Thinking Outside the Box: 3 Ways to Build Non-Dues Revenue for Member Organizations

When was the last time you thought about diversification for your member organization?

Diversification of revenue streams can make the difference between thriving and surviving, or surviving and drowning, for all member organizations, especially small- and medium-sized ones. Retailers diversify their inventory. Investors diversify their stock. Everyone knows not to put all your proverbial eggs in one proverbial basket.

The member organizations who can successfully generate non-dues revenue and diversify the ways they stay funded reap dual benefits: more stable revenue that’s not dependent on fluctuations in membership, and more robust offerings for members after building out opportunities.

One-third of association professionals reported a desire to grow revenue in Marketing General’s 2015 Marketing Benchmark Report. So beyond raising dues and conference registration fees, how can you build a diverse, non-dues revenue generating machine that keeps your organization healthy and your members happy?

1. Creating New Products and Services

Start by asking a simple question: What do my members want?

Think about the types of content or events your members are showing you they want. Are you missing opportunities to provide premium products or services beyond your membership benefits?

Once you have a product idea in mind, you can run it through a few layers of research and questioning to make sure you’re not about to waste your time.

1. Is your idea in line with what your association or organization stands for? It’s easy to get carried away in the brainstorming phase, or when you think there might be good demand. Always ask yourself if the new product or service you’re considering stays consistent with your mission, values and existing member benefits.
2. Does your new idea satisfy the “product-market fit” test? In business, “product-market fit” is used to describe whether a product fulfills a strong need in a specific market. This helps companies predict how much demand there might be and how resilient the product might be against competition. You can use the same idea when thinking about products and services you could develop as a revenue source. How strong is the demand? What evidence do you have that people might want this?
3. How much time and effort does it take to create and maintain this product or service? You’re about to expend some energy and devote some resources to this project — make sure you know exactly how much so you can budget accordingly.

A few examples of products and services you can charge for above and beyond your dues include:

• Branded items. Everyone loves swag! This could be anything your members have expressed interest in, including apparel, glassware, mugs, stationery, pens and more. It’s worth keeping in mind #3 above in the case of branded items. Do you have the capacity and website infrastructure to run an online store? If not, you might want to consider keeping the branded items to a minimum so your days don’t become overrun with inventory, shipping and re-ordering.
• Magazines and eBooks. If your organization is large enough to support a print magazine, it’s a great way to get your content and message out to your members in a high-quality publication. If publishing is a little too rich for your tastes, eBooks’ popularity means you can easily compile expertise or information your members can’t get anywhere else into electronic format for a small fee.
• Courses and programs. Ongoing events like community leadership accelerators or professional continuing education might be perfect opportunities to develop an in-depth program and charge for it.
• Premium webinars. You probably already offer educational resources as part of your member benefits, but if you’ve put in some effort and developed a premium webinar featuring rockstar speakers or panelists, you can charge for these events.
• Directories. Print directories might still be a viable option for your association, depending on your demographic. Many organizations charge members a nominal fee for directories and also sell copies to non-members for a higher rate. If your association or organization prefers to save costs on print directories (which can quickly become out of date), you could consider using built-in directory functions within a membership management software.

2. Utilizing Membership Add-Ons

Forty-four percent of individual membership organizations reported to Marketing General in 2015 that their members all pay the same dues. There are plenty of reasons to keep dues the same across the board: it’s easier to track and invoice and creates no arbitrary divisions between members.

However, there’s a way to create a non-dues revenue stream without the complication of a tiered dues structure.

If you have a benefit that you know is high-value but seems underused, consider clarifying the value by making it a paid add-on. Human psychology responds to increasing the value of something by viewing that thing as more desirable and high-quality.

For instance, a nonprofit association offered a free consultation with a talented web design partner as part of its membership dues, but few members took advantage of it. So the nonprofit association decided to remove the consultation from the free benefits and rebranded it. Now, members were told they had exclusive access to a 60-minute web redesign consultation worth $250 — if they registered for a higher tier at the annual conference.

Take a look at your benefits and think whether it might make sense to flip one to a paid product.

3. Offering Advertising and Sponsor Opportunities

Another excellent way to get non-dues revenue value out of things you’re probably already doing is by offering advertising and sponsorship opportunities.

Here’s another place where you’ll want to be careful and measured as you begin to offer advertising space and sponsorships. Ask yourself:

• Are our advertisers and sponsors a good fit for our organization’s mission and values?
• Do they provide our members legitimate services?
• Are we balancing revenue generation and keeping the focus on the actual event or materials?
• Are we on the right side of the line between providing an opportunity for sponsors to reach our members and prioritizing our member experience?

Advertising

You can offer advertising anywhere you have a space where your members sometimes look — physical or digital.

A few examples of places you could offer advertising include:

• Directories
• Conference materials
• Signage
• Organization website digital banners
• Conference-specific website digital banners
• Sponsored posts on your social channels
• Newsletter sidebar ads

Sponsorships

Think about sponsorships as creating opportunities for a sponsor to get their message or logo in front of your members without a traditional print or digital ad.

A few examples of what a sponsorship might look like include:

• Co-branding on webinars
• Introducing speakers at conferences
• Sponsoring a happy hour or networking event
• Providing branded items for an event (pens, notebooks, USB sticks, etc.)

It’s important to remember when you offer advertising or sponsorships to create information kits with up-to-date information about pricing, sizing, accepted file types and exactly what your vendor is getting. For example, if you’re offering a digital banner on your website or an ad in your newsletter, list how much traffic or views those places receive.

Staying Organized and Focused on Members

Of course, it’s not all about the money.

The last thing most association or organization leaders want to get stuck doing all day is thinking about revenue. Your job is to focus on the member experience from onboarding through retention.

Be selective with the opportunities you choose to turn into non-dues revenue generators. Just because you could sell something doesn’t mean you should.

The best way to combat too much obsession with revenue streams is to simply listen to your members through consistent communication. How are they responding to your efforts to introduce new revenue streams? Do they like your products and your advertisers? Or are they feeling nickel and dimed all the time?

You can communicate information about potential new products, services and sponsor opportunities with your member base through membership management software.

If your platform has a private social network, pay attention to how members discuss upcoming events or the release of new products like a paid webinar.

Your members will always be your best barometer if you’re hitting the mark with non-dues revenue generation efforts they actually want or skirting too close to perceived cash grab.
If you’ve been diligent about your diversification efforts, even if you drop one basket full of non-dues revenue eggs, you won’t be left with just egg on your face. You’ll have other ways for generating non-dues revenue and keeping your organization in robust health to better serve your members.