4 Reasons You Should be Calling Association Members Right Now

You’ve done the leg work to recruit, cultivate and grow your membership base. Like many associations, you may find yourself asking what’s next or how can I retain my members? Time and time again the phone has proven to be a successful channel to quickly disseminate information, prevent donor lapse and increase attendance and engagement.

I’m combining our expertise in lead generation and membership organizations to remind you why you should be calling association members right now.

1. Benefit Education

Although many members may be familiar with your mission, we know from experience that many are either not aware or not taking full advantage of the benefits. A short phone call is an easy way to reach out and educate members about a benefit they may not have been aware of or highlight the newest improvement with your offerings.

Related Post: 3 Simple Ways to Show the Value of Your Association’s Membership

2. Build engagement

Like benefit education, building a relationship with your member base is critical for longevity. In a world where media messages are consistently delivered to our fingertips 24/7, the phone provides a personalized touch for one on one interaction. A quick conversation or voicemail can also get out an urgent message faster while continuing to build on that existing member relationship.

Accompanying calling efforts to build membership engagement with Facebook marketing adds additional member touch points, which results in a more active community.

3. Lapse Prevention

We all know the highest costs in membership come from initial acquisition and then having to reengage those same members who have lapsed. Once we have the members in house we need to do everything we can to retain them.

Once again, the phone provides a cost-effective way to reach our members whether in the form of blast messaging, targeted voicemails or personalized conversations. These conversations go a long way in keeping the member engaged and active.

4. Event attendance

Every week we hear from organizations who state one of their biggest challenges is getting members to attend their events. Often, they are only reaching out via one channel. To truly reach your members the way they want to be contacted and increase attendance you need to get the message out in multiple channels—email, social media and phone.

Think of invitations you receive for a party—following up with a call to make sure they are coming lets them know how much they will be missed and how important they are to your organization!

We also strongly encourage combining these efforts to increase membership engagement with a social media campaign. Our clients have had success with using Facebook to drive members to events, or even reaching them through a custom audience on LinkedIn!

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 in your association this year.

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

4 Important Things to Include in a New-Member Welcome Email

One of the most important steps to take when onboarding new association members is to send a welcome email. Creating an engaging association means engaging your members as soon as they sign up.

No one likes walking into a party and the host walks past them without a warm welcome and inviting them to check out all that’s going on. So, think of your association as a party (because that’s what it should be treated as!) and welcome your members like they just arrived at the best party of their life!

When should you send a welcome email to new members?

Immediately!

When 74% of people already expect a welcome email immediately, it’s nearly a required step in your member on-boarding process. Plus, members that receive a welcome email engage with your association 33% more than if they hadn’t received one. Sending a new-member welcome email will then only help get your new member off on the right foot with your association!

Key things to include in a new-member welcome email

1. A personalized welcome

This member handed you their money because they saw the value in the association. Demonstrate that you also see the value in them with a warm welcome to your association party.

Tip: Include the welcome message in both the email subject and in the first paragraph of the email. Also including a call-to-action, such as “here’s what to do next,” moves your new member along and entices them to get more engaged.

Example Subject: “Hi [MEMBER NAME]! Welcome to [ASSOCIATION]. Open for important membership information.”

2. Introduction to your association

While your association’s new members have probably already done enough research about the organization to see the value in signing up, they might not be aware of the history or everything it does for its members or the community. Offer a couple sentences with a background on the association, such as when it was founded, how many members/businesses you’ve helped, etc.

3. Information on membership benefits

People didn’t sign up to be an association member just to hand over their money and not get anything in return. While they might already know about some of the bigger benefits, restating them will only help your new member get involved more quickly. If you have various membership levels, make sure you send level-specific emails detailing the relevant benefits to that member.

Linking to the page where they can find more information about all membership benefits will also help them make sure they get the most use out of their membership.

4. Direction on where to go/what to do next

Don’t leave your new member hanging! There should always be a clear purpose and call-to-action in your emails, so use this opportunity to encourage them to take whatever next steps will help them the most.

Some examples of CTAs include:

• Invite them to join your association’s Facebook group

• Inform them on when they should expect the next email

• Invite them to RSVP to your next event

• Directing them to reply to the email or another email that will be able to answer any questions they have

Download our guide to sending the best emails that delight your members!

When people sign up for your association, you need to have a plan in place to welcome and on-board them.

