Best CRM for membership organizations

As a membership organization, managing member relationships, tracking renewals, and keeping communication organized can be overwhelming, especially as your membership base grows. An affordable Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help you streamline these processes by organizing member data, automating renewals and follow-ups, and providing insights into member engagement—all without straining your budget. In this blog post, we’ll explore the best affordable CRM options for membership organizations like yours, focusing on tools that offer essential features at a price that works for your organization.

Why you need a CRM

Managing a membership organization without a CRM can lead to inefficiencies and missed opportunities. Here’s why a CRM is essential for your success.

Challenges without a CRM

Below are some common challenges that teams in membership organizations tend to face – without the right CRM in their tech stack.

• Disorganization: Without a CRM, member data is scattered across multiple platforms, making it difficult to find and manage.
• Missed opportunities: Important interactions and follow-ups can easily fall through the cracks, leading to missed engagement opportunities.
• Inefficient processes: Manual data entry and tracking consume valuable time and resources, slowing down operations.
• Lack of insight: Without centralized data, gaining insights into member behavior and preferences is challenging.
• Inconsistent communication: Coordinating communication efforts becomes cumbersome, leading to inconsistent messaging.

Benefits of a CRM

A CRM consolidates all your confidential member data in one place, making it easily accessible and manageable. It can also provide extra benefits that can streamline your workflow and efficiency as a team.

• Enhanced efficiency: Automate routine tasks and streamline processes to save time and resources.
• Improved customer relationships: Track member interactions to provide personalized experiences and boost engagement.
• Better decision-making: Use data analytics to gain insights and make informed decisions that drive growth.
• Increased sales: Identify and act on sales opportunities more effectively, leading to higher revenue.
• Consistent communication: Ensure your messaging is uniform and timely, enhancing member satisfaction and retention.

How to evaluate and choose a CRM

With a lot of CRMs to choose from, it can be hard to figure out which one that is the right fit for your team and business goals. To help you with your decision-making process, we've put together some top tips you can adapt with your own requirements.

1. Define your requirements

To find the best CRM for membership organizations, start by defining your specific needs. Are you looking for features like member tracking, event management, automated communications, or detailed reporting? Understanding your unique requirements will help you narrow down the options and find a CRM that aligns with your goals. We suggest starting with these top features we've put together for your specific needs as a membership organization.

Top 6 features membership organizations should look for in a CRM

• ‍Automation: A good CRM should have automation features that help you streamline your workflow process, so you spend the least amount of time on it possible. Look out for features like contact enrichment, auto-grouping and pipeline creation. ‍
• Contact sync:  A good CRM can help you automatically retrieve contacts from Gmail and Outlook, so that you do not have to spend time manually doing this. Look for a CRM that can help you import contacts from iPhone or Android, Outlook, Gmail, Google Contacts and Google and Outlook Calendar so that you can streamline this.‍
• Email marketing: A good CRM should have email marketing capabilities so that you can access contact lists you’ve taken the time to organize and set up email campaigns seamlessly. It gets bonus points if it gives you access to analytics and email sequences.‍
• Pipeline management: Some CRMs offer pipeline management support specifically for sales which can be rather limiting. Look for a CRM that can help you with pipeline management across multiple business functions so that you do not have to invest in separate platforms for each one. ‍
• Gmail and Outlook integration: Some CRMs only support Gmail integration. Make sure that the CRM you’re considering supports third-party applications such as an Outlook integration, so that you can sync and keep your contacts in one place. ‍
• User experience: Avoid a CRM that provides a clunky user experience. Look for one that is intuitive to use and does not require a steep learning curve.

2. Budget considerations

When evaluating CRM platforms, it's crucial to balance cost and return on investment. While some solutions might seem expensive upfront, they could offer significant savings in the long run by streamlining operations and improving member retention. Look for a CRM that fits your budget but also delivers the value you need to justify the expense.

3. Selection process

Choosing the right CRM vendor involves thorough research. Start by compiling a list of potential vendors and then delve into reviews, case studies, and testimonials from other membership organizations. Don't hesitate to reach out to vendors for demos and ask specific questions about how their CRM can address your organization's needs.

4. Get a demo

Before committing to a CRM for your membership organization, it's crucial to see it in action. A demo can provide a clear understanding of the features and how they align with your organization's needs. It allows you to visualize how the CRM will streamline your membership management processes, from tracking member engagement to automating renewals. Get started with folk for a personalized demonstration.

