Increasing CORSA membership - Ideas

[paulsgt]

Hello Directors. I am going to ask for this to be a 'sticky' topic. What I want in here is simply a brainstorming of ideas to increase membership. There will be a separate topic for discussion of these ideas. The reason for this is that I want to hear everyone's ideas. I want them all in one place. We can see them at a glance. I've tossed out a few over my presidency and none have really gone anywhere. Obviously this is something that a membership chair should be involved with. Once we have one, perhaps we can give them some direction based on these ideas. I will post some of mine here.

THANKS!

[ihscomputers]

Sponsor a membership contest such that we award a $50/$100 Clarks gift certificate (or something similar) to the member who signs up the most new members over a specified period of time. Perhaps call it the "Membership Driver of the Month/Quarter" contest.

[paulsgt]

I have a bunch of them...

1) Offer chapters a one-time cash 'spiff' or payment when they recruit new CORSA members.

2) One I've offered before; provide some incentive for chapters to man a CORSA booth at large regional shows. Think Good Guys, etc... This would require some investment in a booth that could be shipped and materials to hand out/sell.

3) Develop a marketing piece that could be mailed to former members and possibly Hagerty mailing list (?) Perhaps we can get Corvair owner data from other insurance companies.

More to come...

[Corventure Dave]

Our local chapter offers free CORSA membership for members who organize or help organize a chapter event, small or large.
The results..... we get more participation with just free food! And little participation organizing an event.
I don't know how much more attractive we could make it to join or renew with CORSA!

May I suggest that we look into the color promotional hand out like we had in the past. This should go out with any inquiry from Hagerty exposure or any other promotion to CORSA that we have and also be available for chapters to hand out.

I would also like to pursue if possible incorporating CORSA with the Corvair Center Web site, in a way that will promote and support CORSA. This site seems to be the most active Corvair site. However I don't know how practical persuing that would be with the structure of the organization.

The electronic age of communication seems to have had this effect on all organizations. People are less motivated to join a "club" when most everything is available on line. It's a tough challenge. To that, I am old school and have no real good handle on how to compete with the internet. There are quite a few Corvair owners in my county who have no interest in any Corvair club involvement. But they will come to events! And there are fewer people who want to organize events. Even with Free CORSA dues.

Dave Palmer

[paulsgt]

Everyone please note... I've had Scott set up a new topic that is only accessible to the membership chair and the Directors. You will see it if you go to the "Board Index". Let's post over there to welcome Jack Bacon and exchange ideas with him.

THANKS VERY MUCH!!!

[Jack Bacon]

Gentlemen,

Over the next couple of weeks I will be coming up with a lot of ideas for increasing and maintaining our membership.

I like the idea of having CORSA brochures to handout at local and regional events. Also I think all the chapters shiold have business cards to handout with both with the chapter logo on one side and the CORSA logo on the other and each with their website information. A CORSA display at major national shows is a great idea and shoudl have enough space to also display a nice Corvair roughly 24' x 12'. A 12' x 12' space typically runs $800 with each additional 12' x 12' space at $600. Shipping and storing a CORSA display booth may be a bit pricey. We could also run an ad in Hemmings magazine in the Chevrolet car section.

I am starting to talk with the Corvair Minnesota members about CORSA and when I get more feedback I will let you know. I know some members have said the Communique needs more content-tech articles, membership profiles, restoration atricles.

I know in our Leeky Seel newsletter I am making sure to welcome new members, mailing out a new member packet with pin, window decal, sample issues of the Leaky Seel and Communique.

Could I get some details on CORSA's insurance program and what it covers, maybe something that chapter members are not aware of this benefit.

More to come!

Best regards,

Jack Bacon

[mrhvair]

No activity on this topic since april, seems like were not thinking about how to get new members, or even get the word out that we exist, a few more ideas of which some have been discussed a bit before but it never hurts to revisit content for now perhaps the time has come.

Weekly publications such as Old Cars Weekly. Run an add size of Vintage Chevrolet club advertising and promoting ourselves.
New Members to the organization or to individual clubs, Advertise these new members in spotlight new members, or at a minimum at the national level have a new members corner in the communique telling who joined, what state and what there driving.
Work the organization up at community car shows and events, put up the tent, any pop up will do, advertise with some small allocation of corsa merchandise, beach towels make great conversation starters, past communique issues etc. Every director has an oppurtunity to have these items in there car at all times, when they go to a show there ready to advertise.

Jack, I hope you can spare a few minutes to discuss with the board some ideas at the convention. If your available tuesday after the welcome party perhaps we as a group can meet up and talk about membership. Thanks all.

[Jack Bacon]

Hi MIke,

Locally our chapter has added five new members since February. We had a new visitor at our monthly meeting at Wagner's Drive Inn so I quickly grabbed a membership form from my car, had him talk with a couple of our club officers and then introduced him to the rest of the club and he joined on the spot.

Yes, we need to run ads in the Old Car Weekly and also another good one would be Classic Motorsports Magazine. I think we could even run free ads in Craigslist all over the country. Wear your Corvair Corsa T shirts and regalia when you can, free advertising.

We need to make up a CORSA brochure we can hand out to people. I don't believe we have one available at present. I had some business cards printed up for our chapter that we can hand out at car shows. I will bring some to the convention. At all car shows I am at, I have membership forms for our chapter and we need to make sure CORSA membership information is included. I also have chapter newsletters, Communiques, etc.

A new member area in the Communique would be great, it is always nice to be welcomed into an organization. If i had their email, I could also send them a welcome letter.

