When was the last time your board reviewed your membership and did a deep dive into your members experience and journey? As your association evolves so too does your membership. Associations will need to change the way they interact with current members and innovate to attract new members to meet the ever changing expectations.
There are three key areas that create exceptional member journeys – how does your association fare with the below?
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- Membership relationships and community
- Knowledge sharing and education
- Communication and engagement platforms
Let’s take a deeper dive into each area.
1. Membership relationships and community
Relationships with like-minded individuals are the key reason many members join an association. The ability to build meaningful relationships, collaborate, engage in industry, and participate with the entire associations network is fundamental to your members experience.
How do you facilitate meaningful connections for your members?
2. Knowledge sharing and education
Providing relevant content and opportunities for sharing, learning and education as well as providing other relevant industry news and updates is another key area. Are you delivering enough content to add value to your members?
How effective is your association in providing education, learning and knowledge sharing with your members?
3. Communication and engagement platforms
These are the platforms that you as an association communicate to your members and how your members communicate and engage with each other. These need to be effective, the technology needs to be user friendly, and it is imperative that they allow participation, engagement and the ability to connect with the association and each other.
Are you using the most efficient communication platforms?
By examining each of the above criteria, for-purpose associations can review their current member experience to better enhance the value they provide, ensuring membership renewal rates and member acquisition rates are high.
Below are a few ideas to help kick start a membership audit to see how your members are engaging with you, what their experiences are like and how to develop a better membership journey.
- How many current members do you have?
- How many new members each month do you acquire?
- When was the last time you undertook a general member survey? (If it was over 6 months ago do another one!)
- When was the last time you had a deep dive discussion with your members? (if you answered never then time to engage! This can include a few short 30 minutes virtual meetings with one on one or a longer deep dive with several members at once. You could offer two styles with this Deep Dive discussion on the current status quo and how to improve and then a hackathon list the top three challenges the association is facing and break up into smaller groups to come up with a solution)
- What platforms do you currently use to communicate to members? List all that apply and then the average open rate/engagement rate/impressions/shares like. Review the previous three months. Look at the content/articles/subject headings that achieve the best results.
- How many events, webinars, courses, workshops etc. do you run each month/year?
- How many members and non-members attended your last event/training session/ course and do you provide follow up communications to attendees?
- When was the last time you reviewed your membership application questions and process? Is it complicated, are the questions relevant? How can you make it easier?
- How many people visit your website, what pages do they look at?
- Do you need a full website overhaul?
- Has your value proposition changed and does it need to change?
- Most importantly, is your Constitution still fit for purpose?
If your association needs a member journey review, and resources to implement changes, contact TAS’ experienced Association Management team.