.
Watch soon for the next posting; Member Retention
Thank you
Scott Cherkewich
Director, Marketing
Gilmore Doculink
