Find Your Ideal Member Engagement Strategy in 4 Steps

Chris Shults, Guest Blogger

This guest article was written and submitted by Chris Shults, Senior Director of Marketing at Fonteva + Protech. Please see the end of this article for Chris's bio.

By: Chris Shults

According to the 2025 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, 45% of association executives reported an increase in membership over the past year. However, these findings show a decline in growth, down from 47% in the 2024 report and 49% in the 2023 report. This downward trend highlights the need to consistently engage both potential and current members.

For museums with membership programs, these numbers may be hard to swallow. However, there are things you can do to grow your membership program, such as:

• Leveraging unique, personalized strategies to engage existing members
• Providing valuable perks (e.g., exhibits, exclusive events, membership milestones, and members-only resources/discounts)
• Creating or retaining a thriving membership community with strong bonds that others will want to join 

But how do you know which member engagement strategy works best for your museum? In this article, we’ll walk you through the four steps that can help you out.

Step 1: Understand your current engagement climate

Before developing a new strategy, your museum must use its data to diagnose the cause of the engagement leak. To do this, we recommend that you leverage data from your association management system (AMS) or membership management software to identify low engagement, pinpoint the problem, and strategize a solution.

Here are some of the steps you can take to analyze your engagement data:

• Analyze trends. Check your renewal rates over the last three years. Are members leaving after the first renewal period, or is the churn happening later? 
• Dig deeper into event data. Review data for members-only events compared to general admission. Are your members using the free entry but skipping the paid, member-exclusive events? If so, it might be time to revamp the member event calendar.
• Identify disengaged members. These are members who pay dues but haven’t visited, opened an email, or logged into a portal in over six months. You have to start developing new ways to re-engage them. 
• Audit your website. Maybe your website is hurting your organization instead of helping it. To fix this, analyze website traffic to identify top pages and look for places where you could better optimize for member engagement. For example, is it difficult to locate your donation page or event registration form from the homepage because their links aren’t on the navigation menus? In that case, you might consider upgrading your website design. 

This step involves a lot of data analysis, but it’s important to understand your current state and move forward based on data, not guesswork. Doing so improves your decision-making in the future, helping you develop strategies that actually work or are targeted toward your members’ needs.

Step 2: Identify your engagement challenges

While every museum will face unique challenges, there are three common scenarios that many are experiencing right now: 

• Scenario A: High member acquisition, but low retention. In this scenario, members likely join for a specific exhibit, event, or summer pass, but they don’t renew their membership after a year or so. 
• Scenario B: High attendance, but low depth of engagement. Members visit during regular hours often, but they don’t volunteer at the museum, donate to your fundraising campaigns, or attend educational workshops. 
• Scenario C: Stagnant growth. Your core supporters are loyal, but you aren’t reaching new demographics or younger families (i.e., the next generation of your membership base). 

Each scenario has its own solution, so if you’ve found the one that best describes your museum’s current issues, you can proceed to its corresponding step below.  

Step 3A: High Acquisition, Low Retention = Personalized Communication

If your museum is facing this challenge, it means people are interested enough to become members and support you, but for one reason or another, they don’t stay members for too long. 

Often, the issue stems from a lack of acknowledgement. If a museum does not actively engage its members, they will feel ignored and undervalued. 

Here are some solutions you can try:

• Automate member onboarding or welcome cadences. Send a series of welcome emails over the first 30 days of their membership. Use these emails to remind members of their benefits beyond just free admission. Tell them about discounts, early access to exhibits, recurring events, and other perks. 
• Send a “We Miss You” message. Set an automated alert for any member who hasn’t visited in 90 days. This alert can be a personalized invitation to a low-pressure event, like a morning coffee with a curator. You can also gift them a special discount on museum merchandise or on a ticket for a limited-time exhibit.
• Send a feedback survey form. Still not sure where your museum is falling short? Ask your members. In this survey, you can ask them to rate the museum's current offerings and, if they give a low rating, ask for their suggestions on how to improve. Your members will appreciate you sending this survey because it shows that you care about their opinions.

