Beat the heat with Auto-Renewals...They’ll keep your staff cool!
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On-Demand Available Here: http://bit.ly/2vlZwfW Your members live in a subscription economy. Many of them pay auto-renewing monthly fees to watch movies (Netflix), listen to music (Spotify), cook dinner (Blue Apron), or enhance their wardrobe (Stitch Fix). Would some of them do the same for association membership? The data says yes. A monthly auto-renewal payment plan allows a member to join your association for the price of lunch and start receiving benefits immediately. Join us to determine if auto-renewal membership is right for your association. We’ll discuss the benefits, the pitfalls and how to get started and/or optimize your current auto-renewal and monthly installment processes.
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Beat the heat with Auto-Renewals...They’ll keep your staff cool!
- 1. #ServeMyMembers Beat the Heat with Auto-Renewals...
- 2. Kyle Bazzy Director of Growth Billhighway Teri Carden Founder ReviewMyAMS
- 3. “We can work on more valuable member services than being a billing administrative association in which we’re spending all our time kicking dues notices.” - Mark Jones, CAE, president of enSYNC Corporation
- 4. Grow & Adapt or Die
- 7. Auto Renewals in the Association World Our Agenda 01 7 Reasons Associations Love Auto Renewals 02 Are Auto Renewals Right for Your Association? 03
- 8. Auto Renewals in the Association World Offer automatic renewals 29% Offer installment plans 41% Members opt into auto renewal plans 23%
- 10. Do Members Want it? How Do You Know?
- 14. #1 Offer Members a More Affordable Plan • Early career professionals • Professionals between jobs • Retired professionals • Self-employed, freelance & contract workers 7 Reasons To Love Auto Renewals
- 15. Objective: Increase recruitment & retention of younger members • Self-paying members = most receptive • Annual new member dues revenue up $200K • 27% more likely to renew after first year • Offered the option to all members 7 Reasons To Love Auto Renewals Example: The American Occupational Therapy Association Participant Renewals 15% Increased Dues Revenue $350k
- 16. #2 Eliminate Barriers to Joining Decision • Less restrained with money • Members join for the price of lunch • Receive benefits immediately • Decision to join is easier • Trial membership without fine print 7 Reasons To Love Auto Renewals
- 17. Objective: Make decision to join as easy as possible • 40% of new members chose this option • People give more monthly than one-time • Average one-time online gift = $102, average monthly gift = $24 ($288 over 12 mo.) Monthly $39 7 Reasons To Love Auto Renewals Example: Air Conditioning Contractors of America Annually $450 VS
- 18. #3 Make Life Simpler for Members • Members can set it & forget it • No service interruption if forget to pay • No forms or approval to cut checks • Send notice in advance – members can update account 7 Reasons To Love Auto Renewals
- 19. #4 Give Your Members Options • Everyone appreciates options • Some members rather pay all at once • Budget-friendly option (no sticker shock) 7 Reasons To Love Auto Renewals Didn’t renew because employers wouldn’t pay/stopped paying26%
- 20. #5 Free Up Association Staff Time • Less time on renewal emails & calls • Spend time on mission-critical work • Account Updater functionality to handle declined cards 7 Reasons To Love Auto Renewals
- 21. #6 Eliminate Unintentional Non-Renewal • No invoice lands on wrong desk • No tracking down new mailing or email addresses 7 Reasons To Love Auto Renewals members didn’t renew because they simply forgot…19%
- 22. #7 Enjoy Predictable Revenue Stream • Subscription model = recurring revenue monthly/yearly • Steady & predictable flow 7 Reasons To Love Auto Renewals Improved member satisfaction & retention50%
- 25. Are Auto Renewals Right for Your Association?
- 26. Are Auto Renewals Right for Your Association? Know Who Pays for Your Members’ Dues Ask Yourself… • Industry employment trend? • % of members paying out of pocket? • Potential barrier to joining or renewing? U.S. workforce made up of freelance35%
- 27. Are Auto Renewals Right for Your Association? Know How Members Prefer to Pay Dues Ask Yourself… • Know members’ comfort level? • Paying dues by credit card? EFT? Paper checks? • Do members pay dues online? Mail?
- 28. Are Auto Renewals Right for Your Association? Poll Your Members to Gauge Interest Don’t sell your members something they won’t use…verify interest. Ask Yourself… • If employers pay, will this work? • Will members be reimbursed? • Do you have technology in place?
- 29. Build The Case
- 30. Listen Listen to needs and wants of your members – make it easy for them Key Takeaways 01 Research Find ways to reduce staff manual processes 02 Compliant Make sure card data is stored securely 03 Trust Properly communicate any changes with your members & what to expect 04
- 34. Q&A – Ask Away!
