Two major reasons why members join professional associations include being part of a community of like-minded individuals in their industry and accessing opportunities to develop their skills in the field. Your association can effectively fulfill both purposes by developing a strong member engagement strategy.
An engaged membership base is more likely to feel satisfied with their association experience and stay involved long-term. In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about association member engagement, including:
Before we dive into our favorite ways to engage members, let’s begin by covering what member engagement means and why it matters for your association.
Member engagement encompasses all of your association’s efforts to encourage active member participation and contributions. When members are effectively engaged, they feel connected to your association and get the sense that their membership is a worthwhile investment.
Your strategy should be tailored to your association and its members. Different members may want to be involved with your organization in different ways and at different levels, and adapting to their preferences will lead to greater satisfaction overall.
For example, some associations cover larger geographical areas than others, and some cater to industries where professionals tend to spend most of their working time working hands-on in the field rather than sitting at a desk. Consider these factors when developing your engagement strategy—more spread-out, on-the-go members will benefit most from a mobile-first approach, while close-knit, sedentary communities may enjoy a combination of engagement methods.
Simply put, members gain more value from their membership if they take advantage of the opportunities your organization offers, and they can grow personally and professionally by building new connections and advancing their careers.
However, an engaged membership also provides several advantages to your association, helping you:
To fully experience these benefits, your association needs to create a concrete plan for member engagement. Set relevant goals that matter to your organization, such as ideal renewal numbers, participation in specific initiatives, or satisfaction ratings. Then, use these objectives as a guide to develop strategies that will help you achieve your definition of success.
Member engagement activities can take many forms, including:
Remember that your member engagement opportunities should align with your members’ unique interests, goals, and lifestyles. This might mean getting more creative with your approach or omitting strategies that don’t resonate.
The metrics you use to track engagement levels will depend on your goals and channels. For example, if members primarily engage through a mobile app, tracking data like app downloads, portal logins, and time spent on the app will help you measure engagement.
Some common key performance indicators (KPIs) associated with member engagement include:
Before launching new engagement strategies, make sure your association management tech stack is configured to collect relevant data. Reference your association management software (AMS) to track information like renewal rates and financial data, as well as your event management and member engagement solutions. Your website and social media accounts also provide insight into how members interact with those digital platforms.
To gather feedback and qualitative data, encourage members to complete surveys. This can identify both strong parts of your strategy and opportunities for improvement, helping you fine-tune your approach.
Now that you have the basics down, here are a few of our favorite member engagement strategies for professional and trade associations. As you browse the list, consider your audience and bandwidth, and keep in mind that you may need to invest in new tools to get some of these ideas off the ground.
Segmentation is one of the best ways to get to know your members and learn what they want out of their association experience so you can tailor your engagement approach. This process involves grouping members based on shared characteristics, such as:
Track which segments each member belongs to in your constituent relationship management (CRM) solution or association management software (AMS). This way, you can send targeted communications and recommend opportunities for involvement to the groups of members who are most likely to respond positively to them.
New members are among the most important segments to include in your engagement strategy. After all, you want to make a positive first impression and introduce them to everything your association has to offer!
Here are a few ways to welcome new members into your organization:
Remember to also add new members to your online community and encourage them to visit your digital portal or download your app so they can take control of their membership experience and interact with other members anytime and anywhere.
For many associations, conferences are the bread and butter of member engagement. While these events provide essential revenue for your organization and quality professional development for members, you should consider them strategically along with the rest of your engagement plan. Think about how to:
Along with annual or semiannual conferences, you might also host smaller in-person and virtual events to keep members engaged throughout the year, such as local networking socials, webinars, and panel discussions. If you open any of these events to non-members, make a plan to promote your association to them and encourage them to join.
Gamification is the process of incorporating elements of gameplay, such as point systems and rewards, into non-game scenarios. This can turn small engagement behaviors into rewarding habits. For instance, you might assign specific point values to certain actions (e.g., registering for an event or leaving a comment on a blog post). Encourage participation with:
To test out this strategy, consider gamifying one of your events by assigning point values to actions like filling out a post-session survey or asking speakers a question during the Q&A portion. Then, evaluate what percentage of members participated, and survey them to see how they felt about the “game.”
Although events provide great networking opportunities, your members have a lot to learn from each other and may want to find new professional opportunities throughout the entire year. So, your association should also provide digital spaces where members can converse at any time.
Online forums are particularly useful for this, as they allow members to share advice, questions, and industry knowledge in group settings where many others can benefit from their input. Also, make it easy for members to contact each other directly by including their emails in a public directory or leveraging a mobile app with one-to-one messaging capabilities.
Events also aren’t the only way for association members to grow professionally—and for some members who learn better when they work independently, they may not be the best way. To cater to different preferences, create a resource library where members can find downloadable eBooks, worksheets, videos, articles, and other materials to help them learn independently. Also, a learning management system (LMS) can help you create courses for members to work through systematically.
Many industries require professionals to complete some form of continuing education to maintain their licensure, and members may also want to earn certifications that they can include on their resumes. Clearly explain which of your professional development opportunities count toward these requirements and which ones are just for members’ edification so everyone is on the same page about how and why to use each resource.
