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Monday, July 5, 2004 Adult Members What do you intend to do or believe should be done to
halt the decline of USCF adult regular members? [Note USCF adult membership
began declining after the 1995 dues increase and has also declined an
additional 10.7% in the last year. The USCF currently has around 20K regular
adult members. I doubt it can go much lower than 20K. If the USCF does its
job right, the only place from here is up.] We believe the USCF has been focusing on OTB tournament
play. We hear scholastic tournaments are more profitable than adult
tournaments. Perhaps our outcomes are related to our focus. Regardless, there
is no silver bullet here -- just marketing 101. In a nutshell and dealing with experience, the first
thing we need to do is ASK THE ADULT
MEMBERS! Ultimately
asking adult non members what would interest them to become members will lend
us additional insights. That is why I advocate proper market analysis. Demographics can be revealing. For example at one time we
were told fully one-third of our membership was made up of adults who do not
have a rating of any sort. If I understood correctly currently somewhere
around one-quarter of new adult members never play a
tournament game. This percentage has dropped over the last two years.
In any given year, about half of the regular adult members will play in a
tournament, a number which has gone up a little in the last two years,
probably because the percentage of adults that never played has
decreased. Over the course of several years somewhere between 60 and
70% of regular adult players will compete in rated chess activity. We
really don't have a good idea of how many parents of scholastic members are
also members. The key will be to determine what is of value to each
segment of this target market. Perhaps some join to help advance chess in
schools, some for the magazine, some for online chess, many for rated play,
some because their children are participating in chess etc. Knowing why they
left is useful also. Understanding all this we can hone our offerings to the
largest potential target markets to provide more diversity, stabilize, and
even grow this membership base. Lower dues may need to be part of the
equation since it was higher dues that appeared to have stimulated the
membership decline. If we do nothing we will end up with in a small tent
inhabited only with those adults who regularly play rated OTB tournament
chess and would never join if it was not required to get a rating. If one's
primary obligation is to the membership than you ask or confirm with the
membership what you should do on their behalf. To personally decide what is
best for the membership is nothing but demagoguery. |