Signing up new members is a big job, so once they've signed up you want to ensure that they continue to come back and renew their membership each year. Sending personalised reminders can help to make it a smooth process for them to stay a member for longer!
There are a variety of ways to manage your renewal reminders, depending on your setup and scale.
Options | Best for | Process | Platforms needed |
Lower volume | Manual | Just Beacon! | |
Higher volume | Semi-automated | Beacon, Mailchimp | |
Higher volume | Automated | Beacon, Mailchimp, Zapier |
Option 1: Beacon email templates
The simplest and most straightforward approach is to make manually reaching out to your donors easy. To do that, we recommend a combination of:
Views - Have a list of memberships that need a renewal reminder
Email templates - A ready-to-go email that populates all the required information.
How does it work?
Once each month you'll visit your view of members to email, and send each one the templated renewal email.
How long does this option take each month?
Our conservative testing estimate is 20 minutes per 100 membership renewals.
This means for a charity with 300 memberships renewing throughout the year you'd only spend 5 minutes a month sending renewal emails!
Setup steps
Setup steps
Step 1: Create a view of memberships that are due a renewal email
For our example, we'll presume you want to send renewal reminders once a month, to those whose memberships are expiring the next month.
Go to your Memberships list
Add filters for:
• Status is Active
• Expiry date is next month
Save the filters as a view to easily come back to later
For more information about views, see our guide here
Setup step 2: Create an Email template to send to those needing renewal
Go to Settings > Email templates
Create a new template for the Memberships record type
Write your renewal copy, and include merge tags for key information such as:
Expiry date
Member number
Membership type
Include a link to your membership renewal form.
Optionally, you can also include URL parameters to pre-fill key information on your form and make it even easier for your members.
For example, instead of just the form link:https://beaconben.beaconforms.com/form/bc6c70e3
You can include variables to pre-fill their name, email, and member number:
https://beaconben.beaconforms.com/form/bc6c70e3?bcn_member_number={{{member_number}}}&bcn_first_name={{{member.name.first}}}&bcn_last_name={{{member.name.last}}}&bcn_email={{{member.emails}}}
Tip: Fancy a head start? Try this sample email! 👈
Be sure to replace _INSERT_FORM_LINK_HERE_ with your actual membership form link!
Hi {{{member.name.first}}},
We just wanted to let you know that your membership with us is due for renewal on {{{expiry_date}}}. We really appreciate your support and everything you do for us! We're so grateful to have you as a member.
To renew your membership and continue supporting our work, please visit [this link](_INSERT_FORM_LINK_HERE_?bcn_member_number={{{member_number}}}&bcn_first_name={{{member.name.first}}}&bcn_last_name={{{member.name.last}}}&bcn_email={{{member.emails}}}).
*Your membership information*
Member number: {{{member_number}}}
Membership type: {{{type}}}
Expiry date: {{{expiry_date}}}
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us by replying to this email.
Thanks again for being a valued member!
Best wishes,Learn more about Email templates here, and URL parameters here!
Sending your renewal reminders
At the start of each month:
Navigate to your saved renewal reminder view
Open the first Membership record
Click the 'Send email' button in the top right, choosing your renewal template
Repeat for each Membership in your list.
Tip: The email will be logged against the Person's timeline so you can track the correspondence you've had with them
Option 2: Beacon export & Mailchimp automation
If you've got too many memberships to do a manual process each month, or you'd like the flexibility of a Mailchimp designed email campaign, you can use a combination of exporting member data from Beacon and Mailchimp automations.
How does it work?
Every 6 months, export data from Beacon and import it into Mailchimp. A Mailchimp automation will run to send an email to members 30 days before their expiry date.
How long does this option take every 6 months?
Our conservative tests estimate that it takes less than 90 seconds to export from Beacon and import into your Mailchimp account.
Setup steps
Setup steps
Setup step 1: Create Beacon export template for membership data
Go to Export data > Manage templates
Click 'Create template' and choose 'Memberships' as the record type
Add columns for the member and membership data that will be useful for your Mailchimp merge tags.
As a minimum, we would recommend:Member number
Expiry date
Type
Member's first name
Member's last name
Member's email address
Choose 'Fixed' filters, and add filters for:
Status is Active
Expiry date is not blank
Save your template
Setup step 2: Create Mailchimp audience fields for member data
To use our membership data in our Mailchimp emails we need a place to store them. We'll add some extra audience fields which we can then use as merge tags in our emails.
In Mailchimp, go to Audience in the sidebar
Click 'More options' and choose 'Audience fields and merge tags'
Create new fields for the data in your export. Click 'Create a new field' and give the field a name and merge tag.
For example, we've added new fields for:Member number
Expiry date
Membership type
Setup step 3: Create Mailchimp automation campaign
Now that we have a place to store data about people's memberships, we can use Mailchimp's automations to automatically send renewal reminders before their expiry.
In Mailchimp, go to Automations in the sidebar, and choose 'Build from scratch'
For your trigger, choose 'Specific date' from the 'Date & Special Events' category
Select 'Expiry date' for the Date Field, and how long before the expiry you'd like to send the email. We've chosen 30 days before.
Click to add a step to your workflow, selecting 'Send email' as the action
Design your email copy and layout, including merge tags for key membership information such as:
Expiry date
Member number
Membership type
Include a link to your membership renewal form.
Optionally, you can also include merge tags to set URL parameters, pre-filling key information on your form and making it even easier for your members.
For example, instead of just the form link:https://beaconben.beaconforms.com/form/bc6c70e3
You can include variables to pre-fill their name, email, and member number:
https://beaconben.beaconforms.com/form/7ed09ac7?bcn_first_name=*|URL:FNAME|*&bcn_last_name=*|URL:LNAME|*&bcn_email=*|URL:EMAIL|*&bcn_member_number=*|URL:MEMBERNUM|*
Tip: Include
URL:at the start of your merge tag to ensure people's names and emails are encoded correctly for a link.For example, for the first name merge tage, instead of simply using
*|FNAME|*use*|URL:FNAME|*for your links.Tip: Fancy a head start? Try this sample email! 👈
Hi *|FNAME|*,
We just wanted to let you know that your membership with us is due for renewal on *|RENEWDATE|*. We really appreciate your support and everything you do for us!
We're so grateful to have you as a member. To renew your membership and continue supporting our work, please visit this link.
Your membership information
Member number: *|MEMBERNUM|*
Membership type: *|MEMBERTYPE|*
Expiry date: *|EXPIRYDATE|*
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us by replying to this email.
Thanks again for being a valued member!
Best wishes,
The Beacon Foundation membership teamFor your renewal link, use this example:
_INSERT_FORM_LINK_HERE_?bcn_first_name=*|URL:FNAME|*&bcn_last_name=*|URL:LNAME|*&bcn_email=*|URL:EMAIL|*&bcn_member_number=*|URL:MEMBERNUM|*
Be sure to replace _INSERT_FORM_LINK_HERE_ with your actual membership form link!
Save and set your automation to Active.
Exporting membership data from Beacon to Mailchimp
Twice a year, export your membership data from Beacon and import it into your Mailchimp account.
Why twice a year?
Why twice a year?
If you're sending renewal emails before an annual membership's expiry date, once a year may miss a small section of your members. Adding twice a year ensures everyone is accounted for.
For example:
If you export once a year on the 1st of January, and a member signs up for a new membership on the 2nd of January, you'll want their renewal email to go out in December; i.e. before you've exported their details to Mailchimp! Doing another export in July would catch them and make sure they receive their reminder.
Contacts will then automatically be emailed by Mailchimp when their reminder is due!
In Beacon, go to Export data > Run export
Choose your Mailchimp membership details template
Run the export and download the CSV file
In Mailchimp, go to Audiences then Add contacts > Import contacts
Choose 'Upload a file' and upload your exported CSV from Beacon
Choose the audience (we recommend a separate audience from your core marketing audience) and ensure you select 'Update any existing contacts'
Ensure all columns in your export are going to the correct fields in Mailchimp
Mark imported contacts as Subscribed, and finalise your import.
Success: Your contacts now have membership information, and will be sent their renewal email automatically!
Option 3: Beacon & Mailchimp automation via Zapier
For those charities that prefer to fully automate their renewal process and avoid any manual steps, Beacon's workflows and Zapier can automatically pass the relevant membership data to Mailchimp.
How does it work?
Membership purchase or renewal will trigger a Beacon workflow that then triggers a Zap in Zapier. That Zap takes the Beacon data and updates the relevant contact in Mailchimp, ready for an automation to send the renewal email 30 days before their expiry date.
How long does this option take?
Once set up, this takes... zero minutes! Everything is automated.
Setup steps
Setup steps
Setup step 1: Create Mailchimp audience fields for member data
Follow our steps above for creating a place for member data in your Mailchimp account.
Setup step 2: Create Mailchimp automation campaign
Follow our steps above for creating an automatic email that sends to your members.
Setup step 3: Create a workflow in Beacon
Whenever a new membership has been purchased, or renewed in subsequent years, we want to trigger a workflow that will eventually update that information in Mailchimp.
In Beacon, go to Settings > Workflows and create a new workflow
Set the trigger as 'On record create or update' for the Memberships record type
Add filters for:
Status is Active
Expiry date is not blank
Add a 'Trigger a Zap' action and save your workflow. You'll have an initial warning about it not being connected to a Zap, but that's expected for now!
Enable and save the workflow
Setup step 4: Create a Zap in Zapier
The final step is to create and configure a Zap to take the membership data from Beacon and pass it into the relevant fields in Mailchimp.
In Zapier create a new Zap with the trigger being Beacon, and select the workflow you've just set up
Add a Mailchimp action, choosing 'Add/Update subscriber'
Choose the audience (we recommend a separate audience from your core marketing audience)
Set the following data:
Subscriber Email (from Member's email)
Status = Subscribed
Update Existing = Yes
First Name (from Member's first name)
Last Name (from Member's last name)
Expiry date
Member number
Membership type
Publish the Zap
Success: Now your membership details will sync automatically with Mailchimp, and renewal emails will be sent to them without any manual steps!