In a webinar hosted by Personify, leading industry experts explored these personas and their member journeys. Which experts you ask? 

• Wes Trochlil, President of Effective Database Management 
• Megan Woodburn, Founder and Co-CEO at Strategic Association Management 
• Nick Ruffin, President and CEO of AMR Management Services 
• Erin Sullivan, VP of Marketing at Personify  

This blog recaps the highlights. You can watch the full discussion anytime, on-demand here.  

What are member personas and why should you care?  

A persona is a fictional representation of a person built on common traits. They’re used to help understand and predict user behaviors and empathetically speak to individuals you don’t know personally. 

In the context of your members, the same use case applies. Understanding personas helps you build interactions that different individuals can relate to. Segment audiences and refine activities for each member’s journey with your association. 

Below is a graphic of the 10 different personas that make up your association. Your members can be any combination of them. People join your association for a variety of reasons and their persona is a big part of why they join.  

Example: The Advocate 

An advocate will join because they’re passionate about the association’s mission. They want involvement and to help raise awareness. They’ll engage in activities such as fundraisers and volunteer opportunities. Their need is to fulfill their purpose as true believer, which is the core of the advocate persona.  

Membership is no longer a one size fits all.

By embracing member personas, you’ll have happier members and boost engagement and retention.  

What the experts say about member personas 

How have you seen levels of engagement evolve or change in associations in recent years?  

After the dramatic changes we saw after the 2020 pandemic, member engagement has evolved. Member expectations have shifted. Technology offers opportunities to run virtual events and build disparate communities online. 

Nick Ruffin noted “the numbers we’ve seen of attendees for a virtual, annual conference is double or triple the numbers they had ever seen in person…it showed that there was this audience that was out there, that for whatever reason, just wasn’t going to come out to a conference.”  

This demonstrates that there’s a persona of members who want to take part and engage. But, maybe just not in person.  

We can give to all members, whether they prefer to engage in person or virtually. Megan Woodburn said it best, “how are we engaging the whole rather than just who has been our typical member or typical registrant at these events?”  

Should evolving engagement trends change how associations run their business and programs? If so, how?    

YES! We’ve acknowledged shifting member expectations. Wes Trochlil noted “members and customers are now saying you need to meet me on my terms and so how are you going to do that?”  

Asking your members what’s working and what isn’t is a great way to boost engagement. Host a focus group, send out surveys and listen to your members when they give feedback.  

Megan warns us to “be cautious about listening to only the loudest voices, make sure you’re doing this thoughtfully. Make sure you’re thinking about the whole rather than just solving one solution.”  

How can we better understand and serve people of all types and engagement levels in an association?  

Nick Ruftin started this off by saying “there’s 1,000 ideas of things we can do, but we can’t afford to do all of them. You could maybe afford to do 2 or 3 of them well. Using the data of what your members actually want and participate in is where you should focus your energy on, in alignment with your strategic plan, mission and vision.”   

Of course, this is easier said than done.  

Wes drove this point home discussing situations where a segment of members seems to not care. They may always be members and have high retention. But they don’t interact, participate in surveys or volunteer. These members don’t engage in the same way you anticipated, but that’s okay. They’ll consume the content they want and participate in a level that works for them. Have your team encourage the engagement of these members and try to boost that engagement. Even if a member isn’t participating now, it doesn’t mean they won’t in the future.  

The hybrid experience is something that has proven to engage all types of members. Erin Sullivan commented, “the post-pandemic member expects a hybrid experience and hybrid is expensive to put on…so you have to prioritize which events and programming make sense to provide a virtual component for, and which ones we want people to join in person.”  

Given the past few years, how are you feeling about events and conferences in 2023?  

Confidence in the events space is extremely high according to our panelists. It seems post-pandemic that people are craving in-person interaction. Megan spoke to this saying “events are back and they’re back strong. If fact we’re seeing about a 10% increase in attendance…a 60% increase in registration.”  

People belong to an association to meet with peers, network, learn and ask questions. Bringing back in-person events provides the perfect platform for all that to happen. 

Which persona(s) do you identify most with?  

