An active, dynamic membership program is beneficial to everyone at your association. From earning more at events to providing professional skill-building opportunities to creating a community of like-minded individuals, an engaged member base is a sign of a healthy association.
Improving your membership program is an ongoing process, and even programs that currently see success can benefit from experimenting with new ways to provide additional value. For associations looking to grow, leveling up their existing membership program is the key to improving current member engagement and attracting new members.
To grow your association and create more value for members, let’s explore ways to enhance your membership program.
Form an online community.
When it comes to trade and professional associations, the ability to form professional connections is a major draw. Ensure your members can connect with one another by forging an online community. Not only do virtual communities provide your members with increased value, but by bringing members together online, you’ll boost engagement between events, blog posts, and new offering rollouts.
To help members connect with one another, implement software that can host an online community. Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn can theoretically do this, but these third-party sites are outside your association’s control and solely hosting your community on social media may seem unprofessional.
Instead, look toward community engagement platforms. These platforms allow associations to create social media-like spaces where members can make posts, like and comment on content, and find the latest information about your association. Here’s an example of what this online interface can look like, courtesy of our favorite community engagement platform, Tradewing:
You can level up your membership program with community engagement platforms by:
- Pinning announcements. If there’s something important to share with your members, create a post on your community engagement platform and pin it to the top of members’ feeds. This ensures it’s the first thing members see when they log into the platform.
- Promoting events. If your association regularly hosts a variety of virtual and in-person events, community engagement software can be a key part of your marketing strategy. Announce in-person events and host virtual events directly on your community engagement platform.
- Showcasing sponsors. Earn non-dues revenue by forming partnerships with corporate sponsors whose products and services are relevant to your members. Then, promote them on your community engagement platform. Some tools insert sponsor content between members’ posts, while others, like Tradewing, create a permanent sidebar that’s omnipresent but non-intrusive.
When it comes to networking, your community engagement platform will be members’ go-to place for searching your directory, sending messages, and sharing their own thoughts with the rest of your association.
Personalize outreach.
The more you tailor your outreach to each member, the more likely they are to engage with your association. After all, if you consistently share content and opportunities that align with a member’s interests, they’ll look forward to your messages and be excited whenever you appear in their inbox.
Personalizing your messaging starts with sophisticated membership management tools. For growing associations, consider an out-of-the-box solution like Tradewing. In contrast, large associations might benefit from a flexible cloud-based system like Salesforce. Fionta’s guide to Salesforce for associations explains that while Salesforce is not exclusively an association management system (AMS), its high level of customization and range of functionalities make it a reliable platform for many associations.
With your AMS, be sure to:
- Create membership segments. Start by categorizing members into meaningful groups. These segments may be based on their membership history, past interests, overall engagement level, or any other factors relevant to your outreach. Customizable AMS solutions allow you to create tags, letting you create and designate members as belonging to any segment you want.
- Track members’ engagement history. When a member participates in an event, comments on one of your social media posts, or interacts with your association in any other way, make a note of it. Then, when emailing them, use these past interactions to decide what opportunities to highlight.
- Maintain consistency. If possible, have the same member of your team contact the same members every time you communicate with them. This will create a sense of consistency and help members associate your organization with a specific friendly face.
Outside of sharing engagement opportunities, personalize other types of messages using member data. For example, when sharing stories about your association’s impact, create member segments based on engagement and tell different stories based on their interests. For those looking to advance their skills, you might emphasize how many accreditations you’ve given out that year, while those who have shown interest in your social good initiatives might instead receive a story about a recent partnership with a local nonprofit.
Encourage user-generated content.
Continually creating new content for your members requires a significant investment of time and resources. While designing high-quality opportunities and content should remain a priority, you can expand your association’s offerings dramatically by encouraging user-generated content.
User-generated content is content that your members make and share with each other as part of their participation in your association, such as holding ongoing conversations on your community engagement platform that are fueled entirely by members’ comments. For instance, Tradewing discusses an example from the American Association of Physics Teachers of a high school teacher requesting help designing a unit on a topic they’ve never taught before. Members chiming into this conversation and working together to generate new materials would be considered user-generated content.
Whether members are writing articles or answering each others’ questions, encourage their contributions by creating online spaces for them to congregate and discuss their shared interests. Tools like Salesforce Experience Cloud or Tradewing can be especially useful here, as they allow you to design a custom online space and integrate it with your AMS.
When promoting user-generated content, be conscious that your association will have less control over how your organization is represented. You can help differentiate content created by members and content created by your staff by ensuring your association has a thorough brand guide.
Kwala’s guide to nonprofit branding explains how all organizations, including associations, benefit from clear branding, especially when contacting professional sponsors. If potential partners and sponsors are likely to see your user-generated content, consider your moderation policies and how they can be enforced to allow creative freedom for members and maintain your association’s professional public image.
Experiment with new offerings.
Provide current members with additional value and attract new ones by expanding your association’s offerings. This might be a new course format, additional annual events, researched reports about ongoing events in your field, or anything else that might interest your members.
To ensure your new content is successful, make sure to:
- Conduct market research. Before investing in a new type of content, research what your members will likely respond well to. Conduct market research by surveying your current members and analyzing trends in competitors’ offerings. If you have a target audience you want to recruit, take note of demographic information when gathering responses to ensure you’re collecting useful data.
- Highlight new content. When rolling out a new offering, accompany it with a marketing push to let members know it exists. This might include a highlight at the top of your newsletter, a banner on your website, a post on social media, and a promotional email specifically sharing your new content.
- Track engagement. In the first months of introducing new content or opportunities, carefully track how members respond to it. Clean your data prior to launch to get the most reliable information possible. This will make identifying and organizing new data far easier.
To better track data about your new online offerings, consider integrating your website and AMS. Doing so can prevent data from becoming siloed in either system, providing immediate feedback about members’ engagement. You can also showcase data in your AMS on your website, which can be useful for opportunities such as limited ticket events, as you can display how many tickets are available as they get purchased in real-time.
Form new community partnerships.
Offer your members more opportunities by partnering with other organizations in your field or local community. For example, in a reciprocal partnership, you provide your members with access to another organization’s resources, and in exchange, their customers, clients, or members will have access to some of your association’s services. Plus, you can promote your association to the other organization’s audience as well, potentially expanding your membership base.
First, consider what types of organizations your members would like to see your association partner with. You may end up working with several associations that offer similar benefits to expand members’ networking opportunities. Or, you may join forces with a nonprofit to promote advocacy initiatives.
When pitching a new partnership, emphasize the benefits for the other organization. These may include access to your content, exposure to a new audience, or the ability to pool resources to host large events and create expensive content for both organizations’ communities to enjoy.
Ensure long-lasting partnerships by communicating openly with the partner and your members. For instance, you may receive feedback from your members about how one of your partner’s offerings could be improved. When you communicate this input respectfully to the partner, you can help them grow and satisfy your members simultaneously.
Finding new ways to engage your members is essential for your association’s growth. Leverage technology, like Tradewing, to learn more about members to ensure your new offerings are tailored to their interests and will provide them with the value they look forward to from your association.