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Getting the Most from a Member Get A Member Campaign Think Member-Get-A-Member (MGM) campaigns are passé? Rather than dismissing this traditional membership recruiting approach, your organization could significantly benefit from updating your annual membership drive. When joining the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers in 1999, the organization was in the middle of a year-long MGM drive. The Society is a 15,000 member professional association. When I asked the staff about the effort, the universal response was a sour look. If that was the staff's reaction, can you imagine the members' perception? Needless to say, we identified some key issues and opportunities and revamped the program. SCTE's new and improved MGM campaign yields over 500 new members, costs less than $1000 in expenses (not including staff time), and is an annual event that our members look forward to each year. Our success was built on five critical factors that you can use to leverage an MGM effort in your organization. First, set a realistic goal so that you can monitor your success, but avoid being too aggressive in your expectations. If you're conducting an MGM campaign for the first time, it's better to underestimate your goal so everyone shares a sense of accomplishment. Our first year, SCTE set its goal at 400 and were thrilled to announce that we recruited 528. Second, keep the campaign period short in order to concentrate your members' efforts and avoid burnout. You'll also want to strategically analyze the time of year that will maximize participation. To avoid conflicting with our annual conferences in January and May, we chose to hold SCTE's campaign from September 1 through December 31. Third, introduce some friendly competition and make the incentives meaningful. The old campaign rewarded individuals for recruiting new members. We decided to focus on team work by shifting the competition to our 70 chapters. This strategic change also helped to significantly reduce costs and staff work. SCTE's three grand prizes included complimentary registrations to our annual conference plus cash, with the winning chapters utilizing their prizes as they wished. Although simple, the chapters truly valued the prizes. Based on the first year's popularity, we were able to secure a sponsor for our prizes, thus further reducing SCTE's expenses. In 2001, we rewarded all participating chapters by awarding one complimentary sCTE seminar registration for every ten new members recruited. The best advice in determining meaningful prizes is to obtain input from key members. You may be surprised to find that what they value is different than what you expected. The fourth tenet is to keep the program simple to encourage participation and minimize staff workload. We did not use any special applications or forms, which saved SCTE a significant amount of money in printing and postage. Instead, the chapter's name simply had to be written on the application for the chapter to earn credit. We also added a "sponsoring chapter" field to SCTE's online application. The final ingredient to SCTE's MGM success, is ongoing, consistent communications and marketing. First you'll want to create an engaging and meaningful theme and look for the campaign. SCTE's themes have included "Share SCTE", "Make the Connection" and "Lead the Way." We were able to eliminate the need for a direct mail campaign by leveraging our chapters as a voice at the local level. Headquarters staff promoted the campaign through inexpensive means like ads and articles in our newsletter, e-mails, banner ads on our website and posting on our listservs. Our chapters then drove the message home with announcements at chapter meetings, on their websites and in their newsletters. Throughout the fall, we used different angles to remind our members of the MGM campaign. In print pieces, we featured short articles written by members sharing why they've recruited others into the Society. In our electronic communications, we fueled the competition with catchy headlines and teaser copy that directed members to the website to view the rankings. The communication to members continued after the campaign ended, with extensive recognition of the winners in all of the Society's marketing vehicles and at a special awards presentation at SCTE's annual Chapter Leadership Conference. Keeping it Fresh It's Your Turn Contacting the Author
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