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Why did we create an ROI Scorecard for our client’s memberships?

As most associations know, sending out the annual invoice often makes the primary decision maker wonder, “Why should I invest another year of dues?” The confusion can be avoided by providing the ROI Scorecard resource along with the invoice.

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What is the ROI Scorecard?

A Return on Investment (ROI) Scorecard is a set of principles and analytic techniques for improving an organization’s performance and ensuring value is being received from a particular activity. Typically, a scorecard would include financials, customers (or individual memberships), and the usage engagement of the value proposition provided by the activity (or in this case, the association membership). When using the ROI Scorecard, you are investing in your association’s long-term success by sharing the complete value by including the organizations non-financial goals.

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How Does the ROI Scorecard Work with Memberships?

We recommend sending the scorecard early enough before renewal time. Traditionally, this is at least three months before. This gives organizations time to review, see if anything is missing, or if there is the organization wants members to act on before the renewal time concludes. Some examples include exclusive benefits that might last each year, attendance at a workshop, access to certification programs, or event attendance. The advantage of using an ROI scorecard provides the decision-maker with in-depth knowledge, of not just for what they have done as the primary decision maker, but what their team has also engaged in and what they can still do as part of their membership before expiration to get the most out of their investment.

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Utilizing the ROI Scorecard

One of the benefits of using the ROI Scorecard is that it can be highly personalized. It allows you to compare your benefits to a dollar value and ensures that your value proposition is aligned with membership pricing. By integrating the ROI Scorecard into your strategic membership plan, you can create a benchmark across all members to understand where value is being derived with the goal of ensuring renewal for the upcoming term. The ROI Scorecard also gives your association’s management team a hard look at the benefits and the value that the membership gives the market along with a true engagement rate. It’s just the start of a holistic review of your organization’s membership benefits.

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Implementing a Corporate Member ROI Engagement Scorecard and De-Risking Your Renewals

Many clients have asked how to create a ROI Scorecard. Well, first you need to create a matrix of benefits and assign a dollar amount to each benefit. Typically, you can assign a dollar value if you sell various benefits to non-members and the price difference for members. You can also use a type of engagement scoring, identifying non-monetary benefits such as being a volunteer leader or a mentor/mentee, and assigning what the market might determine as a “primary reason for joining” vs. a “nice to have” benefit. From there you assign a points system to tally up the engagement score. This becomes the format for evaluation of the monetary and non-monetary value. Once this has been set up, you are ready to start using your scorecard.

Organizations need to collect and evaluate data to implement the ROI Scorecard. Having a clear process of how data will be collected and maintained is extremely important. I must be honest, in some cases, data collection may be hard to gather. If collecting the necessary data takes too much time, it may not be worth collecting, or it might be worth looking at how you track the data for easing future reporting.

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Once you have determined the benefits, determined your value, and evaluated your data and collection processes, you can start going through your membership renewals list.

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For a deeper dive into ROI Scorecards for Membership, watch the informative webinar or download the ROI Scorecard Template

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At Virtual Inc., our member management solutions combine strategic consulting with advanced technology and management best practices to keep your members continually engaged. We’ve helped countless associations, professional societies, consortia, standards organizations, and advocacy groups to significantly increase membership, and we look forward to the opportunity to do the same for your organization.