Nick, being passionate but resistant to participation, identified as a combination of an advocate and curious.  

Wes felt similar to Nick and is an influencer, giver and advocate.  

Megan agreed that she is a combination of curious, advocate and influencer.  

Erin identified strongly with the connector, as one of her strengths is winning others over and bringing people together.  

All panelists felt their personas evolved over the course of their career. They identified with different personas in different career stages.  

Looking at 2023, what opportunities and challenges do you foresee for associations?  

Taking a hard look at your association is key here.  

Is your association addressing member needs? Speaking their language and offering them relevant experiences will build strong relationships. You’ll ultimately build a stronger program with better retention. 

The technology you use is critical. If you’re not evaluating it every couple of years you may be missing new opportunities.  

Want to hear more? Learn how the American Society of Nutrition used their tech stack to pivot to online meetings and events during the pandemic.  

A huge challenge our panelists identified was a possible recession. This will impact member travel budgets for events. It also speaks to agility and organizations staying nimble in the face of change. 

Looking on the bright side, Nick noted, “this could be an opportunity for associations to network and create value for members. We all survived the 2008 recession, and we have way more resources, tools and technology now.” 

Leverage your technology stack to understand your personas  

A robust association management software (AMS) will allow you to segment member data. By evaluating demographics, preferences, job titles, event attendance and content engagement, you can better understand your association personas. Once you have an understanding you can craft programs and messages that resonate.  Below are a few great technology options to help build engagement and programs for your many personas. 

Learning Management System (LMS)  

An LMS, like Classroom, engages your learning personas. You can provide opportunities to learn and gain certifications through Classroom. Bonus: this provides a good reason for employers to cover employee membership dues!  

Members who benefit most from an LMS are:   

• Researchers
• Climbers  
• Scholars   

Online Community  

An online community, like CommUnity, enables networking and community building. Members can engage and stay informed about your association’s programs. A community is a great way to connect people on specific topics or in geographic areas. You can go as big or as small as you want and let them lead the conversation.  

We’ve heard a lot of success in online communities connecting members in disparate locations – or globally. Or for onboarding young members. If your community syncs with your Association Management Software, even better. This creates more data points you can lean into to work with those personas. 

Members who benefit most from online communities are:   

• Entertainers  
• Influencers  
• Givers  
• Advocates  
• Connectors  
• Mentors

Job Board  

A job board, like Personify’s Job Board, enables members to post and search for jobs. They can also learn about volunteer and research positions. This is great for those seeking career path growth or to grow their association or business.  

Members who benefit most from a job board are:  

• Climbers  
• Advocates  
• Scholars  
• Researchers  

Event Management  

An event management tool (we have a lot of those at Personify) will help you create events members will love. Connect people virtually and face-to-face for professional development, networking, friendship and more.  

Members who benefit most from events are:  

• Influencers  
• Advocates  
• Connectors

To watch the full conversation between Megan, Nick, Wes and Erin click the link below!  

The post <strong>Webinar Recap “The New Member Journey: Emerging Member Personas for Associations” </strong>  appeared first on Personify.

It’s not that they stop caring or believe in our missions any less, it’s just that member engagement can look different at different phases of life.

But there are ways to reach out to members who have gone a little silent and re-engage lapsed members in a way that meets them where they’re at in their lives and membership journey. For example, did you know that, in a recent report, 91% of survey respondents said they are also more likely to do business with companies that appreciate their customers?

And members are more likely to return to communities that are more welcoming and inclusive.

But before we get ahead of ourselves and dive into four steps you can take to re-engage lapsed members, let’s ask ourselves the big question: Why go after members that have left?

Why Re-Engage Lapsed Members?

It’s not just nostalgia. The value of re-engaging lapsed members is well documented, and the value is quantified in the commercial sector. According to Annex Cloud:

• A 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits by 25% to 95%.
• Almost 65% of a company’s business comes from repeat customers.
• 82% of companies agree that retention is cheaper than acquisition.

