How can clear strategy grow student membership?
Challenge
APA’s student member numbers had been steadily declining—a trend it needed to reverse to maintain a strong pipeline of practising physio members. Mahlab worked with APA to develop a student acquisition strategy that mapped out how the APA could engage and convert student physios.
Our Approach
To engage this audience, we needed to understand their challenges and priorities, and how they felt about the APA and their life at university more broadly.
Carry out audience research:
- As a first step, we carried out qualitative interviews to gather information on their university experience. We then scaled these results through a qualitative survey.
Develop audience personas and journey maps:
- We turned this data into audience insights through the creation of personas for each university year, and audience journey maps to outline key engagement opportunities throughout the year.
Establish APA’s value proposition for student members:
- Once we understood what was important to student physios, their view of the APA brand and what they felt they needed to be successful in their studies, we established APA’s student value proposition.
- This tapped into what students valued about the APA as well as the university education gaps the organisation could fill.
Build an engagement plan:
- With a clear understanding of students' pain points, priorities and information consumption habits, we build an engagement plan that allows APA to establish a relationship with student physios and nurture that relationship throughout their studies.
- We also established a clear plan to convert these students to full members as they graduate.
"With this strategic approach, APA can build meaningful connections with student physios throughout their studies, grow membership and set the stage for converting these members upon graduation."
Impact
This strategy provided the APA with clear insight into why their student member numbers were declining and, more importantly, a clear plan to turn it around.
From 12 interviews and 350 surveyed students, we developed one actionable strategy and four tailored audience journeys.
With this strategic approach, APA can build meaningful connections with student physios throughout their studies, grow membership and set the stage for converting these members upon graduation, providing a continuous pipeline of engaged professionals.