Editor's Notes
- A monthly auto-renewal payment plan allows a member to join your association for the price of lunch and start receiving benefits immediately. Join us to determine if auto-renewal membership is right for your association. We’ll discuss the benefits, the pitfalls and how to get started and/or optimize your current auto-renewal and monthly installment processes.
- Teri can introduce Kyle
- http://associationsnow.com/2016/11/perpetual-membership-study-auto-renewal-reality-check/?utm_source=AN%2BDaily%2BNews&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20161109%2BWednesday
- Kyle can speak to this
- These are your competitors. Your members live in a subscription economy. Many of them pay auto-renewing monthly fees to watch movies (Netflix), listen to music (Spotify), cook dinner (Blue Apron), or enhance their wardrobe (Stitch Fix). Would some of them do the same for association membership? The data says yes. Associations have been consumers of the subscription economy since the rise and adoption of Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms such as association management systems, learning management systems, and other association software. You and your colleagues probably use other subscription-based tools like Dropbox, Office 365, Adobe Creative Cloud, Slack, Asana, or Buffer. Members already pay for monthly subscription services in their personal and professional lives – why not give them the option to pay for their association membership the same way? Just like memberships in the consumer world, monthly dues payments can be automatically charged to the member’s or employer’s credit card or paid via an electronic funds transfer from a checking account. If members decide not to renew, they simply notify the association and automatic payments are cancelled. In the meantime, their monthly dues payments are set for auto-renewal – aka “perpetual membership.” It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
- The auto-renewal trend is growing in the association community, according to Marketing General Incorporated’s (MGI) 2016 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. 29 percent of associations now offer automatic renewal and 41 percent of them offer installment plans as an alternative to annual payments. And, more members are now choosing the auto-renewal option. EnSYNC’s The State of Perpetual Memberships report says 23 percent of members opt into automatic renewal at associations that offer it.
- Keep or get rid of? Or combine ones above into this? Listen: Survey your members – don’t sell them something they won’t use Research: Find hacks to save your staff time (account updater, automatic renewal notices, etc) Build trust Be pci compliant Build a business case
- The auto-renewal trend is growing in the association community, according to Marketing General Incorporated’s (MGI) 2016 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. 29 percent of associations now offer automatic renewal and 41 percent of them offer installment plans as an alternative to annual payments. And, more members are now choosing the auto-renewal option. EnSYNC’s The State of Perpetual Memberships report says 23 percent of members opt into automatic renewal at associations that offer it.
- Members, particularly younger members, benefit from having the option to pay their dues monthly via auto-renewal. But, associations benefit too. A one-time dues payment of $325 can be a deal-breaker for many, but it’s much easier to manage if you only have to pay $28/month.
- The auto-renewal trend is growing in the association community, according to Marketing General Incorporated’s (MGI) 2016 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report. 29 percent of associations now offer automatic renewal and 41 percent of them offer installment plans as an alternative to annual payments. And, more members are now choosing the auto-renewal option. EnSYNC’s The State of Perpetual Memberships report says 23 percent of members opt into automatic renewal at associations that offer it.
- Example of AMA’s automatic renewal program based on member feedback. Here’s their sign up page. Make it simple >> https://www.ama.org/membership/Pages/Automatic-Renewal-Program.aspx
- Example of AMA’s automatic renewal program based on member feedback. Here’s their sign up page. Make it simple >> https://www.ama.org/membership/Pages/Automatic-Renewal-Program.aspx
- Members, particularly younger members, benefit from having the option to pay their dues monthly via auto-renewal. But, associations benefit too. A one-time dues payment of $325 can be a deal-breaker for many, but it’s much easier to manage if you only have to pay $28/month.
- The initial cost of joining an association can seem like a formidable outlay of funds for many prospects. A one-time dues payment of $325 can be a deal-breaker for many, but it’s much easier to manage if you only have to pay $28/month. Here’s who it can benefit the most: Younger or early career professionals whose dues aren’t subsidized by their employers Professionals between jobs Retired professionals Self-employed, freelance, and contract workers. Small businesses or start-ups with cash flow challenges.
