Show Notes
Most recruitment campaigns start with the same assumption: if we can just get in front of enough people, some of them will join. So teams pull a big list, send a benefit-heavy email, and wait. When it doesn't convert, they're not sure why — and they start over next year.
The problem isn't the list size. It's that every prospect is getting the same message, regardless of how warm they are, what's holding them back, or what they actually need from your association. You can't fix what you can't see.
Brittany Lancor, Senior Marketing Manager at PropFuel and former membership and marketing professional, walks through a four-step framework for building recruitment campaigns that listen before they pitch. Using real campaigns from the American Academy of Model Aeronautics and the American Physical Society, she shows what it looks like when you start with your warmest prospects, lead with a question instead of a pitch, surface the hesitation, and respond to what people actually tell you.
During the session, she covers:
- Why your warmest prospects are already in your database — and how to rank them by intent before you build anything
- What changes when you lead with a question instead of a benefits email, and why that one move tells you more than any demographic data you have
- How AMA added one question to their homepage, captured over 7,400 contacts, and converted more than 3,800 of them — generating over $304,000 in revenue
- How APS followed up with non-member event attendees using a single well-timed email and turned 368 of them into members
- Why surfacing hesitation — asking what's holding someone back — is the step most associations skip entirely, and why a no you understand is a roadmap
- Three things you can take back to your team this week
This is the first in a three-part series. Each session is standalone. you'll get full value from any one of them. The next session goes deeper into onboarding.