Peak consumer advocacy group using radio ads to bulk up membership numbers

National Seniors Australia – so far a big player at the Royal Commission – has been running ads for its membership on Macquarie Media (2GB, 3AW, 4BC). Advocacy requires real numbers of people you represent – they pay the bills. In the organisation’s Annual Financial Report (year ending 30 June 2018), membership numbers were sitting at just 130,000 following a “trend of declining numbers”. The report highlighted a key objective for the 2018-19 FY as creating a “fresh membership focus” which saw the creation of a new role in the organisation – General Manager of Membership and Strategic Partnerships. Since the 2018-19 report, National Seniors has been courting new members through “personal contact” and “more engaging materials”. This ‘direct contact’ strategy has resulted in over 600 renewed memberships a month (FY ending June 2018) in addition to regular resign numbers. Their current fee of $45 per year-long membership leads to a total $5,850,000 revenue a year – they also sell insurance and travel. Consider the nurses union, the ANMF – it has 270,000 members at $400+ which is $108,000,000 revenue a year. Memberships numbers really do matter.