Knowing Your Worth. Are You Pricing Your Association’s Fees Correctly?
Association TRENDS kicked off the new year with 2018’s first Webinar, “Everything You Should Know About Pricing in Your Association.” Kevin Whorton, President of Whorton Marketing & Research, walked through the importance of correctly pricing your association and discussed measuring your Association’s value proposition, identifying and filling knowledge gaps, determining when to reprice, and how to communicate (or not communicate) repricing.
What does your association provide to its members? Networking, information, publications, and advocacy are probably all on the list. How valuable are these services? More importantly, how valuable are these services to your members? By assigning real dollar values to each amenity your association provides, you can begin to create a value matrix that can easily reflect exactly what your members are paying for, as well as the monetary benefit they gain from their membership. If your networking events give members access to new client opportunities, estimate the cost of a year of new business. Did you know the average cost of an external research report is around $795? How many reports does your association provide to its members each year? Your organization’s worth is made up of more than just membership dues, but making sure your association is priced correctly is the best way to start verifying your efforts are effective and valued.
The best way to determine your association’s correct price is to do so with thorough data and analysis. Pricing must be in alignment with your association’s value. To begin filling your knowledge gaps, find out what those knowledge gaps are.
What don’t you know…?
1. What is the overall level of wealth of your association members?
2. What CAN they afford?
3. What is the degree of loyalty among members?
4. Are your members involved with other associations?
5. How unique is your association?
6. Who is paying membership dues? Individuals? Companies?
Once you have a determination of where your knowledge is lacking, you can start taking steps towards educating yourself. Using outreach channels such as surveys and focus groups is an easy and customizable way to directly ask your members exactly what it is you need to know. Conducting surveys with your members every 18 to 24 months is good practice. Association TRENDS can provide you with assistance customizing and creating surveys at your association.
Here are some questions you can ask your members to get you started.
1. How reasonable do you find association fees?
2. At what price would you no longer be willing to pay membership fees?
3. Does this association provide services/information you can’t get from other organizations?
4. Does this association provide a specific broad range of services to meet your specific needs?
Throughout this webinar, Kevin Whorton made one thing abundantly clear, if you’re good at something, don’t do it for free. Your association is valuable. Your services are worth something. Making sure you are measuring your value and value perception are staples to the achievement and success of your association.
There is so much more to learn. Kevin Whorton goes into even more detail regarding how and when to re-price as well communicating those new prices to your members, leaders, prospects, and suppliers. To listen to this webinar in full click here.
