Individual Grand Lodges, the Scottish Rite Northern Jurisdiction, Shriners International and other Masonic organizations have been spending money and research and efforts to craft advertising campaigns for use by lodges for many years now. But all the advertising in the world does no good if ads themselves are placed in the wrong places, getting in front of the wrong eyeballs (especially in these days of internet advertising and the lingering death of print media and broadcast TV). Even worse, advertising itself fails when there's no follow-through by the advertiser when a prospect shows up and pounds on the door.
Season 5 Episode 184 of the Old Fashion Masonic Podcast, hosted by WB Bryan Byrd, features an interview with Florida Past Master Tim French, who is part of the membership development team of the Grand Lodge of Florida. The Grand Lodge has committed a portion of their annual media and marketing budget to encouraging individual lodges to step up and make use of social media. They are reimbursing up to $600 a year to any Florida lodge that takes out advertising promoting membership on Facebook.
Here's the depressing part. They've been doing this for three years. Florida has over 300 lodges on its rolls.
Only about 40 lodges have taken advantage of the program.
That's about 12-14%. In three years.
Tim holds Zoom meetings with lodges to talk them through how to do this, how to place the ads effectively (because it's easy to pour cash down the bottomless well of Facebook ads and never get a result), and most important, to FOLLOW UP ON LEADS WHEN THEY CALL OR WRITE.
We've all been told time and again by interested men, "Gee, I e-mailed and telephoned the lodge to ask about joining, but no one ever got back to me." There's no excuse for this happening! As these brethren stress, treat your lodge and membership development like a business, and new leads like customers. Every single lodge needs two or three members to will commit to just responding to new member enquiries, however they come in.
I won't rehash what Worshipful Brothers French and Byrd talk about - give the show a listen because there's much gold to be mined here. Click the video up top, or follow THIS LINK.
But I will stress something they bump up against near the end: membership and retention is the responsibility of every single man in your lodge, because you never know what comment, what behavior, what night 'the new guy' was ignored, will turn him off and make him walk away.
Years ago, I visited a lodge and walked into their installation a bit late. I came in quietly and sat down in a back seat trying not to disturb the proceedings. Instantly, two Brothers across the room hopped to their feet, came over and plopped down in the two seats on either side of me. One explained in a quiet voice, "Welcome, Brother. No one in this lodge ever sits alone."
That's mighty fine rule to follow in any lodge.
Does this Grand Lodge have a plan for making the ads? You have to know how to do that, so maybe it’s better that most lodges aren’t attempting it.
ReplyDeleteAdvertising on Facebook? They’d reach only men with gray hair.
Jay
Jay,
DeleteThe GL of Florida is recommending lodges use the AASR-NMJ 'Not Just A Man - A Mason' pre-made commercials, and they hold weekly interactive Zoom discussions to answer questions and explain how to place the ads, how much to safely budget per week, how to target specific Facebook profiles, and more.
As for old, grey heads, that's not exactly the case. Bear in mind that the almost universal AVERAGE age of Masonic petitioners has remained pretty constant for more than 100 years: between 35 and 50. Grand Lodges can talk all they like about how to 'reach young people' (nothing like 80 year olds telling 70 year olds what 'young guys' are interested in), but the truth is that it's those 35-50 year old guys who have settled into their careers, have kids reaching the teenaged years who stop wanting their parents around 24/7, have achieved a comfort level with their income and discretionary budgets, and maybe even a wife who's sick of having them home all the time. Whatever the circumstances, that is the age range of the majority of guys who knock on lodge doors. (Anecdotally, I was 39, and so have been dozens of friends I've had over the years who joined at the same age.)
So, yeah, Facebook remains the ideal place to target that age bracket.
Just sayin.'
I'm a Past Master in Florida and a member of multiple lodges in the state. This program has been going on for a few years now, I want to say since 2019. I've attended the training workshops a few times over the years. What I've seen firsthand in my own lodges and confirmed with other brothers around the state is that yes, the program can work if you have a group dedicated enough to follow the program and is tech-savvy enough to do so, but a large percentage of those interested never really stick with it; they either fall off some time before the degrees are complete or stop coming shortly after.
ReplyDelete