Many associations establish small committees or special interest groups (SIGs) where members with a shared interest can come together to discuss that topic or share relevant advice. Segmentation can help you identify and target these members, but forming dedicated groups allows them to find each other.
Once you’ve identified a group of members with a common niche or specialized interest, give them a space to converse about:
These leadership opportunities can also create a pipeline of future board members, ensuring your association is in safe hands in the future.
Your staff work their hardest to make sure your association operates smoothly and provides the best possible member experience. However, they only have so much bandwidth to complete all of the required daily tasks at your organization.
To offset some of this work, consider creating a volunteer program for your association where members can contribute their time to take some responsibilities off your team’s plate. For example, you could recruit some volunteers leading up to your annual conference to help you assemble attendee packets and set up the venue so staff members can focus on higher-level planning tasks.
You might also partner with nonprofits to provide volunteer opportunities, especially if your partner organization’s services align with members’ professional expertise. For example, members of an association of athletic coaches might enjoy putting their skills toward a good cause by volunteering with a nonprofit that runs sports programs for children in underserved communities.
Whichever route you choose, association volunteering takes the value of your memberships to the next level by allowing members to make a difference in their communities.
While part of your job as an association is to promote professional development with offerings like continuing education courses, you should also help members advance their careers. Help them get hired for their dream job or earn their next promotion by creating an interactive career center and job board.
Your career center might offer services like resume reviews and mock interviews at free or discounted rates. Leverage your professional network to stay aware of job openings, and send members job alerts for relevant titles or regions. An interactive job board can help both employers and job seekers who are members of your association find the talent or role they’re looking for.
Naturally, members will only know about your events, networking opportunities, volunteer programs, educational resources, and other offerings if you communicate with them regularly. Leverage multiple platforms to create more touchpoints with members and learn about their communication preferences by tracking relevant metrics.
Here is a quick overview of some common digital communication methods to help you get started:
You might be thinking, “If email is a tried-and-true way to reach individual supporters, why should I leverage mobile messaging?” About 50% of contemporary association members have said they feel like they get too many emails from their associations, and this number keeps increasing from year to year. This finding, combined with the fact that the average American spends 5 hours and 16 minutes per day on their phone, means you’ll likely engage members more effectively if you turn shorter emails into texts or app notifications.
Alongside their desire to feel like part of a community, association members want to know that your organization sees and cares about them. Personalization is critical for demonstrating that your association values its members as individuals, not just sources of revenue. Some of the best ways to personalize member experiences include:
Additionally, if you have a mobile app or member portal, consider adding a news feed feature where supporters can input preferences and receive updates based on their set criteria and past activity so they’re always in the loop about offerings that interest them.
In addition to personalization, regularly expressing gratitude to members is one of the best ways to demonstrate you value them (and ultimately retain them!). A few popular association member appreciation ideas include:
Some members might enjoy public recognition through awards or social media, while others may prefer being appreciated in private. Always get consent before shouting members out publicly and respect their wishes if they’d rather not be recognized in front of your whole association.
A referral program works by providing some kind of incentive to motivate existing members to recruit new members. These incentives typically include:
To get started, you’ll need to define the rules and incentives for the programs. For instance, you might stipulate that members have to successfully refer three new members to be eligible for a 25% discount on dues for the next year. Then, promote the program, targeting segments that are most likely to engage—for example, those who have indicated they are highly likely to recommend your association on surveys or new members with fresh excitement.
Requesting member feedback serves multiple engagement-related purposes. Not only does it encourage members to get more involved by making their voices heard, but it also helps you improve on your other engagement efforts over time.
Establish a regular cadence (annually, quarterly, etc.) for sending out surveys to your members—the fewer members you have, the more often you can ask for feedback, since data analysis will be less complex. Ask about both general and specific topics related to membership, and include a mix of multiple-choice (e.g., “How would you rate your overall membership experience on a scale of 1-10?”) and open-ended questions (e.g.,“If you could change one thing about our annual conference, what would it be and why?”).
Additionally, encourage members to leave honest reviews of your association on its website and third-party platforms like Yelp and Google Reviews so you can collect qualitative, informal feedback between surveys. If you accept and respond graciously to both positive and negative reviews, members and non-members alike will see that you take their input seriously.
As you’ve likely realized from reading through our top strategies, today’s associations need to navigate member engagement not just in a digital-first world, but a mobile-first one. Especially for trade associations whose members are often on the go, investing in a mobile app is essential to maximize your organization’s potential for member engagement. And if you’re ready to get started with one of these tools, look no further than Clowder!
Clowder provides everything you need to create a custom mobile app for your association on both iOS and Android. Here are just a few characteristics that set our platform apart as the #1 engagement solution for professional communities:
Think of Clowder as a private social network for your association. You can keep members updated with the content they want to see, and they can respond to you and discuss important topics with each other. But don’t just take our word for it—check out what real customers have to say about how Clowder has helped them engage members in new ways and create thriving communities through their trade associations!
Member engagement is critical for your association to thrive, both financially and in terms of fulfilling its mission. Use the ideas and tips above to get started, and invest in solutions that will help you maximize your efforts—for mobile engagement, Clowder is your best bet!
For more information on association member engagement—particularly in a mobile-first age—check out these resources: