Question

Topic: Strategy

Need To Develop Membership Leads

Posted by lstevens on 4/25/2008 at 3:16 PM ET 250 Points
Our company is a Member-owned buying group serving independent furniture retailers. Current economic conditions are awful for furniture retailers. Since our group helps retailers save money, we should be in a prime position to grow, but our current lead base is not productive. The furniture industry is full of "late adopters", so many web 2.0 approaches would not reach our likely membership candidates. We are developing a strategy to blanket trade publications with press releases every two weeks or so to promote our benefits and achievements, but we are looking for other tactics to add to our arsenal.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 4/25/2008 at 5:57 PM Accepted
    Lark,
    I have experience with buying groups and co-ops. You need to purt together a very strong and measurable list of the advantages of being a member of your group. And, getting to the independant retailers is mostly about getting references from existing members and suppliers.
  • Posted by michael on 4/26/2008 at 12:03 PM Accepted
    Honestly? Put some people on the street. If the retailers are slow they have time to see you....unannounced.

    Hone your presentation and when you leave you'll leave with more than just contact info. They'll be giving you ideas of how they want to hear from you AND you can see non-members and cnvince them to join your co-op

    Michael
  • Posted on 4/27/2008 at 3:51 PM Accepted
    I would consider Direct Mail and telemarketing.

  • Posted by lstevens on 4/28/2008 at 8:47 AM Author
    Thanks for all the advice. Referrals are our most productive lead source. One-on-ones are logistically difficult as we are geographically exclusive by representation, meaning a new member can't be closer that 45 miles to another member. We are in 43 states and we typically do better with retailers in smaller communities. But given all that, perhaps we could make targeted visits in areas that have the strongest potential. I am thinking more and more that we need to develop case studies of successful members and send them to prospects with similar profiles.
  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 4/28/2008 at 9:20 AM Member
    Dont forget to ask your successful members for references... these people do get to know one another...
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