How come some clubs don’t struggle with membership?

Isn’t that the sixty-four thousand dollar question!

Wouldn’t we all like to know!

Rarely does anyone ever try to answer this question with anything other than opinion or speculation.

Where are the metrics? There must be something quantifiable!

As the Public Relations Manager for District 48, I look at a lot of stuff. Literally I look at all sorts of things and among the stuff are websites, social media and the District Dashboard.

Recently, I was sleuthing for interesting club photos and cataloging some for future publication when a thought struck me. Hmmmmm.

I grabbed my list of links to all the District 48 clubs’ Facebook pages and proceeded to look at every picture and event each club has ever posted.

• I reviewed thousands of images!
• I counted the number of images posted by clubs
• I counted the number of Open Houses held
• I counted… and counted… and counted!

Next, I went to the District 48 Dashboard and made a list of all the ‘open’ clubs with 19 or more members (clubs without member restrictions).

I wanted to know…

Was there any correlation between Facebook posting rates and the size of clubs?

Sure enough, every ‘open’ club with 19+ members has posted, on average, 1-2 photos per meeting!

 

Is this really a big deal?

It is because on the flip side of that coin every ‘open’ club with 12 or fewer members posts, on average, about 1 photo for every 3 meetings!

 

Okay, my next question was…

What else are the 19+ member clubs doing besides social media?

The next metric is Open Houses.

 

It turns out that 19+ member clubs hold 1-2 Open Houses per year.

And you guessed it! Clubs with fewer than 12 members don’t. In fact, 40% of these clubs have never held an Open House.

 

What else could I quantify?

There’s another metric I tabulated: Meeting Frequency

• Every 19+ member club meets weekly
• 45% of clubs with 12 or fewer members meet bi-weekly

 

The takeaway from this is: It appears that not meeting weekly is a barrier to membership building.

 

Consider this…From the viewpoint of those people who are looking for personal growth:

Are they going to be particularly enticed by the opportunity to make gains, network and have fun just twice a month?

Or

Are they more likely to get enticed by the opportunity to build momentum toward their personal goals every week?

At some point every club wants to know the sure-fire way to get more members. Clubs want the recipe for the…

Secret Sauce to Building Club Membership

We all know too many cooks spoil the pot because they have too many opinions as to what tastes good.

Keeping with the cooking metaphor; the proof is in the metrics pudding.

I can tell you from actual statistics some irrefutable facts about the recipe for the Secret Sauce to Building Club Membership in District 48.

The recipe always includes:

• 1-2 photos per meeting posted on Facebook
• 1-2 Open Houses per year
• Weekly meetings

Important Stuff…

Don’t miss my article:

01 Do You Want to Create a Facebook Page for Your Club?

Even if your club has a Facebook page, this is a must read… you’ll see why!

 

You really don’t want to miss the companion article:

02 The Trick to Making Facebook Posts Work for Your Club

I’m sure you want to get the biggest return for your posting efforts!

 

But wait there’s another related article:

03 Facebook Group vs Facebook Page: Which One Should You Use?

Discover that Facebook is not a one-trick pony when it comes to membership building!

 

Summary:

 

	Open Clubs with 19+ Members	Open Clubs with 12 or fewer Members
# Facebook posts/meeting	1-2 posts per meeting	1 post every 3rd meeting
Open Houses (pre-COVID)	1-2/Open Houses per year	Less than 40% of clubs have ever held an Open House
Meeting Frequency	100% of these clubs meet weekly	45% of these clubs meet biweekly

Try the Secret Sauce!