Maximize Your Growth Potential Through Member Lifetime Value
By Barton Tretheway

It’s time for not-for-profit organizations to starting thinking about MLV, “Member Lifetime Value.” For-profits have been tracking CLV, “Customer Lifetime Value” for years, using sophisticated software programs to collect and measure the spending patterns of their customers. This information is then used to determine the present value of the likely future income stream generated by individual customers. Once this is done individual customers can be ranked in order of their future potential worth to the organization. This information leads to a more targeted marketing approach resulting in an increase in the return of an organization’s overall marketing efforts.

Do you know the “value” of your individual members? Have you tracked individual member spending and participation? You might be surprised at what some organizations are doing today to track the value of their members. I recently worked with a national financial trade association, which annually tracks the value of each of its members. The metrics it tracked included spending on association materials, attendance at association meetings and conferences, participation on committees, and contributions to the association’s foundation. Metrics typically vary by organization, their products and service offerings and issues of relative importance.

The goal of MLV is to track potential individual member value and then craft customized programs to best meet their needs. As a result, an organization can then develop marketing plans to reach select member segments to maximize its efforts. Mass mailings and marketing programs are a thing of the past. Maximize your market spent by using MLV.

Barton Tretheway is Managing Partner is Bostrom Consulting Associates