Member communications, planned by lifecycle stage

01/ The strategy

A member communications strategy on one page

Five lines are enough: who you are talking to, what each message is for, which channel, how often, and what permission you hold.

Coordinate planned messages with the membership content calendar, adapting each asset to its audience and lifecycle moment.

Most membership communication is email, and most of it goes to people who already belong.

Among US associations in Marketing General’s 2024 survey, the most common ways to engage established members were an ongoing email series and requests to volunteer, ahead of social media and member surveys.

Members still want email, but less of it. In Higher Logic’s survey of association members, reported on its benchmark blog, 61% said email is their primary channel and 51% said they receive too many messages. A strategy is how you decide what not to send.

The first 90 days are covered in depth on member onboarding; the wider channel mix is on digital marketing for membership organisations.

03/ The newsletter

The member newsletter: what goes in it

One lead story, one item chosen for the reader’s segment, one member voice, the dates, one benefit and one question. Short enough to scan and useful enough to click.

Relevance beats reach. In Higher Logic’s 2025–2026 association email benchmarks, a vendor dataset of about 1,500 associations and nonprofits, smaller targeted lists outperformed broad sends, and subject lines under 40 characters performed best.

Its community benchmarks found digest emails of members’ own discussions opened more often than typical association email.

Build it to be read by everyone. The W3C’s WCAG 2 standard (perceivable, operable, understandable, robust) applies to documents as well as web pages: real text rather than text in images, headings, descriptive links and enough contrast.

07/ Consent and PECR

Consent and PECR: can you email members?

Yes, but what you may send depends on the message and on who receives it. Service messages need no marketing permission; marketing needs consent or a soft opt-in for individuals.

Start with the message. The ICO’s direct marketing guidance says service messages, sent for administrative purposes with nothing promotional, are not direct marketing. Its own example is a gym calling about a failed membership payment.

Automatic renewal notices worded neutrally may not be marketing either, but a message that actively encourages renewal is likely to be. Direct marketing also covers promoting aims and ideals, so fundraising and campaigning count.

Then the recipient. Under PECR regulation 22, marketing email to individuals, including sole traders on the ICO’s lawful-basis table, needs consent or a soft opt-in; email to limited companies sits outside that rule.