- In 2006, the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) was eager to increase its recruitment and retention of younger members. A survey told them young members considered the cost of dues a key barrier to joining. AOTA decided to test a monthly membership payment plan with auto-renewal on new members. Self-paying members were the most receptive to this new payment plan. As a result, annual new member dues revenue increased by more than $200K. Yes, you read that right. When they offered the monthly auto-renewal plan to all members, renewals increased by 15%— a $350K increase in dues revenue and a solution to the slowing renewal response rates (and lower retention) they had been experiencing with younger members. They also learned that new member participants in the auto-renewal plan were 27% more likely to renew after the first year than new members who didn’t choose the monthly payment plan option. https://www.asaecenter.org/resources/articles/an_plus/2013/october/can-a-monthly-payment-option-work-at-your-association Results Self-paying members were the most receptive to this new payment plan. Annual new member dues revenue increased by more than $200K. Participants were 27% more likely to renew after the first year than new members who didn’t choose the payment-plan option. Based on the success of the plan, AOTA offered the option to all members.
- 2. Eliminate a barrier to the purchase (or joining) decision. We’re less restrained with our money when we spend it in small increments – ask anyone with an iPad full of $1.99 Kindle ebooks (ahem). A monthly auto-renewal payment plan allows a member to join your association for the price of lunch and start receiving benefits immediately. The decision to join is easier to make at the lower monthly price, especially if a member pays dues out of their own pocket. It’s like a trial membership without any fine print. We’re less restrained with our money when we spend it in small increments A monthly auto-renewal payment plan allows a member to join your association for the price of lunch and start receiving benefits immediately. The decision to join is easier to make at the lower monthly price, especially if a member pays dues out of their own pocket. It’s like a trial membership without any fine print.
- When you visit the Air Conditioning Contractors of America’s (ACCA) website, you see their monthly dues rate of $39 splashed all over the place. Compared to the annual rate of $450, a monthly bill for $39 seems like a no-brainer which is probably why 40% of their new members have chosen this option. “We’re an organization of small-business owners, so for a lot of our members it’s more of a personal money decision than it is a corporate decision. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to make that decision.” ACCA’s results align with the findings of the 2016 M+R Benchmarks Study: people give more on a monthly basis than they do on a one-time basis. The average one-time online gift is $102, while the average monthly online gift is $24—which comes to $288 over 12 months, a substantial difference. American School Counselors Association, which offers two auto-renewal options: $12.95 monthly or $129 yearly, charged automatically to the member’s credit card. Stephanie Wicks, director of membership at ASCA, says about 10 percent of its members choose auto-renewal, mostly on the monthly option. For an association whose members typically pay out of pocket, monthly auto-renewal is “a great way just to be able to make it a little more affordable for people,” Wicks says. (Though, if you’re quick with math, you’ll note that $12.95 times 12 months is $155.40; Wicks says the extra cost covers the additional administration to manage the monthly payments.)
- The great thing about automatic renewals is members can set it and forget it. They don’t have to worry about a service interruption if they forget to pay. And, they don’t have to complete forms and gather approval signatures to get a check cut every year. To make sure they have the member’s correct credit card number and expiration date, associations send a notice to members in advance of the renewal (payment) date. Members can log in and update their account information if necessary.
- Everyone appreciates having options. Some members rather pay their dues all at once because their employer prefers it that way. However, others appreciate having a more budget-friendly option. In fact, MGI found that 26 percent of the associations participating in their survey said one of the top reasons members didn’t renew is because employers wouldn’t pay or stopped paying the member’s dues. That’s less of a problem when dues payments don’t cause sticker shock.
- Association staff love auto-renewal payment plans because they reduce the amount of time spent on the renewal process. You no longer have to spend time developing and sending renewal emails, making renewal calls (or asking members to make those calls), and finding out where invoices ended up and where they need to go to get paid by the member’s employer. The time you used to spend on these tasks can now be spent on more mission-critical work. Plug account updater One time-consuming task for staff is dealing with expired or reissued credit cards. However, that’s less of a problem now as more payment processors are offering an Account Updater function. With your members’ permission, if a card is declined, the payment processor automatically requests a card update from the card networks and receives the most current card information along with authorization of the monthly fee.
- 19 percent of the association participating in the MGI survey said one of the top reasons members didn’t renew is because they simply forgot to renew. Auto-renewal eliminates that problem. With auto-renewal, you also don’t have to worry about dues invoices ending up on the wrong desks. And, as long as their credit card still works, you don’t have to worry about members in transition (personal or professional) who forget to provide you with a new mailing or email address.