1. folk

folk is an all-in-one CRM. Thanks to its Notion-like design, it is one of the easiest CRMs to use on the market. You can use it across multiple business functions including sales, recruitment, fundraising and more. 

Key features

• Supports solo or team collaboration, easily add new users as you expand your internal team or use folk as a solo user. Tag teammates so they know when you want them to follow up with someone and get easy access to last interactions and notes on specific contacts.
• Gmail, Outlook and LinkedIn integration, which allows you to have all your contacts in one place. 
• folkX Chrome extension, which allows you to import search lists from LinkedIn and individual profiles across the web directly into folk without leaving the page.

Pros

• Contact and membership management: Efficiently manages member databases, including detailed contact information, membership history, and engagement tracking. Group contacts into different clusters to stay organized.
• Contact sync: sync all your contacts effortlessly into one platform, so that you have transparency across all your members in one place. 
• All-in-one platform: folk combines various functionalities like email marketing and pipeline management all in one place. 
• Cross-function use: folk isn’t limited to sales teams. It has multiple use cases and can be used across sales, recruiting, fundraising, partnerships, investing and more. 
• User experience: folk is intuitive to use from day one, so you do not have to block out several days' worth of training. 
• Email marketing and AI support, ‘Magic Field’ allows you to add a personal touch in moments by telling the AI exactly what data to pull out from your database. Email template library helps you save time. 
• Automation: folk helps streamline your workflow with automation features such as auto-deduplication to keep your contact lists up to date, 
• Event management: Integrate with event management tools through Zapier. 

Cons

• Reporting is not available in folk yet, but will be coming soon.

Price and plans

You can try folk for free with a 14 day free trial. After that, a monthly or annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.‍
• Custom: Starts from $80 per user, per month.

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2. HubSpot

HubSpot is a popular choice as a CRM for marketing and sales functions. They have a free CRM platform, but it comes with limited features. 

Key features

• Monitor sales activity, track and analyze your sales in real time. 
• Dashboard and reporting software, allows for the creation of customized dashboards to monitor metrics across marketing, sales and service data.
• Social media integration: manages social media interactions, which is crucial for engaging with the member community and promoting events.

Pros

• Free CRM platform: Access to CRM is free, but access to the features you need to fully utilize it is very limited. 
• Community support: Depending on what price plan you’re on, access to a community forum is available for you to ask queries, but timing of replies are inconsistent. 
• Scalability: Easily scales with the growth of the organization.
• Communication tools: The email and social media tools are particularly effective for maintaining regular and engaging communication with members.
• Customization: Offers significant customization options to tailor the CRM to the specific needs of a membership organization.

Cons

• Price plans: Subscriptions start from $1786 per user per month on an annual plan. A monthly price plan is available from $1987 per user per month.
• Steep learning curve: HubSpot is known for its clunky experience, forcing users to block time to train. 
• Complexity with advanced features: The range of features, while beneficial, can be overwhelming and requires a learning curve to fully utilize.
• Integration challenges: Depending on the existing tech stack of the organization, integration with certain tools may be challenging. It also requires an additional cost. 

Price and plans

HubSpot has a few plans depending on your feature specific needs. The following is a summary of their CRM suite on an annual subscription plan.

• Starter: $15 per user, per month.
• Professional: $450 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $1,500 per user, per month.

3. Zoho

Zoho is a popular CRM platform due to its flexibility, scalability, and extensive suite of tools.

Key features

• Contact management: Zoho CRM allows you to effectively track and manage leads and members, ensuring all client data is organized and accessible.
• Sales automation: The platform automates many aspects of the sales process, from lead generation to conversion, which can streamline the membership acquisition process.

Pros

• Integration: Easily integrate with other Zoho products and external applications such as Zapier can help centralize business operations and data management.
• Automation: Helps with automating various routine tasks and workflows, such as email marketing and sales processes. 
• Flexibility: Customize modules and workflows allows consulting agencies to adapt the platform to specific operational needs.

Cons

• Limited advanced features in basic plans: More advanced features may require upgrading to higher-tier plans, which could increase costs.
• Complexity with extensive customization: While customization is a strength, it can also lead to complexity, especially for agencies without dedicated IT support.

Price and plans

Zoho’s free plan is limited to three users. After that, for more features and seats, an annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $14 per user, per month.
• Professional: $23 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $40 per user, per month.

4. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a sales-focused CRM known for its simplicity and effectiveness. 

Key features

• Sales pipeline management: Streamlined pipeline management tools, which can be repurposed for tracking membership sign-ups, renewals, and engagement.
• Mobile access: The availability of a mobile app makes it convenient for managing contacts on the go.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: Known for its simplicity and ease of use, making it accessible even for those with limited technical skills.
• Customization: The platform offers a good level of customization to tailor its features to membership management needs.
• Effective pipeline management: Its strong pipeline management capabilities can be effectively used for tracking membership lifecycles.

Cons

• Sales-centric features: As a sales-focused CRM, some of its features may not perfectly align with typical membership management needs.
• Cost for advanced features: Higher-tier plans, which include more advanced features, may be more expensive.

Price and plans

Pipedrive's annual subscription plan basis is as follows.

• Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month.
• Advanced plan: Starts from $44 per user, per month.
• Professional plan: Starts from $64 per user, per month.
• Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month.

5. Monday.com 

Moday.com is a project management tool. It’s often taken into consideration by membership organizations to help lower costs, even though it does not have the traditional features you’d expect from a CRM. 

Key features

• Cutomizable workflows: Highly customizable boards and workflows can be tailored to track membership sign-ups, renewals, and engagement activities.
• Collaborative platform: Facilitates collaboration among team members, which is crucial for member management and event planning.

Pros

• Effective task management: Its strong task and event management features are ideal for organizing membership-related activities.
• Project overview: Creates transparency across teams about upcoming projects, and internal workflow systems. 

Cons

• User experience: Monday.com is not a dedicated CRM, so expect a clunky experience. You won’t get access to features that can help you automate tasks such as organizing your contacts, auto-deduplication, contact enrichment and more. 

Price and plans

Monday.com's price and plans are as follows.

• Basic: $9/4 users/month.
• Standard: $12/3 users/month.
• Pro: $19/3 users/month.

6. Monday.com’s sales CRM

This is Monday.com’s separate CRM counterpart. Not to be confused with its project management product above. 

Key features

• AI support for automated task generation, to help turn meeting outcomes into actionable tasks, and for content generation, which creates content for every step of the sales cycle or summarize call transcripts into meeting notes.
• Sales-centric features such as dashboards, sales forecasting and reporting.
  

Pros

• Automate sales process: Automatically assign the right team member with the right lead.
• Mobile app: Access pipelines on the go and automatically log calls, and add new activities. 
• Integration capabilities: Supports integration with a variety of other tools, including email platforms and internal communication platforms.
• Dashboards and sales forecasting: increase visibility across your sales team in areas such as deal progress, sales figures and performance. Get access to reports to track forecast vs. actual sales.

Cons

• Sales-centric: If you’re after functions that other areas of your business want to use, this sales-focused CRM won’t be able to offer much outside the sales function it’s designed to serve. 

Price and plans

Monday's Sales CRM price and plans are as follows.

• Basic: $12/user/month.
• Standard: $17/user/month.
• Pro: $28/user/month.

Conclusion

While HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, and Monday.com offer solid CRM solutions for membership organizations, folk stands out for its customization, ease of use, and relationship-focused design. Unlike more complex systems, folk allows membership organizations to tailor workflows and manage member interactions seamlessly, without unnecessary complexity. For teams looking for a CRM that adapts to their needs and puts relationships at the forefront, folk offers a streamlined and flexible approach that’s hard to beat. Try folk today, free. 

Need a helping hand? Use our free tool to find your perfect CRM match.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do membership organizations use as a CRM?

Membership organizations typically use CRMs like folk, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, Monday.com, and Monday.com Sales CRM. These tools help streamline communication, track engagement, and manage member relationships effectively.

Do I need a CRM?

Yes, if you manage a membership organization, a CRM is essential for keeping everything organized and efficient. A CRM helps you:

• Centralize member data: Store and access all member information in one place, making it easy to track communication and interactions.
• Improve engagement: Stay connected with members through automated emails, follow-ups, and reminders.
• Streamline workflows: Save time by automating administrative tasks like membership renewals, event reminders, and onboarding processes.

How does folk's CRM help membership organizations?

folk stands out for its simplicity and customization. Unlike more rigid CRMs, folk adapts to your specific needs, allowing you to create workflows that suit your organization’s unique structure. It keeps the focus on building and nurturing member relationships without overwhelming users with unnecessary features

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