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Erik Schonher, MBAVice President
Marketing General Incorporated
Membership Engagement:Ideas that Work!
Today…
• Offer a new paradigm• Define what is “Engagement” • Look at its role in an association• Discuss the flaws in the typical approach• Present some new ideas on tactics and
strategies
From the Association’s Perspective, Member Engagement is Important
Individual Trade CombinationTop reason for not renewing: 28% 40% 35%C-Suite ranks engagement
as very important: 44% 53% 48%
It…• Promotes your association’s culture• It allows for individual’s to integrate into the association• It fulfills the primary function of most associations:• Transmission of knowledge• Information dissemination
But from the Member’s Perspective, it’s about…
4Delivering Value
Up until recently, Engagement Programs targeted the general
membership and the evaluation of their effectiveness was pretty
straight forward.
Build it and they will come…
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• Governance• Annual Convention• Discipline-specific
divisions• Leadership
Conferences• Magazines &
Journals• Grants & Prizes
• Webinars• Other Digital
Content• Email• Member Directory• Online Advocacy• Government
relations
Features of the “Typical” Member Engagement Toolbox
Working DefinitionIt is the emotional fabric that drives
an association’s success.
Engagement = Relationship + Action
But let’s face it, these programs fall far short of creating the “emotional bond”
that we’re looking for and discuss in our working definition.
In truth, our job is better described as…
Social Scientist
Schonher’s 80/20 Rule“80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. I can change how you think, but how you feel is something deeper and stronger, and it's something that's inside you.”
- Dr. Frank Luntz, PBS Interview
Emotion; 80
Intellect; 20
• Stand out from the crowd- Project a unique social identity
• Feel a sense of belonging- Feel like part of the group
• Be the person I want to be -Fulfill a desire for ongoing self-improvement
• Succeed in life-Find worth that goes beyond financial or socio-economic measures
What does a member WANT?
We Need Others
Plato’s The Symposium When in doubt, “Mimic”
The Mirror NueronGroup-think
It’s NOT what you say, but what people hear.
It’s NOT what you show, but what
people perceive.
It’s what people UNDERSTAND.
So you may be asking…
What does this mean to me?
Control what you can control
• Use testimonials• Personalize• It’s easier to influence smaller groups• Use ALL of the channels available• Be consistent in your message• Be persistent in your messaging• Ask for a response
Communications and Message Refinement
Effective marketing communication is moving away from “mass marketing” tactics and moving towards
more intimacy.
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One-to-One Engagement
Shift in PerspectiveMove from Members being Dependent UPON US…
…To Partnering WITH US!
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Learn More About Our Members
Domestic or Global
Data Modeling• Outline Membership Path
• Identify Members at Risk
• Develop “Persona’s”• Snapshot/summary• What makes her tick• Motivations and challenges• What’s important to her?• What would she like to change about the dental profession?• How to engage • Media consumption• Value proposition and key messages
Always tie recruitment efforts to a specific membership benefit that they can access for free immediately…so they can experience a great benefit that will compel them to join.
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Early engagement is especially critical for retaining first-year members. Need to reinforce the value of joining in the first year.
Set up an automated email campaign to send weekly then monthly introducing new member benefits and engagement opportunities depending on how they entered the org and/or topics relevant to their job titles.
Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report
When one of our retention efforts got held up, as an emergency fallback, we sent emails letting members know that their memberships were about to expire 10 days prior to expiration and again at 5 days prior to expiration. This worked so well, it quickly became a part of our retention communications strategy.
Practical Advice from the 2015 & 2016 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report
Sell benefits before features, getting to the heart of why someone joins or what they are looking for in their membership.
Targeting content to specific groups within the membership to ensure only relevant material is surfaced to a particular group. We experienced cut-through issues with juniors. We created dedicated content just for our first year juniors, very specific to their career stage. This had better traction than previous general marketing materials and supported by brand ambassadors had good traction.
We have a 2 for 1 special in one of our slowest months for membership, if an existing member brings a new person who joins they both get to join at half price. It's been successful and the long term value of the new members makes this very worthwhile.