- The business world has taken to the subscription model because it provides recurring revenue each month and a steady predictable revenue flow throughout the year. Best of all, according to the EnSYNC survey, half of the associations offering either automatic renewal or installment plans reported improved member satisfaction and retention. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
- Even ideas that are trending in the association community must be backed up by data based on your own member and market research. How do you know if auto-renewals are a good option for YOUR association, chapters & members? We’ll dive into the items you need to consider before deciding to offer auto-renewal, and explain how to make a business case for auto-renewal, and prepare to launch your new monthly dues payment plan. Challenges “Because there is no obvious spot to reconsider the membership—especially in cases of automated payments—when members reach the point where they are unhappy enough to cancel, they are usually genuinely unhappy,” Baxter writes. So, if you’re going to ask members to pay you dues on a monthly basis, it would be wise to provide a membership experience that engages them regularly—at least monthly but perhaps weekly or even daily. This program does require a lot of administrative follow up. Member’s credit cards will expire or be rejected and this requires a personal interaction from the association. This is a real concern. AEA reports that about 20% of the members’ credit cards have expired by the time that the next year’s renewal is due.
- Even ideas that are trending in the association community must be backed up by data based on your own member and market research. How do you know if auto-renewals are a good option for YOUR association, chapters & members? We’ll dive into the items you need to consider before deciding to offer auto-renewal, and explain how to make a business case for auto-renewal, and prepare to launch your new monthly dues payment plan. Challenges “Because there is no obvious spot to reconsider the membership—especially in cases of automated payments—when members reach the point where they are unhappy enough to cancel, they are usually genuinely unhappy,” Baxter writes. So, if you’re going to ask members to pay you dues on a monthly basis, it would be wise to provide a membership experience that engages them regularly—at least monthly but perhaps weekly or even daily. This program does require a lot of administrative follow up. Member’s credit cards will expire or be rejected and this requires a personal interaction from the association. This is a real concern. AEA reports that about 20% of the members’ credit cards have expired by the time that the next year’s renewal is due.
- Members, particularly younger members, benefit from having the option to pay their dues monthly via auto-renewal. But, associations benefit too. A one-time dues payment of $325 can be a deal-breaker for many, but it’s much easier to manage if you only have to pay $28/month.
- Know who pays for your members’ dues. Younger or early career professionals who don’t have a professional development budget to spend. Professionals in between jobs. Retired professionals. Small businesses or start-ups with cash flow challenges. Self-employed, freelance, or contract workers. Freelancers now make up 35% of the U.S. workforce, the fastest growing segment of the economy. What’s the employment trend in your industry or profession? What percentage of your members pay dues out of their own pocket? Could your annual dues be a barrier to joining or renewing for your members and prospects?
- Know how members prefer to pay for dues. Get a sense of your members’ comfort level for this method of payment. Are they already paying dues by credit card or electronic funds transfers? Or, are they still stuck on the idea of paper checks? Do members make purchases, register for events, or pay dues online? Or do they still use mail and fax for these transactions? (Hopefully not fax…)
- Poll your members to gauge interest. Don’t try to sell your members something they won’t use. Find out if there’s an interest in this plan. For those whose employers pay their dues, will this method work? Will their finance department approve? Will members be comfortable using their own credit card, and if so, how will they be reimbursed by their employer? Do you have the technology in place to make this work? Ask your AMS or CRM vendor if they can support auto-renewal or recurring billing and payment functionality. Make sure you have the appropriate integrations in place too. Don’t forget your chapters in this, if they collect the dues, they’ll have to have access to the technology as well.
- Even ideas that are trending in the association community must be backed up by data based on your own member and market research. How do you know if auto-renewals are a good option for YOUR association, chapters & members? We’ll dive into the items you need to consider before deciding to offer auto-renewal, and explain how to make a business case for auto-renewal, and prepare to launch your new monthly dues payment plan. Challenges “Because there is no obvious spot to reconsider the membership—especially in cases of automated payments—when members reach the point where they are unhappy enough to cancel, they are usually genuinely unhappy,” Baxter writes. So, if you’re going to ask members to pay you dues on a monthly basis, it would be wise to provide a membership experience that engages them regularly—at least monthly but perhaps weekly or even daily. This program does require a lot of administrative follow up. Member’s credit cards will expire or be rejected and this requires a personal interaction from the association. This is a real concern. AEA reports that about 20% of the members’ credit cards have expired by the time that the next year’s renewal is due.
- Keep or get rid of? Or combine ones above into this? Listen: Survey your members – don’t sell them something they won’t use Research: Find hacks to save your staff time (account updater, automatic renewal notices, etc) Build trust Be pci compliant Build a business case
- Example of AIIP’s automatic renewal agreement View more: https://www.aiip.org/Resources/Documents/AIIP_Automatic_Renewal_Agreement.pdf
- Promote CEX – Friday, October 13th Registration Page: https://assncex2017.eventbrite.com Hosted by Mariner Management & Marketing LLC and Billhighway The first and only conference just for associations with chapters
- Open it up to questions Teri can pose to Kyle