Tired of Chasing Late Renewals? Member Jungle's Guide to Effortless Re-Engagement

Don’t you hate it when things run late? Work on a Friday, your pizza delivery, or your members' membership renewals. Well, spare a thought for the residents of one Barcelonian neighbourhood who currently live next to the under-construction Catholic church Sagrada Familia. Construction on the Sagrada Familia started back in 1882 and isn’t forecast to wrap up completely until 2034. 

To be fair, that is an incredible-looking building. 

Now, I can’t help the poor people who have been living beside a construction site for generations, but I can help with your late membership renewals. So let’s talk about that.

Here at Member Jungle, we know a lot of clubs with fixed-term memberships run their annual renewals in June, so by the time you’re reading this, you will probably have the vast majority of people renewed. So, now it’s time to start mopping up the stragglers. Today, we are going to look at how you can re-engage your members and ensure that as many members as possible renew their membership. 

Getting those stragglers to cross the line and renew their membership comes down to what you say and how you say it, so let’s get into it. 

Why Members Can Be Late On Their Membership Renewals 

Reaching out to members who have failed to renew their membership is tricky because there are likely three different groups of people who are late on their renewals: those who forgot, those who are considering leaving the club, and those who have already decided to leave.

All three groups will have different reasons for being late to renew, and all three will need to hear something slightly different from you to bring them back into the fold.

Members Who Have Forgotten to Renew Their Memberships

Those who have just forgotten to renew will need to be reminded. Chances are you sent out emails and posted notifications on your website leading up to renewal time that these members have somehow managed to miss. So, in order to get through to them, you are going to have to try different communication methods that you don't usually use, like phone calls, SMS campaigns, etc.

Members Who Are Considering Letting Their Memberships Expire

Some members will be late on their renewals because they aren't sure if they want to renew or not. This could be for a whole range of reasons, including:

• Lack of Engagement
• Lack of Perceived Value
• Financial Constraints
• Change in Priorities
• Negative Experiences
• Lack of Time
• Health Issues

Now, obviously, some of these things are out of your control, like health issues, changes in priorities, or financial restraints. However, all but health issues can be addressed via clear communication with your members.

Members Who Have Already Decided to Leave Your Club

This group of members is the most difficult to persuade to renew their membership because they have already decided to let it expire. However, it is still possible to change their minds, although it will be challenging and may not have a high success rate. The upside is that the same communication strategies used to retain members who are considering leaving can also be effective for this group. Therefore, there is no need to create entirely new communication approaches to win back these members.

What To Say To Members Who Are Later On Their Renewals

Let's take a closer look at what you can say to members who are considering leaving the club or are already planning to do so. 

Show Them Your Club’s Value

The best thing you can do for these members is remind them of the value your membership provides. Try sending out communications that outline all the things the club offers them, including member benefits, discounts, and exclusive content. This will help them realise all they stand to lose if they don't renew their membership. By highlighting the benefits and making it clear what they are getting in return for their membership dues, they will be less likely to cancel their memberships.

Focusing on the value you provide helps address two common reasons for wanting to cancel membership: Lack of Perceived Value and Financial Constraints. If people realise the significant benefits they receive for their membership, they will be more motivated to find ways to better fit the cost into their budget.

At the beginning of the year, I moved to a place with higher rent, so I had to cut back on several things. I cancelled some subscription services and even a club membership, but there was one service I couldn't let go of. It was an expensive one that I had planned to cancel until I realised how much it gave me. I ended up cancelling several other cheaper memberships in order to keep this more expensive one because it just had too much value. Your club can be the same. Your members will find a way to pay for your membership if it has enough value, so don't reduce your prices; showcase your value instead.

Show Them All The Great Things You Have Planned

If your members are not renewing, it might be due to a lack of engagement with your club. Similar to the previous point, they might not see the value anymore. In this case, you should show them all the great things you have planned for the upcoming year. If your members can see all the events and activities that they will miss out on if they cancel their membership, they will be more inclined to stay. 

Consider sending out an email or newsletter outlining the events you're planning for the next financial year. It doesn't need to be a detailed rundown, just enough to help them see some of the great events they'd miss out on if they left. 

For example, I'm not into much of the content on Paramount+, but I'm keeping that service because I know it's only a matter of time before Yellowjackets season three releases there. 

Like, come on, Christina Ricci and creepy forest spirits, I’m all the way in. 

Tease what awesome things you are doing in the year to come, and more members will stay around, especially for it. 

Show Them How You’re Improving The Club

Finally, show your members how you plan to improve your club over the coming year. This will help if members are concerned that they no longer have enough time to stay involved in the club or if they have had poor experiences with it in the past. Showing them how you will make their lives easier, make your club easier and quicker to deal with, and just generally make it better will help alleviate these concerns.

If you're reading this, chances are you already use Member Jungle's automated membership renewal system, which itself will significantly reduce the time members spend on renewals. If you are already a Member Jungle customer, you can enhance the time saving of this system by reading 5 Things You Should Do To Get The Most Out Of Your Automated Membership Renewals.

The key is to make your club quick, easy to deal with, and hassle-free. If you do so, people will be more likely to find the time to stay involved. Plus, by showing how you are improving your club and the member experience, you will increase the chances that members who have had poor experiences in the past will give your club another chance.

The truth is that you will always lose some members; no matter what you say, how you improve or what events you plan, some members will walk. However, by doing everything we’ve just talked about, you can reduce the number of members who will do so. 

Now that we know what to say, let’s talk about how to say it.

The Best Ways To Communicate With Late Renewing Members 

So, let’s talk about the best methods of communicating with members who are late on their renewals. 

Using Emails To Re-Engage Late Members 

Emails are an evergreen tool for communicating with members. They are a quick, effective, and free way to convey all the key points we have discussed to your members. With Member Jungle, they can also be personalised and segmented, which is very important. This means that you don't have to send a generic renewal reminder email to everyone; you can customise them based on membership level or group. You can send one email reminder to everyone in your standard membership and another to everyone in your premium membership, making it much easier to communicate the specific benefits they will receive. You can do all this with just a click of a button in your email campaign. 

However, as I mentioned above, if we have reached this stage, chances are the members who aren't renewing their memberships aren't seeing your emails either, so we also need to try and communicate with them in other ways. Please note that I said "too." You will still need to send out emails; you just may need to mix in some other forms of communication.

Your members may not be receiving emails for several reasons. Perhaps they simply don't check their emails often enough; I know I'm certainly very bad at this. It's also possible that they tried to mute an email from you and accidentally blocked all of your future emails. Or maybe your emails have ended up in their spam folder. I've had really important emails get automatically sorted into the spam folder and almost missed them as a result. Ultimately, why they are missing your emails is not as important as the fact that they are missing them.

Other Methods Of Communicating With Late Members

If your emails aren’t having the desired effect on your late-renewing members, it may be time to switch up your tactics and try to reach them another way. 

SMS Campaigns 

If you are only chasing a few members for renewals, you could try calling all of them to remind them, but this really isn't a scalable solution. Instead, a more practical option is to use the Member Jungle SMS campaign to reach out to your lapsed members. The Member Jungle SMS campaign is an excellent way to send out renewal reminders and updates about upcoming events and activities for the year. Plus, it will reach members who may not receive your emails.

The Member Jungle SMS campaign is not available on the Essentials package but is available in all the other packages. If you currently use the SMS campaign but need to purchase more SMS messages to send out your reminders, you can do so on your Member Jungle site.However, if you buy more text messages before September 30th 2024 and enter the code RENEWALSMS24, you’ll get 30% off the price of the extra SMS messages.

 

 

Push Notifications 

Push notifications work much the same way as SMS messages do, except with two very important distinctions. One, they are free, but two, they only reach members who have downloaded the Member Jungle app onto their phones. So, it is certainly worth sending out a few push notifications on the app to try and reach late members who may not be seeing emails, but they will only get you so far. 

Social Media

It's important to note that if a member is considering leaving, they might delete the app and ignore your emails. However, they may not have removed you from their social media accounts, so you could still reach them by posting updates there. To keep members engaged, make sure to share exciting plans for the coming year on social media. This could potentially re-engage former members and even attract new ones. 

Renewal event

Arranging in-person membership renewals at an upcoming event could be a good idea. Inform everyone that at the next event, a member of the admin team will be available to assist anyone who needs help renewing their membership or prefers to do it in person. This could encourage some technophobes who have been procrastinating to renew their membership.

While we’re talking about members who are procrastinating on renewing their memberships, it may also be worth letting them know that if they don’t renew their membership within a certain amount of time, you will “have to” delete all their information. If they want to come back after that point, they will have to rejoin again and re-enter all their information again like a new member. This may be the kick in the pants they need to get them to finally renew their membership. 

Phone Calls

For certain organisations with a small membership group or more valuable business memberships, calling members who are late on their renewals may be an excellent way to get through to them. Obviously, calling up and speaking to all late renewing members will be a time and labour-intensive process. It’s also not something you can write down once and send to everyone. You are going to have to repeat yourself over and over again. If you have the time and resources, it could be a really effective way to re-engage members. 

Personally, as a zillennial (dumb word I know, but I didn’t invent it), I’m feeling faint just thinking about having to use my phone to physically call people. 

 

 

How Else You Can Improve Your Membership Renewal Rates

Hopefully, these are some helpful tips to help get those late stragglers over the line and renew their memberships. I hope you find this helpful and that you manage to get some of your late members over the line. 

As with all things, though, it’s easier to prevent the problem in the first place than fix it afterwards. So, with that in mind, you may want to look at the articles below on how to ensure that you get as many people to renew straight away next renewal time and don’t have to worry about chasing up late. 

However, I wouldn’t blame you if you take a good week or two off once this year's renewals are done before you even think about memberships again. In that case, maybe just bookmark the articles below and come back to them when you’re ready.

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Whenever you are ready for them, check out 3 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Membership Renewal Rates and How To Reduce Member Churn This Renewal Season.