Every association wants to become part of their members’ lives—not just during your three-day conference or occasional webinar, but throughout the year. When members rely on the resources and connections you provide, they will share their experience with others and renew without hesitation.
A year-round membership app helps embed your association into your members’ daily lives by conveniently delivering the content and messages they value. Like a text from a friend, push notifications pull members into your app and guide them to the news, information, connections, and education they need.
9 best practices for push notifications to your members
The Texas Restaurant Association (TRA) likens push notifications to weather alerts. Members digest them at a glance and click through for more information. Associations send out push notifications about:
- New content on a topic the member is following
- Polls asking for the member’s opinion on critical issues
- Announcements about relevant events, programs, and volunteering activities
- Job alerts
- Political action alerts
- Reminders about post-event surveys
- Renewal notices
By adopting these nine strategies, your association’s push notifications will inform and engage members, not disrupt or overwhelm them.
🎯 1. Define your goals, strategy, and metrics for push notifications
Before you start using push notifications, clarify and document what you hope to accomplish with them. Once you’re clear on your goals, craft an engagement strategy for achieving them—our advice below will help. Decide what metrics will demonstrate success.
📲 2. Encourage members to opt in to push notifications
You don’t want members to think of push notifications as spam. Before inviting them to opt in, run marketing campaigns that explain how notifications will benefit each member segment. Share these messages in:
- Newsletter and email campaigns
- New member onboarding campaigns
- Automated emails upon renewal
In these campaigns, highlight the personalization of their app experience based on their preferences, not yours.
✅ 3. Let members select the notifications they want
Even though we’re all used to push notifications, many associations are initially nervous about using them. However, they soon find out that members never complain about them. But—and this is a big “but”—if your notifications aren’t relevant, members will disable them.
Tailor notifications and app content for each member based on the demographics you track in your association management software (AMS). Only send push notifications based on their known interests and preferences.
Let members choose the notifications they want to receive. For example, they may want to receive breaking industry news alerts, like the ones they receive from media sites. Allow members to get personalized content alerts based on the topics they select or announcements about events or volunteering opportunities they’ve expressed interest in.
Occasionally remind members how to update their preferences when their interests change. For example, after a member renews, tell them how to review their preferences.
⏰ 4. Find the best time to send push notifications
Every quarter, review app data to find out when members are most likely to open and take action in response to notifications. Note any differences between member segments. Monitor behavior for another quarter before taking action or adjust the timing of notifications based on what you learn.
🔂 5. Determine the optimal frequency for notifications
Too many notifications become a nuisance and cause user fatigue. Resist the temptation to think everything is important.
Send only one notification a day and no more than three a week. This policy requires coordination among staff who have permission to send push notifications. One person should take ownership of notifications and keep everyone in line. Set up an editorial calendar to plan ahead and keep track of the notifications in your queue.
💬 6. Keep messages short
Like a text, members must be able to take in your message at a glance. Notifications must be clear calls to action. Get across your main idea in twelve words max. Link to more details in the app.
🖱️ 7. Use deep links to land members on the targeted content
Deep links go to specific content in the app, for example, an article, forum discussion, or session in a conference program. When a member clicks the push notification, you want them to land on the target content, not have to find it.
🎟️ 8. Avoid using notifications for promos
Promotions are the fastest way to test a member’s patience and tempt them to disable notifications. Limit push notifications to useful alerts and reminders. Use other marketing channels for promotions.
💽 9. Collect push notification data and feedback
Every quarter, review app data to see which types of notifications are attracting member interest and which aren’t. Analyze feedback from different member segments, such as career stage, industry role, membership tenure, and other behavioral attributes.
Push notifications should feel like a friendly, helpful text from a colleague, not an unwanted email from a pushy salesperson. Only send notifications that help members take advantage of the information, resources, and relationships offered by your association. If you want to dive deeper into successful tactics for connecting with members via your mobile app, check out our Ultimate Guide to Mobile Engagement.
