How to Increase Membership in Salesforce: 7 Unconventional Strategies [Higher Education Edition]

If only increasing membership could be done in the snap of a finger. However, this is an ongoing process that has many stages. First, you need to put your objectives on the map and decide on the audience. Second, you should opt for a technical solution to maintain memberships in your organization. Third, you should think of the content to produce and it’d better be good!

What if you are an educational institution using Salesforce and wishing to expand your reach and grow your member base? Could those stages be applied to you? They sure could! Are there any special tricks for that? Of course!

Over the course of this article, you will find out how to increase membership in your association in the higher education industry. As a side note, though, many of the strategies we are about to share can be implemented in other industries too. You just have to consider your organization’s unique mission and specifics. Plus, the strategies can and should be applied to new, prospective, and current members. So let’s kick off!

3 Issues Preventing You from Growing Your Membership

Before we start digging into the ways to increase membership in education, we need to look at the current state of affairs. Is there something that you might do wrong and that’s why fall short of aim? Look at these common problems that might interfere with your objectives:

1. Prospective Members Can’t Understand the Benefits of Joining

It’s a widely spread scenario. While an association provides the best-in-class service and offers fair pricing, its membership benefits are often overlooked. In fact, they are the reason why members join the association. So, they should be put at a premium!

Who are the potential members of an educational organization? That’s right! Students (and their parents), professors, alumni, stakeholders, etc. That’s why you have to clearly communicate your membership value at the very first touch points. Fight for the main audience’s attention and make sure other interested parties know about the things you offer, too.

2. Current Membership Isn’t in Tune with the Audience

Would you want to stick to an organization that isn’t aligned with your background, vision, or mission? Me neither. It’s often the case that association membership is wide of the mark with how it presents its organization’s mission or welcomes members joining it. To prevent such mistakes and deliver THE membership values your audience hopes to see, everything you do should be a good match with them.

If you are in higher education (or manufacturing, healthcare, IT, etc – no matter the industry), make sure you stand out from other organizations. Put a lot of time into the membership package naming (for instance, you can create packages with such names as Institutional, Student, State Council, Full, or Associate Membership).

Plus, tweak your marketing and legal materials. Your copy should be straightforward and inclusive to attract prospective members. Avoid being too playful, jargon, and other irrelevant details. Your membership “language” should entice local businesses and attract new members. That is, screaming out to everyone interested in contributing to your organization.

3. Members Don’t Feel Heard

If your members don’t feel heard (and seen), it can significantly deteriorate member retention and, as a result, bring about member churn. Luckily, you can address this issue, by following several steps:

• Implement feedback platforms or suggestion boxes for members to voice their concerns and ideas. Speaking of, suggestion boxes can be easily set up in Salesforce.
• Conduct regular surveys and themed polls to monitor member satisfaction and identify areas for improvement. In higher education, such an activity can be performed with the help of faculty staff, a student body, or a dean’s office. But of course, surveys are a one-click matter if you do that online.
• Designated listening teams, such as responsible department staff or top students, so that they can address member concerns, provide timely responses, and form a sense of community.
• Empower members to vote, as it provides them with the opportunity to influence change. By the way, if your association runs on Salesforce and you would like to implement such a functionality with an add-on, AC Ideas Ultimate from Advanced Communities fits the bill perfectly. With features like idea prioritization, votes, idea campaigns, and idea flagging, you can take member feedback in your organization to the next level.

How to Grow Membership in Salesforce Following 7 Strategies

1. Use Appropriate Tech and Data

The strategies to grow membership are doomed to failure without a massive technical ground. No matter if you are in higher education or not. What can you do to succeed? Use Salesforce products to boost your member headcount, satisfaction, and engagement. So you’d better find Salesforce-powered member software that comprises the following characteristics:

• Subscription payment and renewal management;
• Member database;
• Event ticketing and management;
• Analytics and reporting.

Does your association management software have all of that? While you are mulling this over, a great piece of membership software will also help you automate routine tasks and free up time to focus on wooing new members! For instance, you can set up automated subscription renewal follow-ups, response to member queries much faster, reduce operation costs, and do so much more.