Aside from impacts on the bottom line, re-engaging lapsed members represents “low-hanging fruit” for many organizations. First, he or she has demonstrated a need for your organization at some point. Second, they’re already familiar with your association and your offerings (although there’s always an opportunity to build greater awareness). Third, and perhaps most importantly, if information about the lapsed member is already in your database, your organization has an unprecedented opportunity to both target them with tailored, highly-personalized, ultimately more successful, win-back offers.

Understanding Why They Lapsed

While retention is almost always a focus, lapsed members are a normal part of the member lifecycle, faced by organizations of all types and sizes. Recapture campaigns have limited success as they focus exclusively on converting that member from canceled back to active but, without considering what went wrong and what’s going to be different, your relationship may be destined for a breakup – again.

Understanding why members have let their membership lapse is a critical component for reconciling what originally went wrong and building a strong foundation for a long-term relationship. Perhaps the value you’re delivering is no longer aligned with what they’re looking for. Perhaps they never realized the value in the first place because they weren’t engaging in programs due to lack of interest or convenience. (Are your members already struggling to balance work and family alongside a heavy calendar of in-person association events?) It could be that they just got hung up trying to renew their membership because of a bug on your website.

Take the time to understand your audience. Often your AMS will provide you with insight into not only which members have lapsed but why. This data helps you and your staff have improved visibility into the possible issues at hand, allowing you to pinpoint a specific reason driving a lapse in membership and help you quickly understand how you can make the experience better the second time around.

It can also be beneficial to compare lapsed members as a group to your membership. Other than their membership status, is there anything unique about this group? Are members more likely to lapse at a certain membership tier or in a particular geography? Do they tend to be earlier or later in their careers?

Segment out your members into those who lapsed within the past 12 to 24 months versus those who lapsed more than 24 months ago. Consider launching a campaign to help the latter group rediscover your organization and provide compelling reasons why your organization provides value in the first place.

Re-Engage Your Lapsed Members

1. Have a plan

While lapsed members may represent an easier sell because they’re already familiar with your organization, they’ve already made the decision to disengage. Creating a thoughtful, specific strategy for re-engagement, including the tactics you’ll use and the message you’re sharing is a must. Take advantage of any and all behavioral data in your AMS or constituent management and engagement tools. Review audience-level information about these members to identify which channels work best.

Still feel like you don’t have all of the information you need to create an extensive win-back plan? Consider a single-touch to lapsed members to learn what you could be doing better, remind them of your value proposition and offers a single click to get them back to your website and to get their membership current.

When conducting a win-back campaign or a single-touch email, use it as an opportunity to drive interest in the activities and programming that you have planned for the coming year. These serve as an important reminder of the value of your organization’s membership and may make the difference in whether an individual makes the choice to renew.

2. Show them the value

I can’t speak for your email, but mine is full of “We’ve missed you!” messaging from other marketers. And I’m not opening any of them. Are you?

Remember, the focus of win-back campaigns shouldn’t be only on the renewal. If you hone in on simple, binary conversion, it may deliver a short-term boost to the bottom line but it can also introduce unnecessary risk to your long-term success. Focus on what’s in it for the member. Put yourself in their shoes, using what you’ve learned about why they’ve lapsed, what they need and then showcase the value you know will bring them back into the fold.

It goes without saying that all efforts should be as personalized as possible. Whether it’s including personal details in an email (reminding them of the value they realized going to last year’s annual conference and introducing the exciting changes you’ve made to this year’s events) or giving phone calls from your leadership team, members want to feel special. Make these initiatives memorable and use them as an opportunity to show how much they mean to you. This may be your last opportunity to reengage them- make it count!

If you conduct exit or satisfaction surveys with your members, leverage the findings from your surveys in communication to lapsed members. For example, if your association now offers more professional development opportunities that provide CAE credit, lead with that messaging in the subject line of your win-back communication.

3. Offer a discount

It may be that a member’s renewal happened at a time when finances were tight, and he/she couldn’t stomach the cost of renewing. But a good deal is hard to pass up and may make them think about renewing again. Offer a discount to renew their membership or giving them a deal on event registration may entice them to take a second look.

