How do you hit your target for generating professional body membership registrations and accreditations, during unprecedented and unstable economic conditions?

The marketing team at CIPS were challenged to drive increased memberships before EOFY, during a period of time where consumer and business buying behaviour had dramatically decreased (or ceased) across almost all categories.

Here’s how CIPS partnered with Eloquent to successfully hit their target membership sign ups.

About CIPS

CIPS is the peak professional body for procurement and supply chain professionals. With over 3,500 members across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, and 70.6K Globally.

CIPS is dedicated to promoting best practice, continuous improvement in professional standards and raising awareness of the contribution that procurement and supply management can make to organisations.

The Client Challenge – Membership Lead Generation During A Time of Economic Uncertainty

The CIPS team were challenged to present the benefits of an MCIPS accreditation in a fresh and unique way that would drive awareness, leads and registrations during the COVID Pandemic.

It was essential for CIPS that this membership lead generation drive was done without lowering the accreditation standards or offering large discounts.

“A huge percentage of our target market are proud, willing and eager to externally validate and amplify their skills and experience through MCIPS accreditation. However, we chose to work with Eloquent to help us target the wider audience of professionals who our message hasn’t yet resonated with – those in our target market who are currently unaware of CIPS, or who aren’t yet members.” – GIovanni Ferrante, Marketing Manager, The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply

Eloquent’s Solution

CIPS required a solution that showcased the benefits of MCIPS accreditation (the why), and how to achieve it (the how) to their target audience who were at all different stages of the buyer journey.

The solution was to conduct a live webinar during a period when potential members were spending increased time online. Holding an online event meant attendance wasn’t limited by geography and CIPS could engage a larger portion of their target audience for an extended duration. This allowed CIPS to fully articulate ‘the why’ and ‘the how’ of MCIPS accreditation in order to generate awareness and conversion.

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Step 1: Audience

Identified and mapped the potential audience of current members, past members and unknown procurement and supply professionals. We then created audience personas to understand their needs, challenges and opportunities regarding professional accreditation.

Step 2: Traffic

We used a combination of email, organic social media and paid social media to drive traffic to the webinar opt-in landing page. This allowed the campaign to target a large and diverse cross-section of the desired audience.

Step 3: Landing Page

Developed a webinar opt-in landing page using landing page best-practice, key messaging around the benefits of MCIPS and sales psychology (such as social proof and authority) to ensure a high conversion rate to webinar attendance. Check out the landing page here.

Step 4: Lead Magnet

Hosted a live webinar on “How Achieving MCIPS Will Transform Your Career”. As an early indication of high-intent, those who registered were also asked to tick a box if they would like a call-back to discuss MCIP membership.

Step 5: Conversion

Embedded call-to-actions on the webinar opt-in landing page, webinar opt-in thank you page, live webinar, and follow up emails and calls. The webinar recording was also sent to non-attendees to increase conversions in that audience.

Our Outcome

• 272 Webinar Registrations
• 56% Attendance Rate (+15% vs. industry averages)
• 50+ Membership Sign-Ups and Accreditation Conversations
• 36% Landing Page Conversion Rate to Webinar Opt-In
• 10,000+ Campaign Social Media Impressions (Over 3 posts)
• 29% Average Email Open Rate (+6% vs. industry averages)

“To break even, this campaign needed to generate 9 professionals interested in signing up for MCIPS. The campaign has so far had over 40 people enter the process and another 10 professionals have already become professional members of CIPS. We are extremely pleased with these results, and look forward to working with the passionate and commercially-driven Eloquent team in the future.” – Giovanni Ferrante, Marketing Manager, The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply

Future Plans

Due to a successful live webinar campaign, converting this webinar to an “always on” webinar that potential members can register for, and watch at their convenience will continue to generate new leads and members for CIPS. Recommended promotion is via paid traffic (LinkedIn & Facebook), website (landing page and exit intent pop-up) and within email nurture sequences for new membership enquiries.

If you’re looking to increase lead generation in your business, please get in touch with us.

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