Ask Your Members What They Want

What convinces you to become a member? Is it supporting a cause or gaining free admission? Do you value advance notice on special events or mainly want discounts on merchandise?

The San Diego Museum of Art is taking the guess work out of their membership incentives. With their 2013 Membership Survey, they set out to determine what their members find valuable. I spoke with Lisa Saneda, Membership Manager, to hear her plans for the survey:

A survey to the entire membership had not been done since 2003, and that one was to collect demographic information. There had been many conversations about adding more benefits to various levels, offering more for less money, raising prices, etc. I felt it was important to ask the members what they want since after all, it is their membership. Our membership numbers have been falling since 2009 and it was important to find out if the benefits we were offering were a factor. With the economic downturn that started in 2008, I also wanted to see the importance of price and value of membership.



The survey covers value of benefits, most popular benefits, price of membership, and value of incentives. Lisa will also get some basic feedback for general use - how often do members want a new card? Would they be interested in a "choose your benefits" membership option? She even encourage members to sign up for the San Diego Museum of Art  magazine by email only, in an effort to go green. So many birds with one stone!



From this one survey, Lisa can add people to the mailing list, determine current member preferences, reevaluate membership programs and pricing, while getting basic feedback on members (age, household). Of the 12,000 surveys mailed (and emailed) out, 2000 came back. Lisa is already analyzing the data and making plans, saying:

I will be making recommendations based on the responses. This includes raising the individual rate from $45 to $50; Continuing the current $35 membership for artists, but with very basic benefits; moving all Educator/Student memberships ($35) to the $50 Individual level; Removing the 10% discount at the Household and Supporting levels for seniors and military and instead allowing all educators, seniors, students, and military a $5 discount on those 2 levels.

So if you're feeling in the dark about what is and isn't working in your membership programs, ask your members. They can tell you why they left or why they stay. They can tell you what they use and what they want. So much valuable data - and it's just a letter away!

Have you ever surveyed your members? Did you get a good response rate? What were your findings? What did you do in response? We'd love to hear from you in the community!