But, remember that it’s not all about the money. Finances may be part of the reason that the member lapsed but ultimately the perceived value was not worth the association membership fee. So, it’s important to reiterate the value that you provide to members in addition to discounting their membership cost.

4. Keep it from happening again

The best way to re-engage and win back lapsed members is by ensuring they never leave. Leverage technology to be proactive. With the efforts from your pre-campaign planning in hand, apply what you’ve learned to the member data within your AMS or CRM to proactively engage members who may lapse. Take advantage of workflows and marketing automation to create an automated campaign to onboard your members or perform immediate outreach to those whose membership falls off your books. These timely strategies will give members a chance to reengage and rejoin your association.

Finally, make renewals easy. Simplify the process for members to renew their membership and limit the amount of information you are requesting from them. If you see that members start to renew their application online but don’t make it fully through the process, evaluate which steps are causing hiccups and how you can streamline.

Wrap-Up

It’s hard to be on the losing side of a break-up but there are ways to rekindle the feelings that brought these members to your organization in the first place. Ultimately, people want to join your association and stay in it when you provide services they need and enable emotional connections with others in the organization. Take the time to understand who lapsed and why, use those key learnings to develop personalized campaigns to showcase your value (and show them what they’re missing!) and re-engage them now and for the long run.

The post 4 Steps to Re-Engage Lapsed Members appeared first on Personify.

A funny thing happened earlier this summer.

In anticipation of our research on the evolution of the member experience to be more omnichannel in nature, I traveled to Washington to observe a focus group at ASAE. A variety of association executives, who work across multiple functions and from organizations of all sizes, gathered around a conference room for a conversation about the techniques and strategies they were using to drive engagement.

That’s when it started.

“We’re using print. Our members are telling us that they can’t handle more email.”

“Really? Us too!”

Here’s the thing. I receive an email to my inbox. And I keep getting messages over the course of the day and if I haven’t read it? Then it gets pushed to page two. You’re lucky if I ever see it. But if I get a magazine? That magazine will sit on my coffee table. And I might not read it today or tomorrow, but I see it and I’ll eventually pick it up.

As someone who has long been involved in using – and tracking – digital marketing, the enthusiasm for print caught me off guard, but it probably shouldn’t have. According to Marketing General’s 2019 Membership Marketing Benchmarking report, members receive an average of 4 emails per week from their association while Personify’s recently published Member Experience 2.0 report suggests that only 12% of members want to hear from their association more than once a week.

For many organizations, email fatigue is real. While print has become a slightly niche proposition in the past few years, it hasn’t gone away. A magazine or annual report offers a unique opportunity to deliver powerful, engaging and creative content. Aside from bills, members may not receive a lot of traditional mail pieces. Those that do make it to their mailbox stand out and provide a way to potentially reach and engage members in a memorable way.

While a majority of members surveyed in our research expressed a preference for receiving digital materials from their association, 45% still reported that they prefer print, especially boomers who told us they prefer print by 22 percentage points. And although a plurality of members said that email was the best way to reach them, print wasn’t the worst way – in fact, it outperformed social media, the darling of digital media, by 15 percentage points.

How Does Print Factor into an Omnichannel Strategy?

In an omnichannel experience, which Hubspot defines as “the ability to deliver a seamless and consistent experience across channels,” print offers an interesting alternative but it must be used differently. The challenge is how to leverage the power of print with other omnichannel media.

Whether you’re sending out a quarterly magazine, a direct mail postcard or a journal with new research, here are some best practices for incorporating print into your omnichannel marketing:

1. Connect Channels with QR Codes

One of the best ways to drive action through your print assets is by leveraging quick response (QR) codes on all print collateral. In the one-click it takes your member to scan the image with their smartphone, a QR can send your member directly to a specific landing page where they can find out additional information, register for an event or share information.

2. Include social media handles in all print

Although members surveyed in our research had mixed feelings on social media, it’s still worth ensuring that its part of your omnichannel mix and integrated with print to create that seamless experience. Whether it’s a direct mail piece, newsletter or a magazine ad, you should always add your social media handles so members know how to connect and further the conversation.

