Recruiting a new member costs up to 5x more than winning back a lapsed one. So why do 79% of associations have no plan to do it?
It's not laziness or bad strategy. It's that lapsed members aren't all the same, and most organizations don't know which problem they're dealing with.
Some left because of price, but that's usually a value perception problem in disguise. Harder to solve than it looks and a topic for a future post.
Some drifted. No dramatic exit. Just slow disengagement until renewal felt optional. That's an engagement problem.
And some you just lost track of. They changed jobs. Their email bounced. The trail went cold. They didn't quit on you; you didn't quit on them. You just lost them.
That last group is the most winnable. They didn't leave because they were unhappy. They left because life moved faster than your database did.
You can't win back someone you can't find. But finding them is more possible now than anyone thinks.