4 Best Practices To Increase Member Engagement
Without members, associations can’t exist. Without engaged members, associations can’t flourish.
Unfortunately, belonging to an association might not be a priority for some professionals. They might ask themselves “why should I care about belonging to an association?” The simple answer is opportunities — like networking events, continuing education and other intangible member benefits— that might help individuals succeed in their profession. At the core of answering this complex question, associations should have one key idea in mind: membership engagement. Specifically, how to engage professionals so that they see value and understand the benefits of joining your associations and maintaining a membership for years to come.
By membership engagement, we mean the level of interaction and involvement an individual has with an association — often the result of strategy-driven initiatives that build relationships with members to create a collaborative and positive culture, which in turn attracts new and retains old members. Done successfully, membership engagement helps associations build value and loyalty. Here are four tips on how associations can increase their own member engagement.
1. What is your value proposition?
What’s in it for me? Before engaging with current or future members, associations should think carefully about why individuals should be excited to be a member of their association. Many associations are value-based and issue-focused. Their function includes promoting and advocating for a specific industry or segment of society on behalf of members. Associations have to identify their cause, objectives, and how their efforts distinguish them from other associations — this is key to moving forward with an engaged membership. And, associations must be able to clearly and succinctly articulate their messaging through multiple communication mediums. Don’t be afraid to change, refine or update the cause, objectives, goals etc as the messaging must be in line with the needs of the sector and with the professionals who make up the sector.
2. What journey are your members on and how can you help?
Understanding who potential and current members are — what they hope to achieve in their careers, what their priorities are, and what hurdles they’re facing — will almost certainly help improve the way in which associations engage with their members.
Mapping a member’s journey — from their graduation to the retirement, for example — will help an association segment its audience and identify each group’s needs. An engaged member’s journey, which starts at awareness and progresses to membership and involvement with an association’s community, can be better understood by soliciting feedback on priorities and interests through online surveys.
With this membership intelligence in hand, an association can create tailored engagement strategies — events, networking opportunities, legislative advocacy, publicity and online education — that aims to satisfy the particular needs of each segment or channel.
Remember: new members should feel welcomed and existing members should feel like they belong to a community of like-minded and passionate individuals who are being served by their association. Associations will be able to accomplish both once they know who they’re working for.
3. Take stock of what members use and don’t use
Many associations distribute newsletters full of interesting and relevant content; but what if no one’s reading? Many associations host networking and educational events; but what if no one’s attending?
It’s critical that associations understand how their existing engagement strategies are working with members. Are members participating in your LinkedIn community more than Facebook? At what point do your videos start to lose their audience? Taking stock of what is and isn’t working, in combination with member intelligence, will give associations a sense of where they might experiment and re-prioritize their membership engagement efforts.
4. How do you encourage membership engagement?
A membership engagement target audience — in this case, channels of members segmented by length of membership or professional stature, for example — need to be made aware of how it can become engaged in an association’s community.
Prompting participation is an essential way to build engagement and will help create an active community of loyal members who feel a personal connection to the work, progress and success of the association. Having staff who specialize in online community management, for example, can help facilitate success in this realm. Associations can also encourage participation through different types of online content and calls to action — such as monthly member challenges that encourage them to share their own success and learning on social media, live Q&A’s with experts, and weekly updates on industry news.
Associations can’t underestimate the effort and resources required to successfully implement engagement strategies. They require dedicated resources — staff, time, analytical and online communications tools — to ensure membership engagement is ongoing. From creating an onboarding process for new members — with personalized welcome messages — to moderated social media discussions on member-driven topics, membership engagement is an ongoing effort that is based on consistency, refinement, and measurement of membership growth and satisfaction.
Thanks for reading! Our next post will discuss how associations can specifically use technology to increase membership engagement.
