How to Use Video to Increase Membership Engagement

It’s no surprise that video is the most efficient form of communication in 2019. With videos being shared 1200% more than text and images combined, it’s time that your membership association jumps on the video content bandwagon.

Sure, posting a video seems like a great idea to increase your engagement on social media, but what should the video be about? Associations typically don’t create videos because they don’t know where to start. Here are a few avenues to go down to get the creative juices flowing!

Here are four ways to use video to increase membership engagement:

1. Introduce Yourself as an Association in a Video!

Use video to welcome your new members with a warm greeting and show them that you’re an organization that cares about their members. Try sending the video in a welcome email, or even try to send it through a personalized inbox message. Not only is this a great first impression, but it’s also a piece of content that your members are going to remember and encourage them to engage with your organization.

It’s said that 59% of executives would rather watch a video than read text. With loads content being pushed from so many organizations and brands, you need to stand out from the crowd. Try pinning your welcome video to the top of your social media pages. It’s a fantastic greeting to receive anytime someone visits your page.

2. Educate and Explain the Benefits of Being a Member.

Show your members the value that you can bring them! First, you’ll want to answer some key questions:

• What all can you offer members?

• Where can they find more information?

• What upcoming events do you have planned?

• Why do they need to be a part of your association?

• Why does your association standout from the crowd?

First and foremost, you’ll want to educate your members. Cut to the chase – what do you do as an association? And then answer why they should join or continue to be a member. Answering member questions helps them develop a personal connection to your organization, which will encourage them to get more involved.

Make sure to stay on top of answering key questions that your audience may have, too. Engage with your members on social media and see what their pain points are - this will help guide you to answer questions that may be on various members’ minds.

Related Post: How to Engage Association Members with Email

3. Benefit from User Generated Content (UGC).

So many associations see engagement on social media as likes, shares and retweets (which it is!). However, there’s nothing more engaging than hearing the opinions and voices of your members.

Ask your members to upload their own videos of themselves answering industry questions or maybe giving opinions on current topics. While this is giving you content to share on your own social media platforms, it’s also creating a conversation.

That’s engagement.

Hearing testimonials is also a beneficial video content. In fact, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from others, even people they don’t know, over branded content.

Get your members talking – let them speak on the value that they’ve gotten from your organization. People are starting to crave stories, connections and interactions with others. Try not to push informative video content all the time – let others do the talking for you.

4. Excite Members for Upcoming Events with Video.

Events are a marketer’s dream – it gives you an opportunity to hype up your association. Create buzz. Promote a sense of urgency to learn more.

Video gives you so much opportunity to create excitement: fun background music, the intense movement of text and imagery, the inspirational voice-over. Video opens doors that images, GIFs and text can’t do.

The social media engagements will start rolling in.

A great idea to promote your association’s event is to ask for video testimonials from past attendees. Again, not only are you receiving video content to use, but you’re also given more credibility as an association. Sometimes it requires hearing from someone new to have some serious FOMO (Fear of Missing Out!)

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Whatever you end up creating, remember to keep it short! 1/3 of viewers stop watching videos after 30 seconds – so, try to create your video two minutes or shorter. Get your message across in a quick, yet efficient, way!

At the end of the day, you’re trying to tell your association’s story. When creating video content for your association, remember to answer all three questions in the golden circle:

1. WHY are you doing what you’re doing?

   Very few organizations know why they do what they do. The WHY is your core purpose or belief. Let the ‘why’ be what dictates ALL content creation – reiterate why your association is impactful to its members.

2. HOW are you doing it?

   Explain how you’re different from the competition. What makes you standout?

3. WHAT are you offering?

   Most importantly, you need to tell your audience what you can offer them.

So, let’s recap on how to use video to increase membership engagement. Ideally, you’ll want to create a shorter video that’s inviting (think 15 seconds to a minute), exciting and educational. While you could go the route of creating your own video content, your association can also encourage current members to contribute to a conversation and post their own videos. Either way, engagement is vital to increasing membership awareness.

It’s obvious that members are engaging more with video than they ever have before. Now, the question is, how are you going to integrate video to create engagement with association’s members?

Download our guide to up your digital marketing strategy

Creating effective social media content to share with your target audience is a crucial part to your marketing strategy.

Using our expertise in content creation, we’ve created this guide to help you cultivate a more engaged audience and, ultimately, help you grow your business.

In this download, you’ll receive:

• The steps you’ll need to follow in order to create social media engagement.

• 4 essential elements to add in every content piece.

• Information on different types of graphics your business can post for brand awareness and engagement

• Key strategies for lead generation

How to Attract and Engage Millennial Members for Your Organization

Millennials seem to be a group of confusion when it comes to marketing to them. And if you’re confused on how to attract and engage millennial members for your organization, we have you covered.

Whether your goal is to grow your membership or engage with your current millennial members, these tips will help you make your organization better!

Provide Social Proof

Millennials are not impulse-shoppers. More than any other generational group, they like to research their purchases.  This research comes in many forms, but member reviews and social proof are two top sources for this information. 

