This week’s edition of Wednesday Roundup focuses on growing your membership through evaluating the type of member benefits/resources you offer and how you present them.
To start, let’s think about why individuals joined your association in the first place. Was it for career opportunities? Meeting new people? Networking with like-minded professionals? Important content? Whatever strategy converted them is one you should consistently revise. Keep it fresh and new. See how other associations are succeeding. What can you do to mimic their success? Consider your target market and what they’re looking for. Does their age or status affect your offerings? Does their profession change how you share resources or benefits?
Let’s break it down below.
Benefits Focused Language
The American Student Dental Association (ASDA) is an association for dental students. Their target market is students, ages 20-28. Take a lesson from their website. If you look below, one of the first items in their navigation menu is “Get Into Dental School”. A clear cut path students need to take to get in.
Credit: The ASDA Website
For a pre-dent student, if that’s not reason enough to join then I don’t know what is. If you click into that page, the resources are endless. From crafting your personal statement, paying for school to connecting with local dentists, it’s all there. The benefits and opportunities members receive are clear and present.
Take a look at your own website – is the content highlighting all the specific member benefits like this? Put yourself in a prospect shoes. What would you initially notice on your site? Is the content what they were looking for? If they can’t clearly see and understand what you offer in the first minute, it may be time to rewrite your content or reformat the page.
Visible Resources
Many associations also offer special resources to members. This perk is almost expected by most prospective members now. Take the Minnesota Medical Association. Their resources and tools are abundant on the homepage.
Credit: The WWA Website
Summaries of recent industry news updates, a newsletter, quick links to find other important info and an active Twitter feed with frequent updates. While this amount of resources could be overwhelming, MMA does a great job at laying it out in an easy to digest format.
Member Only Apps
It’s likely you’re already highlighting the great resources available to members on your website. So is everyone else. So how can you make your association stand out? The American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery does this by showcasing their new member app on their website,
Credit: The ASCRS Website
Now members can access important documents right from their phone. ASCRS knows their members are busy physicians. What better way to stay in front of them than by having a presence on their phone, an item they probably have at all times.
If you’re struggling to develop consistent resources to share with your members, take a step back and reevaluate. What are members looking for? Can you repurpose an old resource? It’s all comes down to how you can help them solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity.
