A white-collar, creative professional association approached us with a problem. Members are highly engaged and very loyal—returning to the yearly conference year after year and recommending the association to peers.

BUT their membership was aging—and flatlining. And junior professionals were joining other associations at faster rates. Plus, with layoffs across the industry, consolidation meant that the relevant affiliations were shifting. Prospective members’ sense of who they were and where they belonged in the industry was evolving. Yet, my client’s association hadn’t reconsidered their positioning or branding in quite some time.

Golden Torch Insights came in to support this association’s strategic membership research. Our client saw us as a trusted yet neutral 3rd-party. They had conducted their own research with members but found that non-renewers or prospects felt they had to censor themselves in front of the association staff.

In meeting this strategic challenges, we at Golden Torch Insights followed our Strategic Membership Research Playbook:

1) Ruthless alignment on success

At Golden Torch Insights we have seen too many research projects fail due to watered down objectives and lack of a clear understanding and alignment on why this research is being conducted and exactly what unambiguous success will look like. e aligned on how the association would know the research was helpful and landed on core KPIs: year-over-year retention and recruitment of new members.

2) Unbiased, equitable recruitment

We recruited non-members and lapsed members, voices most likely to reveal the association’s blind spots and where the value proposition fell flat.

3) Strategic research material development

Too many research firms waste time and money on digressive surveys and discussion guides that lack a strategic focus. We designed our discussion guide using the “pyramid method.” Designed to solicit open feedback at the beginning of the session and narrow in with more specific perceptions of our association, the pyramid method is explicitly designed to gather a clean read of brand perceptions with minimal bias.

4) Face-to-face presence

We conducted virtual in-depth interviews, practicing our active listening and presence-ing techniques informed by mindfulness and somatic experiencing practices.

5) PhD-level analysis

With over 8 years of rigorous training in textual analysis and thematic analysis, we at Golden Torch Insights parse the qualitative data to identify the insights and recommendations that have the most salience to the identified objectives and performance measures.

KEY INSIGHTS

-Non-members perceive the association as not for them. The association has failed to expand its positioning as the workforce has changed and professionals’ sense of belonging within the industry has changed.

-Young professional grants are positively perceived but do not successfully convert into members due to financial constraints.

RECOMMENDATION: Expand awareness of the association beyond its initial target and to partner with other associations to expand reach and reduce membership cost.