From the higher education perspective, decent membership software with automation embedded can help you:

• Automate the onboarding process – you can leave document verification, fee collection, or course registration to the system;
• Streamline communication – the automated system can send targeted emails, SMS, or push notifications based on member preferences (for example, new course schedule);
• Manage data – cleanse and update member data to avoid duplicates and keep the database in order;
• Manage events – your software can automate event registration, ticketing, and attendee management;
• Manage finances – you can be sure that membership fees are processed, invoices are generated, and payments are reconciled.

2. Build an Online Community

Even if your organization operates and has regular meetups offline, this isn’t a reason to snap your fingers at the power of online communities. They are perfect for building bridges with prospective members, drawing new members, and gearing up that membership drive.

A well-designed online community can help you show off personalized content. For instance, school associations may use it to gather membership dues, announce upcoming educational events, or even sell some membership branded swag. There are some key elements to consider for your online community to lure prospective new members:

• Event calendar – provide a full and easy access to scheduled membership events and make sure even non-members can check it (we’ll talk about hosting events a tad later);
• Member benefits – design a page or just a section with all your membership advantages so that prospective members choose you for your values.
• Membership FAQs – people (especially new members) ask questions. A lot! So it’s in your best interest to make this process painless for them. Include an FAQ page with all the relevant questions current members or even non-members might pose. This can be everything from membership fees and a local event schedule to networking opportunities and membership levels. The most cool thing is that your members can get instant answers. This is way better than phone calls!
• Chatter groups and communication – to grow membership, you can start Chatter groups on your community to motivate your members to communicate with each other, exchange ideas and knowledge, or seek (and find) help. Plus, you can manage here membership requests to join, use feed, initiate polls/surveys, etc.

• Calls to action – what is the best way to grow membership and encourage potential members to reach out to you? A smart call to action! Add buttons or links to your website so that new members can contact you without much of a hassle.

Geneva Graduate Institute

The Geneva Graduate Institute needed a technological solution to unite its alumni community in a common digital space. The objective was to facilitate ongoing communication among alumni, enabling them to maintain connections, exchange experiences and knowledge, cooperate on initiatives, fundraise, and access valuable resources from the institute.

3. Deliver Professional Development Opportunities

Do you usually provide your students, principals of institutions, or other members of your organization with the professional development opportunities? If your answer is negative, you should start doing that immediately. So follow my lead.

Thanks to robust Salesforce association management, you can offer existing members a chance to explore new learning horizons. For instance, build an Experience Cloud site and expand its capabilities with a job board. This can help current members or alumni see job postings available and apply for them. Look at the example job board made within the AC MemberSmart package. You can create one as well!

Another win-win option is designing a member directory. Modern membership management software allows you to create an online library of existing members with their contact details, professional background, current position, and other valuable details. This way, people would scan the directory, spot a subject-matter expert needed, connect with them, and get the needed knowledge.

Last but not least, there are mentorship programs for new members which can serve as a stimulus for increasing membership strategies. Come up with a certain flow or a script you or a responsible colleague will follow when new members join your association. This is how you can present learning opportunities (such as courses) and events on your website:

Be creative! Don’t use fully studied materials where you can’t lose the thread a little and show new members the ropes. Besides, you can encourage more experienced alumni to take charge in such programs. Add this point to your membership growth strategy!

4. Customize Membership Options

To help your member base expand, you should offer tailored membership options to cater to the varied needs of your members. By shaping a tiered structure, you can deliver the much-needed flexibility to both new and existing members:

• Student Membership – this is where you offer the core benefits such as academic support, career services, or student discounts.
• Alumni Membership – with this membership, your audience can enjoy networking opportunities, apply for education programs/grants, and have a full access to alumni resources.
• Corporate Membership – you can partner up with businesses to provide corporate memberships with custom perks and encourage members to join your collaboration programs.
• Community Membership – this is when you present community-focused membership options, campus facilities, related events, and other things.

Types of Membership: How to Form and Present Them to Your Audience

There are miscellaneous types of memberships. How to set them up and promote to your audience? Read the article to find out.

5. Host Themed Events

Membership recruitment can’t go without event management. Your association definitely has events that are both amusing and informative. Time to promote them wisely!

Does your organization put webinars or workshops into its membership recruitment strategy? It should. Webinars are a powerful and popular tool for increasing membership. Think of an interactive format such as live discussions, professor-student board meeting, or any other format you see fit. Besides, upcoming events can be announced as an on-demand meeting so that non-members can watch them too.

