Hall Associates

The Client

• Multidisciplinary engineering Institution
• 37,000 membership base
• External perception of “second class” incorporated engineer status
• Increasing competition from other Institutions targeting practical engineers and technicians
• Beginning to see a decline in retention levels 

The Analysis 

• Strong relationships with Business and Academia
  Not attracting sufficient members from those relationships
• Accreditation and CPD provided to Commercial and Academic bodies free of charge
• Individual member recruitment separate from these relationships
• Not recognising commercial value of benefits and services on offer

Outcomes

• Elevation in status of Institution
• Development of commercially based partnerships creating additional income streams
• Enhanced status encouraging employers to promote membership for their staff
• Heightened engagement with students and post graduates
• Membership attrition converted into net gains within project lifetime
• Improved recruitment and overall income performance

The Project

Working alongside the client team, we looked at the commercial value underlying their brand, benefits and services. We developed a strong marketing message and supporting collateral. We were involved directly in sales activity and introduced sales and marketing processes to support the project.

In the commercial sector we led sales meetings and helped to close the deals. We were able to agree annual fee structures with these partners which generated significant new income streams for our client.

We built the partnerships by elevating the perceived status of the Institution and the tangible value of the relationship to the partner. Based upon this value equation, the partner became convinced of the benefit accruing from employees becoming members and promoted membership internally.

Dr Paul Barton, Director of Engineering, Royal Mail (right) receives a Memorandum of Understanding from IIE Chief Executive, Peter Wason.

In turn, this enabled us to encourage partners to include membership related aspects, such as CPD, mentoring and upgrading to member or fellow in their own appraisal and career development programmes.

Professor Peter Scott,Vice-Chancellor of Kingston University (right) receives a commemorative plaque from IIE Chief Executive Peter Wason

We took a similar message to the HEIs, particularly where academic and technical staff were concerned and recruited many additional members from these groups. This supported closer engagement with student populations, increased recruitment at this level and led to more durable student relationships, increasing conversion to full membership post graduation.