At the car shows. instead of the "look but don't touch" signs invite interested people to sit in your car especially the younger generation. We need more younger members!

I will be available after the welcome party or other times when you want to get together and brainstorm.

Best regards,

Jack Bacon

[Bob Helt]

First,
I want to thank Jack for being the membership chairman and for setting up this membership committee to develop ideas and ACTIONS.

Now, without going into any great detail right now, here are two of my mandatory requirements.

First we need a plan on what measures we intend to take and a WAY of measuring the effectiveness of each idea, trial, and experiment in trying to increase membership. That is to say we should NOT just go about this in a disorganized manner but DO HAVE a way of evaluating each idea tried.


Next, and this should really be first, we need money to do anything. We need a source of income to establish an ongoing program.

So maybe this should be topic No 1.

I have several ideas on how to raise money for this program, but let's just start with a request written in the Communique for contributions from the members. I'm sure that when we explain the steady decrease in membership over the last 20 years, the members will want to help stem the fall and go for some increases in membership.


PS, we should also talk together too.

Bob Helt

[vairmech]

Bob, I agree with what you have said above. The BoD has already tried something but I'm not sure if we know the results of the banner advertising we did with Hemmings. There is an advertising budget that we can start with and if that gets exceeded and we are doing well I see no reason not to go to the BoD and ask for a little more. Being past Prez and BoD member gives me a little insight as to what has happened.

[Bob Helt]

I see a range of ideas here on how to induce people to join CORSA. Some are good.
But may I suggest that we need to develop a criteria for judging each idea. Such as what resources will be required to implement each idea. And an estimate of the effectiveness of each idea.

But maybe more importantly, instead of focusing on inducing new members, we focus on defining why they should join Corsa: The benefits. And how can we increase the benefits? Could there be some way that we could require Corsa membership to post on the CCF or this forum? That is, OK to read but must be a member to post.

As I see it, the benefits of joining Corsa are too limited to get most potentials to join right now.
That should be topic ONE after finances in my opinion.

Bob Helt

[vairmech]

The one thing I see is we have to appeal to a younger crowd. What do they want? What would they like to see?

[Bob Helt]

OK Chairman Jack,
Please give us some directions.

Do we brainstorm ideas?

Or do we talk scope?

Or do we talk finances?

Or do we talk about defining and improving benefits of joining Corsa?

Bob Helt

[Bob Helt]

Ken said:
The one thing I see is we have to appeal to a younger crowd. What do they want? What would they like to see?

My response to that question is.................

They would like to see exactly why they should join Corsa. That is "what does it do for me". (them)

Bob Helt

[Allan Lacki]

Some random thoughts:

What Does CORSA Offer?

CORSA offers three things that people can't get anywhere else:

1. New issues of the Communique - a real magazine, professionally-edited, devoted exclusively to Corvair topics,
2. Access to the Communique archives - years' worth of Communiques.
3. CORSA merchandise - coffee mugs, etc. But they cost extra.

Thoughts on Indexing the Archives:

To be really valuable, we need to index the articles in the Communique archives so our members can search them online for topics of interest. Especially the tech articles. The tech articles that appear in the Communique are vetted by our Tech Editors (I hope!), which gives them credibility over some of the silly advice that's out there on the various internet forums.

We already offer CORSA Tech Guides, so maybe that need has been fulfilled. But maybe not. There may be different kinds of articles, other than tech articles, that could be valuable if they were more accessible. For example, it would be nice to have the ability to search the Communique archives for all of the "Stock Is" articles written by Larry Claypool. That would be a valuable resource for restorers. There may be other types of articles that would also be valuable to new members.

Communique Tech Articles Versus Tech Guides:

Out of the box thinking: Suspend sales of the Tech Guides. Make them available, online only, for free but only to CORSA members. Sure, some folks may download them and then drop their CORSA membership. But perhaps there is a way to prevent them from being downloaded. Make them printable, but not downloadable. That way, members could print the pages they need. I doubt that anybody would actually print the complete series of Tech Guides in whole. So, to retain access to the Tech Guides, people would need to remain CORSA members.

Events and Corvair Contacts:

CORSA chapters organize local Corvair events, but I don't know of any chapter that limits its own membership to CORSA members. So, you don't need to join CORSA to participate in local Corvair events.

Attracting Younger People:

Years ago, a Corvair was cheap transportation and thus attracted young folks in their teens and 20s. But now, people in that demographic end up buying well-used but servicable imports, like 10 year old Honda Civics. They're cheap and reasonably reliable. It's awfully hard to find a 50 year old Corvair that is cheap unless it's a real junker! So, Corvairs don't represent a viable transportation alternative for most folks in their teens and 20s.

I'm thinking our target market is really folks who have enough disposable income to buy a Corvair as a toy; a collectible car rather than daily driver. Most of these people are probably in the late 30s and older. I don't know if that's a helpful thought! 'Just an observation.

Al

[Bob Helt]

CORSA offers three things that people can't get anywhere else:

1. New issues of the Communique - a real magazine, professionally-edited, devoted exclusively to Corvair topics,
2. Access to the Communique archives - years' worth of Communiques.
3. CORSA merchandise - coffee mugs, etc. But they cost extra.


No disrespect is intended, Al
but these are not much of an inducement to join Corsa in my opinion. And you left off the insurance coverage. Especially when one doesn't find the kind of information and coverage they want in the Communique. Maybe they would like to see more "how to do it" articles and more tech stuff. We probably should find out.

Bob Helt