Generating leads to become members

Collecting membership leads needs to be part of your club culture. Everyone should understand that it is a part of their role to be alert for membership opportunities and pass these along to the membership coordinators. Your members are your best source of leads because they are on the ground and will know of prospective members.

There are plenty of ways to generate leads:

• Run a short-term internal member-get-member campaign where the top referrer gets a prize or gift each month.
• Create ‘Member Ambassadors’ who are tasked with encouraging people to join. Track how well they perform and publicise their work.
• Look for organisations where your members go with a similar target market as your club. Establish relationships and look for reciprocal win-win situations.
• Have partners distribute your club’s marketing collateral to their database in their office, via their website or electronically.
• Insert a flyer into other organisations mailings with a strong call to action.
• Reward organisations who refer members to your club by providing them with a thank you or a corporate membership.
• Use a free email newsletter on your club’s website to collect email address. Try to get names and company names as well so you can personalise your communications.
• Ask everyone who comes into contact with your club if they would like to opt in to your newsletters.
• Give away tasters to your club’s programmes and activities with open days.
• Engage through social media channels that invites people to directly ask questions and add comments.
• Provide positive member testimonials to showcase how fantastic your club is – make sure it is authentic!
• Prove your value by adding numbers where possible, for example 90% of our members recommend us to their friends.
• Attend other events such as trade fairs, exhibition shows, networking meetings, conferences and other sports to promote your club to similar target markets.
• Display signage outside your building that invites people to come inside or contact your club.

No matter how you decide to generate leads, at every point where a prospective member comes into contact with your club there should be a way of data basing that lead – whether this is recording telephone enquiries, collecting business cards or capturing online communications.

Once you’ve got leads, the next step is to get them engaged. Find out how