Prospect relationship management software--new tools for member recruitment.

Given the economic pressures being experienced by private clubs, the implementation of effective member acquisition technology may address many issues required to ensure the successful recruitment and conversion of prospective members. During the past few years, application software capable of coordinating, monitoring, and managing new member campaigns has evolved to become an important consideration in the marketplace.

Although often defined as more of a philosophical approach to membership marketing than an actual technology, prospect relationship management (PRM) can play a significant role in new member recruitment. By tracking candidate interactions with club representatives, PRM combines traditional sales marketing techniques with a specialized set of tools designed to solicit prospects, evaluate referrals, and guide conversions. Similar to member relationship management, PRM focuses on customized recruitment that can be used to evaluate prospective member behavior relative to interest areas, recreational needs, and event preferences.

PRM & Membership Marketing

By combining traditional sales marketing techniques with a specialized toolbox designed to monitor prospects, referrals, and conversions, PRM software has emerged as an intelligent solution to the recruitment process. An effective member strategy often involves developing and managing a collection of relevant demographics to support the club's membership goals. The ability of PRM software to track and monitor this process and to identify inefficiencies (snags, hold-ups, or delays) is critical. From the moment a prospect is deemed a qualified candidate through to member enlistment, the software guides the sequencing of steps in the process.

Three key areas for membership marketing are market analysis, internal analysis, and trend analysis. A market analysis helps provide an overview of the potential of a membership campaign. Internal analysis identifies the qualities of active members that can be recognized as desirable in candidate applicants. This can be accomplished through member surveys, focus group research, and an analysis of interactions and transactions (data mining). Trend analysis will identify the potential motivation and interests that candidates have toward membership conversion.

Many realize that the current pulse of the club industry isn't just about taking membership applications--it is about taking control of the process necessary to identify, qualify, and recruit viable new members. Club-specific prospect acquisition software is designed to take advantage of such opportunities through collaborative selling that enables the membership director or membership committee to cooperatively participate and track progress throughout the recruitment process. In addition, club-designed PRM software features an executive dashboard containing metrics, statistics, and graphics relative to prospects, recruits, referrals, and conversions. PRM software ensures that the efforts of staff and committee members are coordinated and focused in an effective sales process.

Essentially, PRM software is workflow software intended to codify best practice procedures related to prospect mailings (e-mail and shared calendar notations), contacts (monitoring from first contact through contracting), and services (coordinating of prospect services throughout the recruitment process). One of the most effective ways to handle this process is through a web-based, sales-focused PRM application designed to support the idio-syncrasies of the club.

PRM & Data Mining

Prospect attraction, retention, and prediction are three important marketing concepts in the club industry. Up until recently, private clubs tended to capture and store transactional data in a manner that made it difficult to access, evaluate, or apply to decision-making. The recent development, however, of innovative data mining software provides a collection of data (termed a data warehouse) capable of enabling effective operational analysis. The process is designed to detect relationships, patterns, and trends within a large data set.

Due to the nature of its functionality, this software is often referred to as "siftware." Siftware is intended to turn data into information and information into insight to enhance member relationship management and thereby yield competitive advantage. Knowing which characteristics of current members are deemed relevant for future membership success can lead to development of a new member target profile. Using the current member data to delineate characteristics of 'ideal' new members has been proven effective. Data mining forms a powerful basis for refining a club's membership recruitment database.

From a technical perspective, a data warehouse is a subject-oriented collection of facts used to support decision-making. Data mining, therefore, can be defined as the extraction process used to derive information from a data warehouse. The key to successful data mining is to take disparate data sources and extract information for enhanced decision making. Simply stated, data mining involves the discovery of new information through an identification and understanding of trends, patterns, and character correlation.

A data warehouse can serve as the central focal point of a PRM system and provide outcomes unavailable through alternative database query methods. A data warehouse also possesses a much larger capacity to organize, store, and process large amounts of data. Internal data entering a data warehouse is transformed from raw application data (e.g. member transactions) into meaningful characteristics (e.g. new member characteristics). External data (e.g. referral and new member demographics) can be captured and classified so that meaningful comparisons to internal activities (e.g. member profiling) can be conducted.

PRM & Web Marketing

Using the club's website to attract and recruit new members is based on the ability to track and manipulate website visitor data. Conversion management is a function of follow through and interaction with prospects based on a variety of strategies, including electronic membership application forms, e-mail correspondence, online event registration, and club tours and visits.

An effective marketing tool to initiate the prospective member acquisition cycle is an effective club website. The objective of membership marketing is to apply research results, market data, and member profiling to attract new member interest. The site should have a public area that promotes the image, facilities, management, and activities enjoyed through membership. The style and presentation of the message must be consistent with the club's image. Since the club's website can be used to collect email addresses for interested candidates, the process of membership recruitment can automatically begin with an auto-response email in the PRM software linked to the website. The e-mail link to prospective members can be a powerful tool in the recruitment of new members.

Also, PRM software offers clubs an array of user definable report formats and contents. Report creation is simply a matter of selection from among predetermined categories and content areas. Creating custom reports, dashboards, listing views, and the like are intuitive and easy to develop. Report flexibility provides a basis for build to order, on demand, and flash reports.

Another important PRM software component designed to assist in monitoring the member recruitment process is an executive dashboard. Similar to the executive dashboards available through a club management system, a PRM dashboard contains timetables for member recruitment activities occurring within the next cycle (typically a 90-day horizon), current year-to-date forecasts, summary statistics, event reporting, and drill-down capabilities that enable management to review and evaluate each step in the member recruitment process.

PRM Design & Orientation

Some of the shortcomings of non-industry specific member recruitment software centers on the product's design and orientation. A club-specific application should be member relationship focused and built for multiple user collaborative recruitment workflow. A web-hosted solution often is most effective as it is readily accessible nearly everywhere and provides a uniform, structured approach to new member acquisition. Another benefit of a web-hosted application is the availability of real-time performance metrics and pre-determined date-specific benchmarks. While prospective member profiling provides a basis for campaign creation and sequential monitoring, many new members arise from referrals. When staff members have access to a prospect database, effective teamwork strategies can be devised. Workflow progress, planned interactions, and scheduled events can be well coordinated and synchronized with eventual connectivity to a club management software system.

The goals of most membership relationship management (MRM) programs are to increase club visit frequency as well as average check. The concept of MRM involves automating processes that promote club activities and facilitate registration and participation by the membership. An outgrowth of MRM is data gleaned from tracking interests, transactions, and behaviors as a guide for subsequent promotional opportunities. An individual member's experience with club activities can be enhanced through technology applied to simplify registration.

In conclusion, PRM software represents an organized approach to maintaining membership information that enables the membership director or membership committee chair to personalize various aspects of the recruitment process. It can become an indispensable marketing tool that simplifies the recruitment process and exceeds member expectations.

Michael L. Kasavana, Ph.D., CHTP, NCE, NAMA is professor at the School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University.