The Membership Marketing Benchmark Survey results were released this past weekend at ASAE and The Center’s Annual Meeting. The white paper, which is available as a 40-page PDF here (registering to get access to the PDF is easy), is the result of a nearly month-long survey conducted this spring. My first post concerning the results deals with the best marketing tool for associations.

“What do you believe is the TOP REASON members join your organization?”

Page 17 of the white paper deals with this question, and I found the results intriguing. The top response was Access to Specialized Information (23%), which makes sense. Coming in at numbers two and three were Network with others in the field (22%) and Connect with others in the field (12%).

The fifth most popular response seemed significant to me. Learn best practices in their profession received 8% of the vote. I understand that an association’s main purpose should be to connect people (hence the popular responses given above), but shouldn’t an association provide valuable resources as well? It’s interesting that the top response was Access to specialized information — and maybe it’s so closely tied to Learn best practices in their profession that this doesn’t matter.

However, coming in with 10% of the vote was the response, Other. Other? What does this mean? The fact that Other received more votes than Learn best practices in their field completely mystifies me. There are many reasons to join an organization, but their foremost purpose should be to connect people with similar interests, goals and professions. Not just to network with others (anyone can do that on LinkedIn), but to create lasting relationships. Offering great professional resources will only get your association so far — if members aren’t engaged with each other, then what’s the point?