Member engagement is essential to a thriving association. When members feel connected to your association and can conveniently access professional development opportunities, they’re more likely to view their membership as worthwhile and renew year after year. And in the digital age, having the right tools for engaging members is more critical than ever.
If you aren’t sure where to begin looking for member engagement software, you’ve come to the right place! This guide will cover everything you need to know about these platforms, including:
Especially if your association members skew younger or spend most of their workdays on the go, consider investing in software with mobile engagement capabilities that can become part of their daily routines. More than 60% of global internet traffic comes from smartphones, and 91% of Americans own one of these devices, which underscores the reality that your organization exists in a mobile-first world as well as a digital-first one. That being said, let’s get started!
Member engagement software refers to digital solutions designed for associations to connect with members and encourage involvement. It typically centralizes various engagement tasks, from sharing resources to sending messages, in a single platform to streamline workflows and allow for easier collaboration.
As we previously referenced, many member engagement solutions are desktop-based, while others take a mobile-first approach to connect spread-out, active communities. Whichever type of software you choose, member engagement platforms can empower your organization to provide value and operate efficiently.
In its broadest sense, the term “member engagement software” can refer to any platform in your association’s tech stack that impacts the member experience. A few examples include:
Examples of association technology that don’t fall under the member engagement software umbrella include project management systems, accounting platforms, payment gateways, and other tools that primarily serve internal operational functions.
For the purposes of this guide, we’ll mostly focus on community engagement solutions because they’re the most dedicated to member engagement. However, you should keep in mind that the other solutions mentioned above are important to your strategy and integrate your community engagement platform with them if possible (more on this later!).
When you invest in the right member engagement software for your needs, your association can experience many advantages, such as:
All of these benefits improve the member experience at your association while also streamlining your team’s workflows, making it worthwhile to adopt an engagement platform regardless of whether your top priorities are internal or external.
Naturally, some member engagement platforms will be more beneficial for your association than others based on how they’re designed and what your organization specifically needs. To help you start creating lists of must-have and nice-to-have capabilities, let’s walk through some common features of member engagement software. As you evaluate different options, you can use the checklist below to make sure the platforms you’re considering have everything your association needs to succeed.
As soon as a new member joins your organization, your member engagement solution should automatically create an individual profile for them. Make sure this profile contains all of the key information you need to know about that person, such as their:
All of your profiles should comprise a searchable directory within your member engagement software. This allows you to easily find members you want to communicate with about specific initiatives. It’s also helpful to have a member-facing directory with revised profiles (other members may not need to know as much about data points like membership tiers and engagement history as your staff do, but they might want to see the awards members have won, for instance) to facilitate networking and help members get to know each other.
Your members likely want to stay up-to-date on the latest happenings at your association and in their field as a whole. Member engagement software that includes a news feed helps your association fulfill this need by delivering real-time updates to members wherever they may be. It’s especially useful if members can select the topics they want to follow in their feed, whether they’re looking for news on a specific area of their industry or tracking down new job opportunities.
Additionally, ensure your member engagement solution allows members to easily access a variety of evergreen professional development resources. Different people learn best in different ways—for instance, some members might enjoy guided online courses, while others prefer to read articles or watch one-off videos—so look for an engagement tool with a robust resource library and multimedia hosting capabilities.
Communication fuels member engagement, so your member engagement software should facilitate several kinds of messaging, such as:
If you’re using a mobile app to manage member communications, strategic push notifications can increase engagement with all types of messages. Even though some members may turn off notifications, those who keep them on will be more likely to spend time on your app if a banner with “1 New Reply to Your Forum Post” or “Registration Is Now Open for Our Annual Conference!” appears on their smartphone screen.
Events are a significant undertaking for your association, whether you’re organizing a multi-day conference, a one-off panel discussion, or a volunteer outing through a nonprofit partner. While you’ll likely use your AMS to do most of the heavy lifting for events, other member-facing engagement platforms can help with several aspects of planning and management, such as:
Generally speaking, your community engagement platform should handle attendee-facing aspects of event management, while your AMS is better suited for higher-level internal tasks like organizing programming and tracking payments.
Association sponsorships are a win-win-win situation: your organization gets additional funding for events and initiatives, your sponsors increase their brand visibility, and your members get to learn about new products that may be useful to them. But when your association has lots of sponsors, tracking your relationships with them can be tricky, which is where engagement software with sponsorship management capabilities comes in.
In addition to centralizing sponsorship agreements and communications, member engagement platforms (especially mobile apps) can help you and your sponsors generate even more revenue through advertising. Targeted ads are a valuable add-on to your sponsorship agreements since they provide sponsors with direct monetary gain as well as greater brand awareness.
You’ll only be able to improve your member engagement approach over time if you effectively track and analyze data that shows you what is going well and what could still use some work. Ensure your software includes a dashboard or other tool that makes it easy to visualize and evaluate key engagement metrics like:
Whenever you analyze member data, remember to follow all applicable legal and ethical guidelines and take proper security precautions with your member engagement systems. This way, your members can trust that you’ll safeguard any sensitive information they share with you.
As mentioned previously, a community engagement platform is just one piece of a complete association tech stack. To allow for easier data transfer and collaboration between solutions, integrate or connect your primary member engagement solution with other essential tools your organization uses, including your AMS or CRM, payment gateway, and website builder.
Additionally, even if some of your engagement platforms don’t connect directly to each other, you can still develop an integrated strategy for leveraging these tools. For example, you might notify members about opportunities that use your application and review solution (award nominations, abstract submissions for conferences, etc.) using your primary engagement software’s messaging tools. Or, you might include links to online courses you built with your LMS in your resource library.
Now that you know what features the best member engagement solutions include, you’re probably starting to consider which specific platform(s) you want to use. Let’s dive into a few of the top options on the market today.
When it comes to mobile-first engagement solutions designed for trade associations and on-the-go communities, look no further than Clowder! Clowder allows you to build a fully customizable app for your association that your members can download on their iOS or Android devices. In addition to this flexibility, a few aspects of this platform that make it the #1 engagement solution for professional communities include:
Think of Clowder as a private social network for your association, bringing your members together virtually to deepen their connections with your organization and each other. But don’t just take our word for it—check out client success stories from real associations across various industries (from commercial real estate to baseball coaching) to see the platform in action!
If you’re looking to round out your association’s tech stack, here are a few additional options we recommend across the different categories of member engagement software:
Member engagement software fuels your association’s success, especially in an era where digital and mobile activity reigns supreme. Use our guidance to start thinking about the right software for your organization, and make sure to add Clowder to your list if you’re looking for a highly customizable app-based platform!
For more information on engaging your association’s members, check out these resources: