Data-Driven Design Leads to 32% Increase In Membership Sign-Up Rate

Challenge

The Risk Management Association (RMA) is a not-for-profit, member-driven professional association serving the financial services industry. A large part of RMA’s business relies on generating new members. Membership with RMA ensures that users have access to their exclusive, industry-leading financial expertise. Our challenge was to increase membership sign-ups via the Membership Types page on the RMA website.

Approach

We applied a testing methodology to this challenge:

1. Gather and analyze data
2. Form a test hypothesis
3. Make content and design recommendations
4. Launch test page
5. Analyze impact

This process ensured that we made no assumptions about our users, but rather backed all recommendations with data.

Execution

Seer’s analytics and creative teams analyzed the existing Membership Types page via:

1. Google Analytics quantitative data
2. HotJar quantitative and qualitative data
3. User experience best practices
4. Conversion best practices

This wealth of data boiled down to two primary observations:

• Users were jumping back and forth between the pages in the Membership Types section.
• The cost of membership and the link to apply—both critical pieces of information for conversion—were buried.

This data led us to believe that people were confused, and perhaps bouncing back and forth to figure out which membership type was right for them. This friction, compounded by unclear calls-to-action, could be hindering membership sign-ups.

Based on RMA’s traffic and conversion rate, we recommended a “big swing” test, in which we would make multiple, significant changes all based around a singular concept—to see if that new approach won with users.

We formed the following hypothesis:

Clarifying membership information on the Membership Types page—based on audience actions—will increase the conversion rate of all application types.

Our creative team dug into the new page, making recommendations to both content and design that tied directly back to the data we analyzed and the hypothesis we created.

Through collaboration with RMA, we finalized the page and launched it on the site. Though we would typically run an A/B test via Google Optimize before launching a new page for all users, some technical complications with GDPR caused us to pivot. We launched the page for all users, tracking impact historically vs. in real-time.

Results

Over a 5-month period for Membership Types, we have seen a 32% increase in membership sign-up rate. We also see less instances of users jumping back and forth among pages, leading us to believe we’ve helped alleviate confusion. We’ve also observed higher sign-ups for less common areas, such as Student Memberships.

Thrilled with the results, we set out to perform our next test with RMA.