Welcome to another week of Wednesday Roundup! Last Wednesday we introduced Wednesday Roundup as a new blog theme. Every week we’ll be sharing and posting the most relevant, trending articles in the association industry. This month’s focus is growing your membership. If you missed the first one, you can find it here.
If your association uses social media as a growth strategy, you may be interested in these compelling points by Frank J Kenny, a chamber/membership analyst. Check em out below.
Share the Spotlight
“..Use your social media reach to talk about and promote your members, community, or industry. Put the spotlight on others.”
Though you may want to share everything your association has to offer, no one likes to read a post that’s only about you. Make sure your information is benefits-focused and member first. Think about your social media platform as another medium for marketing. To learn more about creating a member-focused strategy, check out this post >> Member First Marketing: Building a Marketing Strategy that Puts Members First
Educate and Engage
“When you come across a conversation [on social media] that your association has an interest in, participate. Contribute… bring value to the conversation. Share free research… [to]…provide clarity.”
Participate in the conversation that’s going on around you. Not only will your interest show that you care about happenings in the industry but that you also want to help people be better professionals and offer real solutions to their problem. Don’t use this time to make a sales pitch, though; most people can see right through that tactic and it could end up hurting you.
Flyte New Media, a digital / marketing agency, wrote an interesting piece on the importance of attending conferences for growing your membership. Not only for learning and networking but to engage in prospective members in a different way.
Offline Presence
“Social media keeps me connected to my peers who are both local and “from away.” However, there’s no substitution for meeting someone IRL (in real life).”
An online engagement strategy is an important component to growing your membership; however, a strategy that may be even more compelling is how your association operates offline. Attending a prospective members event takes time but that extra effort could put you ahead of the game. Sharing an interaction face to face is much more memorable than a Facebook like or LinkedIn comment and could end up converting that prospect to a paying member.
Image Credit: Flyte New Media
In the film, Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams encourages his students to engage with their world from a different perspective, in this case, standing on their desks rather than sitting in them. If you do most of you membership growth from your office chair, it may be time to change your perspective.
Change Your Perspective
“Breaking out of the office, sitting in a new space (even if it’s a tired old Holiday Inn conference room), can spark us to new approaches that will grow our businesses.”
I don’t know about you but I jump at the chance to get out of the office. If I’m glued to my desk, I loose focus and inspiration. However, I know some professionals prefer the comfort of their space and have enough mental grit to achieve tasks that take place online. Even if you’re the latter type of person, it’s important to get out and engage. If your membership growth is at a lull, or worse, declining, do some research into what’s happening with your prospective members. Do they have upcoming events? Will they be speaking at a conference? Make a point to be there and chat with them.
What to do with new members
Now that you’ve successfully engaged with prospects and maybe even converted them to paying members, what do you do with that data? If you’re still copy-pasting in Excel, it’s probably time to consider purchasing an AMS system. Download our free checklist below to see exactly what to carry over to your new system and check out our recent post on choosing the perfect AMS for your group here.