Another form of events that is gaining traction as we speak is podcasts. Producing them on a regular basis can help attract new members and not to lose the attention of the existing ones. To make podcasts stand out from your content, add them to a separate website page, include them to email marketing newsletter, or even use them to announce club meetings. Besides, you can host events with special guests (such as university professors, alumni, and other specialists) to fuel your membership recruitment strategy and maintain the member base.

How to make it all a reality if your membership runs with the Salesforce Experience Cloud? You can extend its possibilities with AC Events Enterprise – a 100% Lightning Experience native Advanced Communities solution for effective event management. With its help, you can simplify and enhance your online, offline, and hybrid events, boost attendee engagement, support multisession events, and create Event Zones (by the way, you can check out our Product Learning Hub and the tutorial video on Event Zones). The potential is huge so you should take it for a test drive!

6. Leverage the Power of Social Media

How strong is your association’s social media presence? We live in the era where developing a website might not be enough. You should be active across social media channels! From here, I suggest you take three paths:

• Build your social media presence

The first step is to identify the target audience, such as students, alumni, faculty, or industry professionals. Determine the primary social media platforms where your people are and integrate yourself in. Keep close tabs on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Next, create a content calendar that involves a mix of inspirational, entertaining, and inspirational social media posts. Do not forget about a visual appeal! Your pics should be high-quality to capture attention of new members and communicate your organization’s value.

• Foster community and engagement

Your social media channels can serve as the platform for showcasing member achievements, success stories, or job postings to inspire and incentivize others. One of the prominent examples here is a LinkedIn post from Independent Higher Education – a membership organization for higher education in the UK. If you scroll their LinkedIn account, you’ll notice how vibrant their community is: they post about new partnership and collaborations, announce upcoming events, and other news.

• Drive membership growth

Finally, you should get the ball rolling and never stop. Leverage social media ads to reach new members based on their demographics, interests, and behaviour. Offer exclusive discounts or early-bird tickets to your followers, consider user-generated content to encourage members to share their experiences to build credibility, and collaborate with influencers in your niche to woo new members.

7. Engage with Alumni

Your association membership alumni aren’t just people who participated in your club once. They can act as a bait to all those potential members and ignite their spirits. In order to boost membership recruitment, build long-term relations with alumni, and draw new members, shape a special promotion on your socials, email, or website.

For instance, you can create a rubric highlighting alumni of the week or just team with former members. Think of something valuable to include in this series:

• A story about their small business they have recently opened;
• An alumni-led event to connect with potential members;
• An alumni membership program announcement to pair them with current students or recent graduates;
• Career coaching services;
• Referral bonuses heads-up to motivate existing members to refer friends and colleagues for membership.

At the end of the day, such an endeavour should be strategical, forming a powerful network of advocates who can help your drive membership growth.

Final Thoughts

How to increase membership in Salesforce? The secret recipe isn’t so secret any more. The first important thing to keep in mind is that your association membership doesn’t ride solely on shaping that much-needed sense of community or hosting a business spotlight event. Together with traditional marketing recruitment ideas we’ve discussed today, you should go the extra mile for new members and the ones who leave.

Moreover, a technical side of the matter is crucial. You don’t want your members leave, don’t you? Reduce that chance to a minimum with decent Salesforce membership management software. Just contact the Advanced Communities team – we are always here to lend you a helping hand when it comes to attracting new members to your organization.

Q&A

1. How do You Develop a Membership Strategy?

A membership strategy isn’t created overnight. It comes with an astute analysis of your audience, its wishes, specific goals, and other details. One of the most important things to remember here is that this process should be ongoing. Even if you have a stable member base, think of ways to keep them loyal and constantly encourage them.

2. How do You Increase the Number of Members?

To increase the number of members in your association, no matter if it is a student association or not, you need to provide a friendly online space where current members and the ones who will come could communicate and help each other. Besides, consider hosting relevant events so that members can network, exchange knowledge, and expertise. Another option is using social media to attract members with posts, giveaways, surveys, or encourage existing members to share their testimonials.

3. What is a Membership Marketing Strategy?

A membership marketing strategy revolves around reaching prospective members, attract new members, and even win lapsed members back. This strategy should specify the use of all your marketing channels and the content for each of them. Plus, you shouldn’t shut the door on your alumni. They take the center stage on your membership growth strategy, so engage with them too.