All these solutions require automation or data collection, so we recommend using membership management software. This type of specialized CRM system lets you store essential information, including member profiles, education history, and preferred communication methods. 

Having access to this data helps you plan for future museum events and courses. The CRM also has built-in messaging systems, effectively streamlining the communication process. 

Step 3B: High Attendance, Low Depth = More Exclusive Perks

Your museum has been getting record-high attendance—that’s marvelous news! But when you ask for donations or volunteers, almost no one steps forward.  

Why does this happen? Perhaps the members find the current crop of museum offerings to be bland or boring, or they’re just unaware of what’s going on. To fix this issue, here are a few suggestions:

Tiered Access to Content and Resources 

Create exclusive digital content for your members. For example, share a time-lapse of a new exhibit installation. Or, if you’re operating a zoo, consider giving a glimpse into the day in the life of one of your animals.

Adding educational components can invite members to learn more about your organization and its niche. The best part is that you have many formats to choose from: webinars, online courses (perfect for complex topics), eBooks, downloadable guides, on-site workshops, and more. 

Implementing AI-Driven Recommendations

If your CRM and ticketing system are integrated, you can leverage data about members’ interests and past visits to provide tailored recommendations. 

For example, if a member frequently scans into the natural history wing but never attends events, Protech recommends using AI tools to trigger a personalized email inviting them to a specialized paleontology lecture. Not only does this promote deeper engagement, but it can also boost retention rates among your member base. 

Gamifying the Experience

Turn a standard experience at your organization into an active mission. For example, have members earn points or digital badges for completing specific tasks in your standard exhibits, such as attending a guided tour. 

Or, offer a scavenger hunt by giving your members a list of “hidden” items to find in the museum. You can make the scavenger hunt experience even better if they invite a friend or a family member. 

Step 3C: Stagnant Growth = Reciprocal Programs, Focus on Accessibility 

While it’s great to hear that your current members are loyal, you still need to attract new members if you want your museum to grow and thrive. Here are a few things you can do to achieve this:

• Offer reciprocal programs. Partner with other local institutions to offer Member Exchange Months. This instantly provides more value by giving your members access to another institution. Plus, this is your chance to attract members from new audiences. 
• Switch digital credentials. Move toward mobile-friendly membership cards. For younger demographics and busy families, a physical card is a burden—a digital one is much more accessible and convenient! 
• Host community-centric after-hours events. Host events that cater to specific subgroups, such as Sensory-Friendly evenings for neurodivergent families or Museum After Dark mixers for young professionals. Hosting these outside a typical 9 to 5 schedule allows kids, college students, and working families to attend and get to know each other.

By focusing on accessibility, you’re drawing in more potential members from a diverse range of demographics. Additionally, encouraging them to befriend one another is a great way to build a strong, loyal community. 

Step 4: Close the feedback loop with data

While you have now diagnosed the potential issue and implemented a solution, you might have to do the process over again in the future because finding the right engagement strategy isn’t a one-and-done project. Instead, it’s a cyclical process that your museum will need to revisit and iterate on. 

Fortunately, with all the data you’ve collected, revising your strategy shouldn’t be a hard task. Take the time to review key metrics regularly to ensure that the strategies are working. For example, if you chose Step A, did the re-engagement emails actually drive increased return visits? If so, keep doing it. If not, consider trying the other solutions. 

Keep in mind that your engagement strategy will always be in flux. Your membership never stays the same, so why should your strategy? Continue using the insights you’ve gathered as a basis when refining or even reworking your approach.

About the author - Chris Shultz

Chris is the Senior Director of Marketing at Fonteva + Protech. With 5 years of experience in the association technology space, Chris Shults holds a deep understanding of association needs. His expertise spans Strategic Planning, Brand Development, and Marketing. Chris leverages these skills and knowledge to help member-based organizations understand how the right technology can transform their operations, driving member engagement and retention.