Your member benefits page probably has one job that matters more than any other page on your website.
It has to convince someone that becoming a member is worth paying for.
By the time a prospective member lands there, they have already shown some level of interest in your association. They may have heard about you from a colleague, attended one of your events, found one of your articles through search, or clicked over from social media. However they arrived, they have reached the point where curiosity becomes evaluation. They are no longer asking, “Who are you?” They’re asking, “Why should I join?”
Unfortunately, many associations treat the member benefits page as if its purpose is simply to document everything membership includes.
The page becomes an inventory of programs, services, and resources: annual conference, certification program, member directory, legislative updates, webinars, publications, online community, discounts, and so on. Every item may be valuable. Every item may deserve to be there. But a complete list is not the same thing as a persuasive argument.
The assumption is that visitors will naturally understand why those things matter.
You know what they say about assuming.
Your prospects are doing a value calculation
When someone considers membership, they are comparing the cost of joining against the return they expect to receive.
That return might be financial. It might come in the form of better information, stronger professional relationships, career advancement, or simply staying current in a rapidly changing industry.
Whatever the motivation, every prospective member is asking the same question: “Will I get enough value from this membership to justify the dues?”
Take something as common as a member directory. To association staff, its value is obvious. Members can connect with peers, find potential partners, and build relationships across the profession. But if the page simply says “Member Directory,” none of that value is communicated. The feature is described, but the outcome is left to the reader’s imagination.
None of the benefits changed. But how you explain it did.
Associations write from the inside out
This happens for understandable reasons.
The people responsible for writing the member benefits page already know the organization inside and out.
They know how much work goes into producing the conference, managing committees, publishing research, advocating on behalf of the profession, and building educational programs. They know which benefits current members value because they hear about them every day.
Prospective members don’t have that perspective.
They are seeing your association for the first time, and they are evaluating it through the lens of their own responsibilities and problems.
That shift in perspective is where many benefits pages break down. The page explains what the association does without ever explaining why those activities should matter to someone considering membership.
Features are not benefits
One of the simplest ways to evaluate your member benefits page is to ask whether each section describes a feature or explains a benefit.
A feature is something your association provides. A benefit is the outcome your member experiences because that feature exists.
The distinction sounds small, but it changes the way people evaluate membership.
Suppose your page says members receive exclusive industry research. That tells me what I receive, but it doesn’t tell me why I should care.
The same exercise works for almost every item on a typical benefits page. Instead of asking visitors to connect the dots between your programs and their professional lives, make those connections for them. That’s the job of the page.
Organize the page around member goals
There is another problem that appears on many member benefits pages, and it has less to do with the writing than the structure.
Most associations organize the page around the way the organization operates internally.
There is a section for advocacy, another for education, another for events, another for publications, and another for member services.
Prospective members don’t think that way.
They are thinking about their own objectives. They want to know how to stay informed in a changing industry. They want to become better at their jobs. They want access to people facing similar challenges.
In some cases, they simply need enough value to justify the membership expense to their employer.
Those goals are far more important than the way your organization happens to be structured.
When benefits are organized around member needs rather than internal departments, the page immediately becomes easier to understand. Prospective members don’t have to work as hard to connect your programs with the problems they’re trying to solve because you’ve already made those connections for them.
Your benefits page is a conversion page
One reason this page deserves more attention is that it often carries more responsibility than association staff realize.
Think about all the effort required to bring someone to your website in the first place. You invest in conferences, webinars, email campaigns, LinkedIn posts, referrals, search optimization, and word of mouth.
Eventually, many of those people arrive at your member benefits page.
If that page fails to explain why membership is worth paying for, much of the work that brought the visitor there loses its value.
That’s why it helps to stop thinking of the member benefits page as simply another page on the website. It is one of your primary conversion pages. Its purpose isn’t to document what the association offers. Its purpose is to help someone make a confident decision to join.
Those are different objectives, and they require different writing.
See how your page stacks up
That’s exactly why we built the Member Benefits Page Evaluator.
The evaluator uses the same Member Benefits Bridge framework I use with association leaders to review how effectively their websites connect member benefits to meaningful outcomes.
Simply enter the URL of your member benefits page and you’ll receive an instant assessment showing where your messaging is working and where prospects may still be left to connect the dots themselves.
There is no sign-up form to complete and no sales presentation waiting at the end. The goal is simply to give you an honest assessment of one of the most important recruitment assets on your website.
See how your page stacks up at memberbenefits.site-steward.com.