By running a Facebook campaign targeted at ‘Friends of people who like your Page,’ your organization can deliver targeted ads with instant social proof. When someone scrolls past your ad and sees that 13 of their friends like Nike on Facebook, that social proof is likely enough to convince a millennial (me) to purchase a pair of sandals for my son.  A staggering 91% of millennials buy based on recommendations from friends so this type of campaign is extremely powerful. – Sarah Nelson, Marketing Manager

Focus on Your Online Presence

Many millennials can’t remember a time before the internet. Keeping your website and social media accounts fresh and up to date will make it easier for them to find you. While it’s easy to say that your organization should be all places online to attract and engage millennials, you should spend most of your time and resources on the social media platforms that your members are already on. – Ashley Bricker, Client Growth Specialist

Optimize for Mobile

It is so uncommon to come across a millennial that doesn’t have a smart phone.  In fact, more than 92% of millennials own smartphones and 85% of millennials use social media.  Therefore, most of their time spent engaging with your organization will likely be through their hand-held device.

Giving them a way to purchase and/or sign up via a mobile device would engage them and allow them to take the next steps without having to find a computer or make a call. – Victoria Chernikovich, Account Growth Specialist

Personalized Communication

Millennials are much more likely to respond and interact with messages that are personalized to their needs! Blast emails and irrelevant messaging can damage your brand, since your millennial audience is more likely to unsubscribe or unfollow more quickly if they don’t feel the content speaks to them.

Take the time to understand their preferred channels of communication and personalize your content to match their interests. – Cory Carney, Account Growth Specialist

Multi-channel Approach

In this highly technological age, millennials expect for a brand to connect with them across a variety of platforms, from YouTube video ads to email marketing. Regardless if you re-purpose content for different platforms or create slightly different creative, your messaging should always remain consistent across anywhere you show up.

Your multi-channel marketing to reach your millennial members also should blend together rather than remaining in silos. Whatever your members tell you in an email survey can be used on social media and vice versa. - Amanda Blakeman, Digital Growth Strategist

Download our Lead Generation Best Practices Guide Now!

WANT TO KNOW THE BEST LEAD GENERATION TACTICS TO GROW YOUR ORGANIZATION?

Using our experience in lead generation, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 lead generation best practices you need to implement this year.

Simply fill out the form to the right to download your guide!

How to Increase Event Attendance with These 4 Key Marketing Tactics

Members join your association for one of two reasons: either for education or opportunities to build their network. There is no better chance for you to show the value your association provides to those members than your annual event, but do you know how to increase event attendance?  

Let’s think of a couple traditional event promotion practices.

Monthly newsletter?

Email marketing?

Social media?

Sure, those are all great options to promote an event to increase attendance, but let’s look beyond the surface at how you can attract the crowd.

Event Attendance Tip: Phone Outreach

For our clients, this has proven to be very successful means of communication to encourage members to attend meetings or events. Not only does it add a personal touch to the traditional marketing approach, but gives the member a chance to ask any specific questions they may have one on one. There can be so much clutter within the marketing channels listed above, but a phone call you can guarantee your intended message is heard.

Related Post: Why You Need to Be Calling Members Right Now  

Event Attendance Tip: Maintain a Desirable Vendor Ratio

No one wants to attend an event just to be sold to the entire time, and as an association you don’t want that reputation. Your marketing efforts should follow the below guidelines:

Too many vendors: Focus your event promotion on member registration.

Not enough, or not the type of vendors that you would expect would add value to your event: Focus promoting the upcoming event on vendor registration.

Event Attendance Tip: Utilize Lookalike Audiences

Facebook has excellent tools to help with this, and if you aren’t familiar don’t be afraid to reach out to us for help. Through Facebook’s advertising platform you can upload files of your current members and their proprietary algorithm will be able to target similar organizations who share a lot of the same traits, AKA your target audience.

If you’re ahead of the game and have a decent list of potential prospects, you can upload that as well and Facebook will make sure your content is seen by those parties.

LinkedIn is also a great place to run your B2B campaign. In the past, LinkedIn had been quite clunky to manage campaigns, but there have been some awesome improvements recently! You can use these 3 tips when creating a hyper-targeted campaign to your members.

Event Attendance Tip: Geographical Targeting

Geographically targeting members applies to you especially if you’re a national association travelling to a regional hub city for your membership event. Create a list of potential prospects for the select city and reach out to them. Not only do you now have the chance to drive attendance, but also add to your association.

Consider the lifetime value of a member. Would offering a complimentary registration, or one day pass to an outsider pay dividends in the future? For some of our clients the answer is yes. In other instances you can offer a discounted rate, etc.

It’s not enough to just simply exist and expect your members to follow through. Budgets are limited, and in most cases organizations will be a part of multiple associations. You must actively market yourself and continue to provide value in order to show your worth & keep your seats full. Be on the forefront of your industry & continue to be the best association available to your members!

