Low engagement from your members can plummet your association’s retention rates, but renewed attention to your communications strategy is a key way to combat member churn. Effective communication practices demonstrate your organization’s value so you can retain members year after year.
By planning out communications, employing mobile technology, delivering value, and implementing data findings, your association will thrive. Let’s walk through four best practices for association member communications to help you begin revamping your strategy.
1. Create a Communications Calendar
The old saying “it’s all in the timing,” rings true for communications. Infrequent messages can leave your members wondering what’s going on or even cause them to forget that they joined your association in the first place. On the flip side, you don’t want to overwhelm your members with too much irrelevant information.
The best way to strike the balance of communication timing is to plan out your messages in advance. Scheduling intentional touchpoints allows you the freedom for more personalized messaging and you can make better decisions about ad hoc communication if you already know what emails, social media posts, and mobile messages will be issued over the next month.
To build year-round member engagement for your association, plan out an annual communication calendar, accounting for:
- Event registration announcements and advertising
- New feature launches on your member app or new available courses in your learning management system (LMS)
- Non-dues revenue opportunities in your communication content, like sponsorship banners or discount codes
- Member spotlights to highlight award winners or significant membership anniversaries
Whether you’re managing a local chapter or association communications on a state or national level, it’s important to coordinate between messages issued across all levels and departments. Integrated communications present a cohesive brand to your members and minimize confusion.
Alongside an annual calendar, map touchpoints for stages of the membership lifecycle. Key events to mark include:
- New memberships. Sharing a welcome message and selection of initial resources shows your appreciation for a new member and validates their commitment.
- Engagement opportunities. Tailor specific invitations for new members to join your mentoring program, attend a local chapter meeting, serve in a leadership role, or other activities that encourage further engagement with your association, depending on your organization and the interests of the member.
- Renewals. With consistent communication and invitations to engage throughout the year, renewing membership will be an easy “Yes!” for your members. It’s still important to schedule reminders in the months leading up to their renewal date and include messaging that helps members recall the value they’ve received so far from membership.
A communications calendar is a foundation for strategic decision-making, setting your team up to better plan segmentation and which channels will resonate with your members.
2. Invest in a Mobile App for Associations
A solid communications strategy employs multiple marketing channels to reach your audience, like email, direct mail, and social media. However, because your messages can get lost in the shuffle with all of the other accounts and senders in those channels, introducing a dedicated app for your association completes your multi-channel strategy.
An app that’s purpose-built for your association serves as an information hub, with updates at member’s fingers and the capability to target push notifications and customize members’ newsfeeds based on segmentation.
A few other benefits of leaning into mobile communications include:
- Leveraging push notifications: Cut through the noise of other channels by delivering clear, personalized updates to your members via push notifications. Even though some members may turn off this feature, if you have timely information to share with members, this is a good avenue to get the message out quickly and effectively.
- Building stronger communities: With one-to-one messaging features and member forums accessible directly from their smartphones, your members will be more connected than ever.
- Integrating conference and event management: Instead of forcing members to adopt a new app or keep track of conference sessions with a lengthy document, having all conference and event information already available in your association’s existing app smooths out the process for members and your team.
With members’ permission, you’ll also be able to collect and analyze app usage data. This information should inform your segmentation and engagement approaches as you continue to tailor communications to resonate with your members.
3. Prioritize Value-Add Messaging
Your association is a hub for professional development resources and industry information, so you should make sure that’s incorporated into your communications strategy! Here are a few ideas for value-add messaging:
- LMS enrollment. If members haven’t accessed your online learning platform or enrolled in a course, raise awareness of the great courses on your LMS. Make sure to highlight the benefits each course provides, whether that’s a professional certification, licensure credits, or deeper insights into a hot-button industry topic. You can even pull takeaways from within a course for marketing copy, demonstrating what members will receive when they take the course.
- Feedback surveys. Giving members the opportunity to share their experience with your team allows you to identify what’s working well and where you may need to adjust your approach, either to communications or to member engagement as a whole. It also shows your members that their voice matters, which can boost retention.
- Legislative updates. Keeping members informed of legal changes in your industry is one of the most valuable assets of association membership. Leverage app push notifications to get this information out to members and prompt them to take next steps as appropriate.
4. Leverage Data Insights for Improvement
When setting goals for your communications strategy, determine up front how you’ll measure success and what your KPIs will be. Additionally, clarifying what success looks like for your communications strategy allows you to collect helpful data along the way.
Data points to consider are:
- Member’s app usage
- Email open rates and CTR data
- Qualitative metrics from feedback surveys
- Social media post metrics (likes, comments, shares)
By integrating your communications tech stack with your member engagement platform, you can minimize data silos and automatically pull data reports within the software.
Check in with data findings frequently, and establish triggers so you know when to adjust your strategy. Pay attention to changes in data over time, particularly related to member renewal, so your association can provide the best experience possible for your members.
Don’t lose members to the confusion of hastily-thrown-together emails or updates that aren’t relevant to why they joined your association originally. Review your association’s communication strategy to evaluate your communication frequency, relevant channels, and valuable messages so you can make data-informed decisions going forward. With these best practices, you (and your members) will be well set up for success.
