by Dell Fascione

'Tis the Season to Get Up-close and Personal with Your Members

Let Schultz & Williams help you build relationships, improve your renewal rates, promote positive public relations and invest in the long-term growth of your membership program. Contact us today for more information.

This time of year is special in many ways. The hustle and bustle of the zoo season has turned into quiet pathways and bare gardens.

This seasonal trend can present some challenges, especially for marketing and membership staff responsible for driving attendance (visitor or member) and sustaining a respectable level of activity at the zoo throughout the year.

Keeping members engaged in your zoo during this time of year is essential! Giving them a reason to visit the zoo now is a great way to generate some attendance and, even more important, to engage them with the zoo on a more personal and exclusive level.

The reasons this is important are threefold:

1) For your zoo to benefit the most from its membership program, high retention rates must be your #1 priority!

Getting and keeping your members involved in your organization all year around is critical to realizing this goal.

You can add membership value to special seasonal events and opportunities by creating members-only or discount offers. These activities are also important for keeping the zoo in the news, so that top-of-mind awareness of the zoo is sustained throughout the year, especially with your members.

These events or opportunities don’t have to be extravagant (or expensive!). Exclusive winter Open House events for members can provide opportunities not available any other time of the year, or to the public. Even if enrollment to these behind-the-scenes events is limited, the opportunity adds perceived value to your membership program, and they make great news stories about up-close and personal experiences at the zoo!

2) To cultivate a strong advocacy group for your zoo.

Members can and should be cultivated to become your zoo’s best advocates and public promoters.

Inviting members to family-friendly experiences such as holiday events, warm winter breakfasts with Keepers, updates on your zoo’s conservation work or visits with zoo babies going on exhibit for the first time are great events during off-peak times of the year. These opportunities should be designed to exploit the good work your zoo is doing and promote good will and positive word-of-mouth advertising.

3) To prime your members (now or as their families age-out of membership) to move up the giving ladder and become upper-level members or donors.

Let’s face it--most members join the zoo for the value (perceived or real) of the membership offer. However, as we know from Schultz & Williams’ extensive zoo membership profile analysis over the past year, zoo members skew very high for household income.

Your members are prime donor candidates, which we all know takes considerable time to develop. Remember, the most likely members to get involved in these programs are the ones with the most interest in your zoo and are your best candidates for donor cultivation!

All the best to you and your family this holiday season and the coming zoo year.

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