OVERVIEW
High Performance Insulation Professionals (HPIP) is the association dedicated to providing a universal certification to insulation contractors and those seeking a career in the insulation industry. HPIP’s mission is to better the insulation industry.
Since transitioning from a 501(c)6 trade association to a 501(c)3 purely educational association in 2017, HPIP has seen an inconsistent and declining trend in certification renewal. Our goal for 2021 was to see an increase in the number of contractors and industry professionals seeking our certification versus the declining renewal rate that we had seen trending over the past few years since the change in charitable status.
In 2013, HPIP did a full organizational rebrand. Previously, HPIP operated as Blown-in Blanket Contractors Association (BIBCA), only serving, and providing certification for one sector of the insulation industry. BIBCA had been operating as the main certifying body for the blown-in blanket insulation systems since 1989. The rebrand was incited by a need for change and the goals that the executive board deemed necessary for not only the association, but the insulation industry as a whole. The goal of HPIP was changed to serve and certify all sectors of the insulation industry, and no longer work solely with blown-in blanket contractors. With the change came a lack of brand recognition and familiarity that BIBCA thrived from in its previous market. As HPIP began to serve a vaster market, the workload to keep up with new goals and initiatives increased, but staffing remained the same. The result being that there was less frequent and personalized contact/connection that previous contractors were accustomed to. In addition, this also meant less bandwidth to pursue new members, and HPIP began relying mostly on year-to-year renewal without adding any new contractors to their roster.
Nonprofit Resources (NPR) worked with HPIP to analyze different solutions to this problem. We recognized that the solutions were to increase the marketing budget to bump up traffic from new contractors and designate staff to solely handle certification efforts.
APPROACH
HPIP had implemented a few different external marketing strategies to assist in boosting recognition from new contractors that hadn’t pursued certification before, as well as just general industry-wide awareness of the association. This approach didn’t give us many immediate results, so we decided to do a more internal, hands-on approach. HPIP also decided to designate one staff member to work on specific certification goals.
Emily Bremmon, Account Executive at NPR / Operations Manager at HPIP worked on this project and took these steps to increase the number of contractors and industry professionals seeking HPIP certification:
- Determined which staff member could allocate a set number of hours each week towards our certification goals
- Established certification goals
- Developed a list of contractors we wanted to reach out to about certification
- Utilized 20+ year contractor database and industry network to create list
- Created checklist of how we would contact and develop/maintain relationships with contractors
- Tracked how often contact was made, took notes on general perception of certification offering, determined why a previous member lapsed certification
- Persistent personal follow up
- In past years, HPIP relied on eblasts and paper mailings. This year, a routine of contact was established.
- Eblast > mailing > eblast > phone call > personal email > phone call
RESULTS
Compared to the resulting revenue from the entire year of 2020, HPIP has had a 28% increase in revenue in just the first quarter of 2021 since designating staff to specifically work towards set certification goals.
In the first quarter of 2021, HPIP has surpassed the total number of certifications for 2020 and 2019.
HPIP has averaged a 13% increase in certification numbers from the first to second quarter of each year, and a 15% increase from the second to third quarter. Assuming that trends remain similar, HPIP will achieve its goal of number of contractors certified for the entire year by the end of the third quarter. HPIP’s goal for 2021 is double the certification number of 2020.
CONCLUSION
HPIP has established which methods receive a more positive reaction from contractors and how we can not only retain, but increase, our certified contractor numbers. We also learned through one-on-one calls with our contractors, that many never saw our emails or paper mailings about certification. Uncovering that our intended audience was not making contact with our marketing materials, especially of the paper mailings, will result in HPIP re-evaluating where staff time and dollars are allocated.
HPIP’s success with certification renewal and retainment can be replicated with other clients looking to improve their membership outreach process by:
- Identifying where and why members are falling through the cracks
- Establishing quantitative membership goal
- Developing list of members to contact current, lapsed, and potential
- Allocating # of weekly hours to designated staff to engage with member prospects
- Determining forms of necessary contact
- Creating contact checklist
- Noting feedback and perception from members for next renewal period