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Do you know the best lead generation tactics to grow your association? Download our Lead Generation Best Practices Guide Now!

Using our experience in lead generation, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 lead generation best practices you need to implement this year.

Simply fill out the form to the right to download your guide!

5 of the Best Ways to Increase Membership Organization Recruitment

We know that impacting and helping more members is one of the most important goals of your association. While retaining association members is essential, increasing membership organization recruitment rates is just as much of a priority.

Our InceptGrows team is highly knowledgeable in the membership niche. So, what better way to give you the best advice than to round up a few members of the team to share five of the best ways to increase membership organization recruitment?!

Recruit More People That Look Like Your Best Members!

One of the best digital targeting tools is Facebook lookalike audiences. You can upload a custom audience of your best current members, website visitors, or marketing qualified leads and then use Facebook to create a new audience that has similar attributes.

Lookalike audiences have consistently been top performing ad sets for us for top-of-the-funnel campaigns on behalf of our association clients. – Sarah Nelson, Marketing Manager

Related Post: 4 Ways Social Media Helps to Recruit Association Members

Pick up the phone!

One of the quickest, and most cost effective, ways to target new members is through telephone recruitment. When used in combination with demographic and psychographic modeling you can build a profiled list of prospects who look and act like your current members.

Engaging them with a personalized phone call allows you to begin your new relationship in the channel we all use to communicate every day. – Lauren Gill, InceptGrows Senior Account Executive

Host a “Must Attend” Event!

Whether it’s annually or quarterly, most associations are known for their professional events. Focus on keeping your ideas fresh and innovative and allow members to bring a guest along to boost attendance and new member recruitment. – Ashley Bricker, Client Growth Specialist

Collect Feedback

Understand the content that appeals to your members. After all, they are your target audience! One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply offer a survey after your events. It can be written, emailed, or I encourage you to pick up the phone & give them a call!

“How was your experience?”

“What did you find most valuable?”

“Least valuable?”

Happy members will increase your retention rates and they will engage in the most effective form of marketing, word of mouth! – Cory Carney, Account Growth Specialist

Email

Email marketing is crucial to growing your association today. When 99% of people check their email everyday and 59% of them say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, why wouldn’t you utilize this platform?

Simply creating an email opt-in that your target members would want more information on will bring them into your funnel. This will help you engage with your email subscribers and show the value of your association and lead to more sign-ups! - Amanda Blakeman, Digital Growth Strategist

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Download our Lead Generation Best Practices Guide Now!

Using our experience in lead generation, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 lead generation best practices you need to implement this year.

Simply fill out the form to the right to download your guide!

4 Steps to Creating Social Media Engagement for Your Association

Every marketer knows how tedious the journey of creating high-preforming content can be. Did I choose the right graphic? Are the color and font choices showcasing the messaging behind our brand? Before you start to dive into the nitty-gritty details, have a plan that you can follow when you start to get off track.

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1. Goal

First and foremost, determine your end goal. Are you trying to build brand awareness? Increase website visits? Educate your members? Typically, there’s an 80/20 rule when sharing content online. This means that 80% of your posts should be increasing interest, informing association members and engaging with your audience. While the other 20% of shared posts should be direct selling of your product or service.

If your 80% includes informing members, consider sharing blog posts or quotes that drive your message. Choosing a goal will pave the way for the rest of your social media graphic creation.

2. Which Graphic?

Figure out which graphics will produce the most engagement. Maybe you’ve seen trends of your viewers engaging with GIFs more, or maybe you’ve noticed that themed posts drive social media engagements. Don’t be afraid to try new types of content as well! There are countless ways to communicate with your audience, so pick a graphic that will showcase your membership organization’s message and personality!

In the marketing world, it can quickly become overwhelming to keep up with the latest social media trends. We know how difficult it can be to pinpoint which graphics are creating the most member engagement. So, we created a guide that explains the multiple graphic types you could start posting!

3. Organize

Make sure that all of your content is well organized so that all marketing team members have access to it. It’s always a good idea to double-check that your content meets all the social media platform’s expectations as well. Check the amount of text you have on your graphics, as well as the length of any videos.

It is super beneficial to create a social media calendar as well. If you’re getting caught up in the business of being a marketer, having a social media calendar to refer to can be a life saver!

4. Design and Share!

Whether you’re using free sites that give you templates to help during the creation process, or you’re using Photoshop to construct eye-catching designs – let the creative juices flow! Once you’ve got a solid design, share away!

If you follow these strategic content creation steps, you’ll be on your way to increasing association membership engagements and overall brand awareness.

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Download our guide to up your digital marketing strategy

Creating effective social media content to share with your target audience is a crucial part to your marketing strategy.

Using our expertise in content creation, we’ve created this guide to help you cultivate a more engaged audience and, ultimately, help you grow your business.

In this download, you’ll receive:

• The steps you’ll need to follow in order to create social media engagement.

• 4 essential elements to add in every content piece.

• Information on different types of graphics your business can post for brand awareness and engagement

• Key strategies for lead generation