How to Create a Winning Member Engagement Strategy for Your Association?
Credit: Bisma Hanif, Content Writer – July 01, 2022
Membership Engagement Strategies That Boost Member Retention
1) Distribute Surveys to Gauge Member Satisfaction
Surveys form a direct communication channel with your members. They demonstrate your sense of responsibility for the members and how you are taking care of them. Furthermore, you can use it to determine the satisfaction level and preferences of your members.
Surveys and polls can be sent out using services like Google forms or social media sites. As soon as you receive answers, they are automatically added to an analytics dashboard so you can easily analyze them.
If you’re wondering when’s the best time to send out surveys, consider sending them immediately following an event. People are most motivated after an event, so there is a greater likelihood that many people will fill them. Similarly, send them surveys with renewal reminder emails when their membership is about to expire. In case they decide to leave your organization, you can ask them why.
Another good time to send our surveys is at the end of each quarter when you can ask them what achievements they think the organization made and what improvements they think are needed.
2) Create Interest-Based Segments for Customized Content
By segmenting your members according to their interests, you will be able to engage them more effectively. This gives you a better idea of which member engagement tactics work best for what type of your audience. Segment your audience based on their demographics, interests, and interactions on the website. Customise your content that resonates with each segment, for example, one message type may appeal to younger members, while another caters to older members.
Additionally, segmentation can help you determine which members are more engaged with your association, who are more committed to the mission, and which members are more receptive to your benefits.
3) Establish a Solid Communication Strategy
In order to improve your communications, two things are important:
Don’t overdo it
Choose the right platform
Communicating with your members may seem like a great engagement tactic, but clogging their inboxes several times a week doesn’t seem like the right approach. Instead, make your communications effective by using a highly-targeted approach.
Send relevant, high-quality communications to your members. Let them choose their preferred channel and frequency of contact. This way, they will feel more control over your involvement in their lives. Use personalization emails that highlight how your features can benefit them. Don’t forget to include a CTA at the end to engage them more effectively.
4) Hold Engaging Events
Meeting others with similar interests is a major reason people join associations and social events are the perfect way to accomplish that. Besides serving as a strategy for increasing member engagement, events offer valuable opportunities for learning and networking.
Both virtual and in-person offer great value, so make sure you plan them well. Also, consider ways to make your event stand out to make sure your association’s offerings are worth more than your membership dues.
5) Create a Private Online Community
An online community helps people to foster relationships from anywhere, at any time. However, when you provide them with a platform that is solely dedicated to your association, they tend to feel secure and exclusive.
Glue Up’s community app offers a seamless networking experience to your members. It allows users to connect with other members, create posts, groups, and events, as well as spark meaningful connections through one-on-one chatting. The app also features digital business cards which can be shared via direct messaging.
6) Keep Them Posted With Regular Content
Keep your members posted about what’s happening in your organization. Use your most active channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, community apps, and LinkedIn. Make sure your website is updated as well. Share newsletters with your new product offerings, events, and incentives You can also share award posts such as ‘Member of the year”, appreciation posts, and success stories on your website.
7) Facilitate Two-way Communications
The success of your engagement depends not just on how well you communicate with your members, but also on how well they can communicate with you and one another. Online forums prove to be quite fruitful when it comes to creating a two-way conversation. It provides a secure platform for them to discuss what they want from your company.
Another way of boosting connections is through social media interactions including polls, mini-surveys, and comments. Snail mails are also great to facilitate bidirectional communication. They show that you don’t just reach out to your members when you want money, but genuinely care about their satisfaction.
A member directory can be helpful for a peer-to-peer network. In this way, members can share information and know when to approach who. Furthermore, it encourages them to interact with one another.
8) Use Social Media for Engagements
Engagement is often measured through website visits, page views, and social media mentions. Even though social media participation is only one part of a successful member engagement strategy, the power of two-way engagement is increasingly important to create a long-term relationship with members.
For social media strategy, choose the single best channel with the most active audience. Often times, people create dozens of accounts on social media platforms to increase their brand presence but end up not using any of them.
A better approach is to ask yourself these questions before starting an account:
- Which channel has the most active target audience?
- What content do they find most engaging?
What is the best time to post for maximum engagements?
Share behind-the-scenes videos, member stories, and event coverage for the best content. You can ask your members to create posts or videos for you. People love being creative, especially when they are asked to share their stories in public.
Engaging members with tactics such as conducting polls on Facebook, posting highlights in your Instagram story, and asking questions on Twitter can help you share more about your organization’s work while making them feel like they’re part of the conversation.
9) Create an Unforgettable Onboarding Experience
Onboarding is all about creating your first impression. The better the onboarding experience you provide your members, the higher your engagement will be.
A welcome kit can go a long way when encouraging them to kick-start their engagement. This may include a personal email invitation letter, a welcome brochure, a membership card, and discount cards. Whenever multiple members join at the same time, host a welcome event to get them to know each other and your team at the same time.
10) Provide Different Levels of Membership
As you segment your members according to their demographics and interests, consider grouping them based on their goals, commitments, and financial capabilities. Offer different membership levels with corresponding benefits to cater to these divergent needs.
Make sure to include a variety of ways for them to engage with your association, even for your base plans. As for the premium packages, you can include extra perks such as reserved seats, priority bookings, and extra discounts.
11) Design an Optimised Association Website
A well-designed website is a key to successful memberships, especially for virtual organisations. In addition, your website must be easy to navigate so that users can find easily what they are looking for.
Ensure you have a separate page for events, memberships, and your story. Highlight your organization’s mission through your homepage tagline, so that members can relate emotionally to it every time they see it. Also, make a member page with their stories, journey, and member directories. As a result, they will feel like important members of your association and will be more motivated to participate.
12) Monitor and Adjust Your Member Engagement Strategies
There is no set formula for your member engagement strategy once you complete it. By monitoring progress, your team can make timely adjustments for opportunities or challenges that may arise. Analyse your member engagement data and make regular checks to determine whether you are on track to meeting your goals using analytics tools. If your goals don’t line up with your progress, you can identify the reasons and make changes to make them more successful.
Also, be sure to stay in touch with your members through surveys and other means of direct feedback. This can provide insight into the experiences of individual members and can help your organization figure out what is working well and what needs to be improved.
13) Use an Association Management System
When it comes to memberships, your audience looks forward to a well-rounded experience. They want to feel valuable, connected, and part of a cause. Thus, you must have a robust engagement platform to help them:
- See the bigger picture of your mission and their contribution.
- Feel deeply connected with your values.
- Find networking opportunities with other members
This is where our association management software (AMS) can help you. It assists your organization in maximizing retention by offering a holistic customer experience.
With a retention rate of 82 percent, they are able to engage members through the use of campaigns, event creation, website integration, membership automation, and community apps. In addition to offering a seamless signup process, Fast Forward Interactive’s solution offers a premium front-end experience. Using automated emails and push notifications, you can also increase retention using renewal reminders. Moreover, your members feel more included by using the community app, while having their own place to network privately.
You can also see your members’ engagement by using the analytical dashboard. This helps you make informed decisions while creating or adjusting your engagement strategies.
It also has an integrated feature that integrates it with your website and allows members to view and compare subscription plans. The seamless front and back-end interactions make it easy for:
- Members to easily switch plans as they wish.
- And your team to change their plans seamlessly in real-time.
Looking forward to increasing member engagement? Book a demo today to find out more.