Skip to main content

What's a good retention rate?

This tidbit came over the ASAE communications listserv yesterday, and I was kind of taken aback to actually find some great content! It's from Stephen Carey, who's president of the Association Management and Marketing Resources group. It's in response to a question that asked for "a summary of averages and ranges of association annual retention rates." The person asking said they felt like an idiot for asking, but I don't think it's a weird question at all. I think that kind of info is kept close to the vest. It reminds me of a saying about innkeepers that they'd rather talk about their sex lives than their occupancy rates. Anyhoo, here's the quote:
Most of the surveys for both trade and professional associations find that the average retention rate falls between 82% and 90%. The average rates 5 years ago were a percentage point or two above this. Some groups are running above 95% and others below 70%. If you are running below 85%, you probably need to tune up your retention machine and develop additional incentives, which address your value equation. If you running below 80% your value equation is probably in need of a major overhaul. Benchmark several like associations in your industry and use the average as your guide.

Our rule of thumb, is that if your combined membership rate after drops and adds is 3% or better on average, you're probably doing ok. We would also recommend that you figure your "true retention rate," which is your drops minus those drops that have changed fields, passed away, have budget problems or other issues you cannot control. This will give you the best guage as to whether your value proposition is out of whack and you really have a problem.

The most important thing in association membership first aid is to "stop the bleeding." This means spending as much if not more on the retention program as you do on the recruitment program. If you don't, you're just throwing new members into a net with a hole in it and you are wasting your recruitment dollars. We still find many association that have not mastered this piece of strategy yet.
This bit of information is good for me to know. I know I'm trying to stop the bleeding right now. But the question still remains, what are some good sources to research this kind of thing? I haven't seen it in anything from ASAE, but maybe I've overlooked that.

Popular posts from this blog

We've Always Done it That Way: 101 Things About Associations We Must Change

From what I can tell, the impetus for this book was that the folks who wrote it, Jeff De Cagna , David Gammel , Jamie Notter , Mickie Rops and Amy Smith , were “concerned by the instinctively conservative approach to organizational stewardship that far too many association executives and volunteers continue to pursue in the early years of the 21 st century.” I took notes throughout the book, and now I realize they are far too extensive to make a very good book review. And I am definitely the choir that this book is preaching to. However, I really, really liked the problems these folks addressed and they pretty much slaughtered and butchered several sacred cows. This book is not extensive narrative or heavily footnoted, but it is based on the collective experience of 5 people who together have worked with many different organizations, and the collective themes will be familiar to anyone in the field. On a meta level, this book takes observations of what’s happening in the
Read more

Public sector information design

Here's an article from the UK's Design Council talking about how information design is important in public-sector efforts. Of course, it's helpful to everyone, but this is a good example of the universal need for better presentation of information--and more design.
Read more

An Army of Davids

So, I've been spending some time with Glenn Reynold's book (Glenn being of course the seminal and highly influential Instapundit ), and I must say that it gives me lots of language I can use to talk about phenomena that are easily observable right now. I think you could say that Glenn Reynolds has done for technology what Virginia Postrel did with design topics . Which is to say, they beat the drum and say, hey, look at what this democratization of knowledge can do for you! In that vein, the book is really pretty visionary, pointing out the magic of the internet age. And I for one see it as magical. You know how Laura Ingalls Wilder's Pa in Little Town on the Prairie said to Laura that it was an amazing time to be alive (that was in the 1890s)? I've been actively thinking that to myself for the past few years, and An Army of Davids gives me ample evidence to back that up with its talk of citizen empowerment and the "comfy chair revolution." The theme of "
Read more