Guest post by Kyle Bazzy, Director of Growth at Billhighway
The data says yes. More associations now offer auto-renewal monthly membership because the demand is there. 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.
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?
Members, particularly younger members, benefit from having the option to pay their dues monthly via auto-renewal. But, associations benefit too.
If the idea of a monthly auto-renewal payment plan is starting to look good to you, stay tuned for our upcoming webinar. We’ll dive into the items you need to consider before deciding to offer auto-renewal, explain how to make a business case for auto-renewal, and prepare to launch your new monthly dues payment plan.
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About Kyle: Kyle Bazzy, Director of Growth at Billhighway, is passionate about solving problems and building relationships. His background comes from the financial world as President of financial media outlet, Benzinga. Kyle, a chapter relations expert, is nationally known for his success in helping chapter-based organizations replace internal rifts with strong collaboration and shared purpose. In his tenure at Billhighway he has walked numerous associations, labor unions and fraternal organizations through discovery processes, uncovering internal obstacles and working to find a better way to effectively run component-based organizations through process and technology. Kyle regularly hosts free educational webinars for chapter-based organizations, as well as, monthly roundtables for component relations professionals in D.C., Alexandria, Reston, and Chicago. Kyle is a Detroit enthusiast, dog lover and avid learner of new things.
LEARN MORE AT THE UPCOMING WEBINAR!
Thursday, July 27th @ 12:00 PM Eastern. Register now!
Beat the heat with Auto-Renewals…They’ll keep your staff cool!
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.
Hosted by: Teri Carden, Founder, ReviewMyAMS
Presented by: Kyle Bazzy, Director of Growth, Billhighway
