How to make membership retention a year-round priority

01 December 2022

Is membership retention always on your list, but never at the top, until renewals time rolls around? In a GCMA Know How webinar, an industry expert argues that implementing a twelve month approach to retention is the key to ensuring a solid member base year-after-year. Matthew Orwin bring nearly 20 years of golf club management experience to his role with Promote Golf, and in this hour-long session he presents a number of valuable tools that a club can dip into to help improve their membership retention. Highlighting the statistic that "it costs five times as much to attract a new customer, than to keep an existing one", Orwin argues that membership retention should sit alongside, if not above, new member recruitment in your club's priorities. As many clubs head into renewals season, Orwin suggests that implementing a genuine twelve month plan for retention should remove much of the stress of that period, as you will likely have a good idea of what your renewal rate is likely to be, based on previous your activities of the last year. Retention starts as soon as someone joins your club, so that twelve month plan might start with addressing your new member induction processes. Orwin says it's vital to have a "pre-defined series of actions, lasting four to twelve weeks, that every new member should go through". Highlighting that golf can learn plenty of lessons from the gym industry, Orwin laid out the following procedure as an example of how to help new members integrated into your club: New members eveningsGolf inductionTelephone call from the golf professionalTelephone call from the managerMeet the committee / management teamGolf buddy / introducitonsWelcome letter from the captainFacilities loyalty card Over the course of the webinar, Orwin goes on to dissect the entire retention process. From working out whether actually know your membership retention rate, to identifying 'at risk' members and how you deal with members who do leave, this session is invaluable to anyone who wants to improve their membership retention strategies. You can watch the webinar below, or in the GCMA Know How area of the website: https://www.youtube.com/embed/hG5yOWMxUIw

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