Membership recruitment and retention is nothing more than building and retaining successful relationships.  So, how do you successfully create these long-lasting relationships and continue to make more of them - and grow the number of your contractor association members? 

First, know what you can offer that will make your association’s value enticing.

And second, know what the other party needs so that you can make sure what you are offering is relevant. 

Having a solid understanding of this continuous cycle will allow you to successfully maneuver through the necessary steps to hitting your association membership goals:

• Creating awareness of your association
• Recruiting new members
• Engaging your members
• Increasing member referrals
• Renewing those members 

YOUR MEMBERS AND THEIR NEEDS

As you know, you have a niche in terms of membership in your contractor association.  This niche group of people share similar goals and have similar needs.  So, you need to become successful at helping them meet their goals and meeting their needs.  In order to do that, you need to know what those needs are.

Don’t be afraid to ask your members what they want.

• What are they missing from your association and even other organizations? 
• What are they missing in their businesses?
• What struggles are they facing that you can help them to solve? 

Finding out what they want is going to allow you to be able to provide relevant answers to the problems or situations your members (and potential members) have.

If you can do this, your current members are not only going to continue to renew their membership, but they are going to become advocates for your association.  And, having your current members as advocates, especially if they are influential in their industry, is ultimately going to help you to bring in new members.

KNOW & GROW THE VALUE YOU BRING

Knowing and growing the value that your association brings to its members will ensure that you are retaining your current members and continuously attracting new members.  So, to start, you need to have a clear understanding of the value that you bring and you need to be able to communicate that effectively.  What sets you apart from other organizations? Why do people want to join your association?

Next, how are you going to grow your value?  You need to find out what will make others talk about you.  And remember, no one talks about the ordinary (except maybe this guy) - instead, you need to be extraordinary.  So, you need to continually be searching out new, fresh and valuable offers (based off of your members needs). Here are a few ideas of ways to do this:

• Offering tools or guides to assist in their industry or everyday workflow
• Co-hosted events with other associations to network (and meet new possible members)
• Association speakers with actionable topics

Knowing your members' needs and the ways to grow to fulfill those needs will help you build the long-lasting relationships needed to maintain your association membership goals.  And, these positive relationships are what is going to attract new members to want to join.