Using our expertise in lead generation, we’ve created this guide to help you cultivate a more engaged association.

In this download, you’ll receive:

• The ultimate email sequence to welcome new members into your association

• Information on WHEN to send and WHAT to include

4 Ways Social Media Helps to Recruit Association Members

Whether your association has a small marketing budget or simply trying to be more cost-effective, social media can make the biggest impact. While we know that social media plays an important role in educating members about benefits, there are also ways to use social media to recruit association members too.

Because there are close to 3.4 billion people in the world with at least one social media account, it’s a great method to reach your target audience. We tout how social media allows you to engage with people online, but there are several other ways that social media assists in your association recruitment efforts.

1. Meet your target audience where they spend their time

When thinking about which method you want to use to reach your target audience, you should always consider the path of least resistance. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to find out about your association and become members.

In order to make signing up as simple as possible you need to use social platforms that your target members are already on.

2. Increase brand awareness

Once you figure out where most of your target audience is spending the most time, you can easily create valuable content for them on that platform. Dividing your social media efforts across all social platforms likely won’t yield the greatest result. Being more active on a few is going to go farther than being semi-active on all of them.

Social media is a great place to recruit new association members because according to Facebook, 60% of people on Instagram say they discover new products on the platform. Therefore, even if in your opinion, you don’t have a large number of followers, social platforms allow you to grow your association’s reach to gain the interest of potential new members.

3. Increase website traffic

Along with engaging current and potential association members, social media allows you to promote your website content. Enticing someone to follow you on social media is easier than asking them to hand over their email address. So, consistently sharing your helpful content across your social channels, allows followers to easily click to your website.

Facebook Ad Retargeting

With this increase in traffic to your website, you can then run a retargeting campaign on Facebook to those who have already visited your site. In order to gather this information, you’ll need to install the Facebook pixel on your website. If you have access to your website’s code, you can easily add the pixel code. Otherwise, your developer will know how to add it!

This is a great strategy because it adds another touch-point to someone who has already shown interest in your association, making them a warmer lead to convert to a member.

4. Lead Generation

Lastly, social media allows you to generate leads for your association. You can do this in a variety of methods from the Facebook retargeting method discussed above, targeting people with interests similar to your association, or even simply to current followers.

Are you employing 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!

4 Ways to Use Facebook to Educate Members on Association Benefits

Facebook is one of the best ways to educate members on association benefits because with over 2 billion people on Facebook, you’re easily able to meet your members where they’re already at. When you post on the platform that most (if not all) of your members are regularly on, you can increase your ROI and ultimately get your members more engaged.

Because we believe in the immense value that Facebook provides associations, we’re sharing 4 ways to use Facebook to educate members on association benefits to help you engage more members.

1. Facebook Groups

Facebook groups for any association are a great way to bring all of your members together, regardless of their location. This is a great space to cultivate a community and allow members to engage with each other, even outside of conferences.

The key to making a Facebook group work for your organization is to always understand that it’s about your members and less about the association. While you can (and should) share member benefits through articles, pictures, and video, you should also focus on sharing outside information that would still be beneficial for members.

2. Facebook Live

We are in an age where video and audio are key to any marketing strategy. People crave that extra connection with you and the association, so when you can create a piece of content that’s both educational and engaging, the entire association benefits. Members get to understand more about how they fit into the organization and you cultivate an engaged community.

Streaming live video on Facebook is a great method of interacting with your association members. First, there’s a low barrier of entry to reach your members since they are already using it for personal use. Second, all you need to create a live video is your phone or a simple webcam—no editing required!

Third, unlike simply posting a status or video on your business page, when you go live in your Facebook group or on your business page, group members or followers get a notification that you are live. This not only gets members to view your video but also entices them to watch and engage live. The increased engagement on your video increases engagement on Facebook and ultimately within your association.

Live video ideas that can be used to educate members on association benefits include how-to videos, webinars, interviews with members or businesses, behind the scenes, Q&A or FAQ videos.

3. Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger is a great way to build a connection 1:1 with your members. However, what do you do when you begin to get more messages than your team can manage? Enter chatbots.

With over 1 billion active users and a click-through-rate 4 to 10 times higher than email, chatbots are becoming increasingly popular to interact with people. Messenger marketing is great for quickly responding to Facebook messages without being spammy and overloading members.

