Thank you, to everyone who participated in our 2016 certificate campaign. We sent a personalized certificate to everyone who joined or renewed their Association membership. We also asked members to help boost our outreach by encouraging others to join or renew. These contributions matter. The funds you helped raise support the Association’s work, and your goodwill inspires us. Whether you became a member for the first-time, renewed, or took the time to share, you made the campaign a success.

Success feels great

From May 1 - June 30, 335 people became new members and 476 members renewed. For comparison, those numbers were 233 and 378 during that period last year. This campaign brought our total membership to 3,670 individuals and organizations. That’s a 12% increase over this time last year (from 3,290). Our certificate goal was to deliver 675 by the end of the campaign. But you helped us crush it. We delivered 854, exceeding that goal by 27%.

Lessons learned

This year, we created a landing page on assoc.drupal.org and promoted it via blog post, social media, and newsletters. One month into the campaign, we launched a new banner on drupal.org, and sent an email to members, asking for help sharing the campaign. From the attribution provided by members on the sign-up form, most learned about membership via drupal.org or through a community member/organization. Therefore, the banner/landing page and direct message to our members was more effective than using our social media channels and newsletters.

About campaign components

Last year, we used social sharing, a blog post, and newsletters. We also added new content to our existing membership and contribution pages. We didn’t create a landing page. The results? There were 885 tracked pageviews of the campaign-related blog post (during the campaign period) and we delivered 611 certificates.

This year, we did a little more to test whether a banner on drupal.org could make a difference. It definitely did.

We launched with a blog post on May 2, but this time we added a landing page. When the campaign ended, we’d had 1,025 tracked pageviews on the blog post (a 15.8% increase from last year). However, we didn't see a jump in membership sales (296 total) or much traffic to the landing page. On June 1, we added a banner to some drupal.org pages. That’s when it got interesting.

Traffic came from drupal.org, not assoc.drupal.org

The landing page we launched in May had 16,768 tracked pageviews during the full campaign period, but 98% of them (16,410) came after the banner was launched on drupal.org. June had 517 membership sales, and 50% of those were new members (up from 34% new members in June 2015).

This screenshot shows traffic to the landing page before and after the banner launch.

Digging deeper into the data, we looked at what members wrote when asked how they found out about membership. New members told us it was via drupal.org (54.8%) or thanks to a community member (19.3%). These percentages were even higher than when looking at total members from the campaign period. If we want to increase overall membership, having the landing page and banner combination is the way to go.

Compared to the 2015 campaign’s data, there were 123% more responses driven by evangelism, and 108% more mentions of drupal.org as the start of a member’s user journey.

You love selfies as much as we do

Thanks for getting in front of the camera! It came as no surprise that so many of you responded to our call for selfies. Our community is full of caring members who love to share. Not only did this make for a fun time, but it helped show the people behind Drupal.

What’s next?

A note about content: regrettably, we showed the same banner to all visitors, and its language caused some confusion about what members could do to help. We'll be mindful of that for future editions.

In the meantime, you can still help continue the momentum of this campaign. Reach out to us. Tell us why you’re a member. Share why you’re a member of the Drupal Association when you renew your membership—or anytime, really. No matter where you share, you help us help the community, and we all make a difference for each other and for Drupal.

Personal blog tags: Membership