Retention, email open rates, member satisfaction surveys, involvement with volunteer opportunities, meeting attendance
We have developed an engagement score that is computed monthly. It is simple, concentrating on the key areas where we want members to be engaged. We use the scores to thank our most engaged and to contact our least engaged to hopefully get them more engaged.
A basket of indicators which designates a members at 3 levels: not engaged, engaged very engaged. / / A engaged members would sign-up to emails, respond to surveys, log on to website etc / A very engaged member would vote and stand for election, spend a certain amount of money, attend events etc /
We have radically increased our direct/phone/support communication with every member. The personalized coaching services set our company apart from our competition. It is a highly personalized boutique approach. We've also duplicated our model for doctors and extended it to staff members who now engage in their own wisdom share groups and utilize benchmarks. Membership has extended from one owner to several key team members.
We offered lapsed members the most recent digital copy of our journal for free to show them what they had missed since they hadn't renewed.
Telemarketing to lapsed members is expensive but good ROI overall. We've created a position whose full function is member engagement. He/she will make calls/outreach to new, lapsed, and graduating members.
For unengaged members, we have found that if a member calls them and invites them to attend an event as their guest, versus free, the accept the invitation and attend. They are introduced to other peers and recognize the value of the network and get more engaged.
This year we began letting employers know their renewal rates (no names of course, only numbers). Employers work hard to encourage certification, and want to keep them certified. They are in a position to remind employees to recertify and of the employer-offered benefits to recertify.
Creation of multiple committees grouped around subset of membership, either geographically or sector-focus. Increased participation on these committees from 10% to 50% of membership, and among those who participate, renewal rates are nearly 100%.
We use short descriptors for FB articles, 75% of all content targeted at the most likely FB audience with are the 25 - 35 year olds, juniors and students. This seems to garner greater traction. / Our more established audience tend to favor Twitter so we keep that content as more of a broadcasting channel and FB as more of an engagement tool.
We live-tweet participation in industry events (not our own events -- events we attend) -- this brings us new followers, higher social media engagement, and often new members.
Geotargeting special interest audiences through FB has been instrumental in driving traffic to our website. Content marketing with our president's blog drives the highest audience participation to our website, which we market through FB. Next up is a more organized approach to our YouTube channel, utilizing HubSpot to calendar content in 2016. It is labor intensive and we've just secured a consultant to deliver services.
We host all of our peer-written articles through our blog. We have a high open-rate and our members seem to really like the articles for their professional development. We started this back in 2015.
New Member Onboarding1. A welcome email .2. A New Member Packet .3. An email containing a one-question survey asking which benefits
/resources the member is most interested in (sent one month after joining).4. A welcome phone call to anyone who did not respond to the one-question
survey. 5. After 3 months , a new member survey to determine which benefits and
services they found most useful so far.6. An email encouraging them to get involved by writing a blog post,
presenting a webinar, or self-nominating for a board seat (six months after joining).
At 9 months we begin the renewal process. Kim Pawlak
Director of Publishing & OperationsText and Academic Authors Association
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INDIVIDUALParticipation in your public social networkParticipation in your young professional programParticipation in your private social networkAttendance of webinarsNumber of members who acquire or maintain a certification with your organizationAttendance at your professional development meetingsNumber of visits to members-only section of website
50%+ MEMBERSHIP ENGAGEMENT
TRADEParticipation in your young professional program
Participation in your public social networkParticipation in your private social network
Number of visits to members-only section of websiteAttendance at your annual conference/trade show
Attendance at your professional development meetingsAttendance of webinars
Number of members who acquire or maintain a certification with your org
Number of membership upgrades
COMBINATIONParticipation in your public social networkAttendance of webinarsParticipation in your young professional programParticipation in your private social networkNumber of visits to members-only section of websiteAttendance at your annual conference/trade showDonations to your association foundation or PAC
Control what you can control
• Use testimonials• Personalize• It’s easier to influence smaller groups• Use ALL of the channels available• Be consistent in your message• Be persistent in your messaging• Ask for a response