Manychat, a chatbot provider, confirms that you can use chatbots for conversational growth and building relationships, which are key for any successful association. Along with welcoming new members, you can also send them information about upcoming events, latest blog posts from an RSS feed, keyworded auto-responses for FAQs, and even other beneficial timely content.

4. Deliver an Ad Campaign to a Custom Audience

Facebook ad campaigns, in our opinion, are the best way to reach members of your association. With custom audiences, you’re able to target your members specifically so they can see membership benefits whether they like your Facebook page or not.

Not only can you use Facebook ads to educate members on association benefits, you can also target that same audience to drive attendance to events. As we discussed in this case study, you can easily increase your event attendance with a custom audience as well as an attribution audience to reach potential new members.

If you haven’t started to use Facebook to educate members on association benefits, now is the perfect time to start implementing one (or all!) of these tips will ultimately help your membership engagement when you perform them consistently.

Let’s Talk

If you have any questions about how to better engage your association members, don’t hesitate to reach out to us and we’ll be happy to help you!

Should associations co-source their member engagement?

I’ve spoken with a number of Directors of Member Relations at various associations. One of them was one of an eight-member staff. Another works with 17 other people, and a third works with more than forty staff members in the corporate headquarters of an international organization. Their member engagement goals for 2016 vary, and their strategic marketing initiatives are vastly different, but the one thread that connects them all together is the need for a more focused member retention strategy. The ways they’ve done it before – sharing responsibilities between staff with already-full plates, sending out email reminders that may or may not get opened, or bringing on part-time temps or interns for targeted, short-term campaigns – are simply not as fruitful as they need to be. The result is associations bleeding members at a faster rate than they can recruit, which means annual revenue falls, budgets get squeezed, and strategic initiatives get bottle-necked, sending them on a year-after-year downward spiral.

It’s time to pull up out of the dive and join association-industry thought-leaders in modeling the successful strategy of customer engagement in the software/technology industry. It’s time to explore co-sourcing.

Get the most out of your talented staff

Tech companies have already moved to a model where they find the most effective and profitable pieces of their customer engagement continuum to co-source. This allows their highly skilled experts who are well-equipped to handlethe most value-added activities. These experts no longer waste their valuable time resetting passwords, addressing billing concerns instead of doing what they were hired on to do – be experts.

You were hired in as Director of Member Relations or Member Engagement Coordinator. By following leaders from other industries in your own member-engagement systems, you’ll not only find more valuable time available to your internal teams, but will also discover new ways of turning fixed costs into variable ones and driving new revenue. You could turn the tables as an innovator in the associations industry.

There are many great partners who can assist in handling inbound/outbound phone calls, social media concerns, or even email inquiries. By using a partner to co-source your level-1 member engagement, you can optimize your membership experts’ time and energy.

Drive revenue from seasonal fluctuation

Customer service at a tech company requires being a thoughtful planner and an execution specialist in order to handle planned and unplanned spikes in call volume due to holidays, server issues, or acts of God (the East Coast recentlymissed countless customer-engagement opportunities due to inclement weather shutting down the customer service and tech support operations).

In the same way that tech and E-Commerce companies build in redundancy to handle these seasonal fluctuations around major holidays, annual software license/subscription renewals, and unpredictable external circumstances, associations should be planning ahead for predictable and unpredictable seasonal changes in member engagement demands:

• Contacting previous conference/expo attendees to drive event attendance/sponsorship
• Responding to time-sensitive pre-conference email inquiries
• Making anniversary-based calls every month to expiring members to drive retention
• Fielding weekend/after-hours emails and calls (especially if the office is closed unexpectedly)

By building in member engagement redundancy, you guarantee that your members can reach a live membership specialist when they need one, and that you don’t miss out on critical member touchpoints throughout the year.

Lead generation is expensive and time-consuming…

I recently found this quote that compared marketing cut-backs to stop a clock – budgeting for Marketing costs more money, but not budgeting for it costs even more.

Many companies are finding new, affordable ways to keep lead generation and prospecting initiatives happening year-round without breaking the bank.

Associations need to seriously examine their member prospecting initiatives. By not taking the time and, yes, spending the money to mine for new members, you end up costing the organization potential revenue by missing out on the dues and non-dues contributions made throughout the member lifecycle. Again, however, consider how you’re using your internal experts’ time.

Co-sourcing your recruitment/prospecting is a good way to mine your database of non-member contacts for potential new members. Then, follow up on warm leads internally and close the deal!