3. Understand the role of print media as part of the big picture

It’s no longer enough to focus on highlighting benefits when creating a magazine or printed postcard. Consider the context when developing new content and how it connects to the larger narrative that your omnichannel efforts are trying to tell about your organization. How will your print campaigns offer relevant and valuable information to get your member more engaged or closer to a specific goal?

If you’re interested in learning more about the channels members are using to engage and how to incorporate them to maximize value, check out our Member Experience 2.0 report and on-demand webinar.

The post 3 Tips for Making the Most of Print appeared first on Personify.

Whether you’re a fan of Ice Cube’s work as a solo artist, his contributions to N.W.A or are just here to learn about making technology purchases for your association, you know the importance of gaining a single source of truth…for your members, their interactions and your organization.

As a member-focused organization, your association management technology is the heart of your business. A good association management system (AMS) allows you to manage your organization’s data within a single platform, empowering your organization with the insights and tools to work smarter and focus resources on your mission, not your technology.  

With that being said, the process for evaluating and selecting the right technology can be daunting. Whether you’re replacing a homegrown legacy system or starting from scratch, building a list of requirements will be the most challenging and the most critical step of the process.

Each step in the evaluation process is important, but the step that is often rushed is the process of understanding your needs and identifying requirements.  

Understand Your Needs 

• Enlist the help of various departmental stakeholders beyond just the buying committee. Outlines the teams and departments that will be using the technology. This can and should include member services staff that are creating new member profiles and signing up people for programs, executive members who are leveraging the data to develop insights and drive forward the organization and events staff who are planning your annual conference.  Are all of these individuals represented in the committee that is compiling your needs and goals for an AMS? 
• Ensure that you have a comprehensive, thorough list of requirements before you ever begin your search. This will improve your odds of ending up with a solution that can meet the needs of your entire organization.  
• When gathering this information, evaluate the business processes that are needed as part of your association management system. This exercise creates an opportunity to reevaluate legacy business processes and areas of inefficiency.  
• Keep an open-mind and remind staff why you’re having these conversations- to acquire the right tools to save time, streamline operations and free up resources to work towards your mission. If the tools are not achieving these objectives, why are you expending your efforts to acquire them? 

Build Your Wish List of Requirements 

To get started building a list of requirements, outline the goals and objectives of each area of the business, including a wish list of what each program hopes to achieve with the new system. Examples may include:  

Membership 

• Support complex membership and event types  
• Streamline new member acquisition  
• Provide greater visibility into member needs and trends  

Technology  

• Deliver efficiencies to maximize staff time  
• Stand up reliable, secure systems that will withstand changing technologies  
• Protect member data  

Marketing 

• Integrate with best-in-class marketing tools
•  Ability to access reporting and analytics to understand what’s working and what’s not 
• Manage personalized communications across various channels  

Operations 

• Provide ROI and data to support the organization’s initiatives  
• Accommodate data intelligence, create workflows and clear audit trails to manage the organization’s finances  

Events

• Drive participation in annual events and meetings, whether it be as an attendee, sponsor or exhibitor  
• Evaluate the operational and financial status of meetings and events throughout the event lifecycle 
• Streamline key operational processes to deliver a smooth experience for event organizers, attendees, sponsors and vendors   

Once you have a clear understanding of your organization’s needs and specific criteria, you’ll be ready to take the next step of drafting a request for proposals!  

The post De-Code Your Association Management System Purchase: Understand Your Needs and Requirements appeared first on Personify.

I, sadly, was not blessed with this talent.

The good news is that being on the shy side can be overcome. It helps to be naturally curious about people and why they do what they do. Nonprofits, with their strong focus on building relationships between constituents and between their organization and the community, have this in abundance. But approaching conversations with a genuine interest builds a natural rapport that makes talking to anyone – even a complete stranger – easier.

What else helps? Being prepared.

Over the last several weeks I’ve done more talking than I have in a long time, to people I’ve never met about things in which I’m admittedly not an expert. I was curious to hear their perspective, but I also took the step of preparing with a level of depth and consistency that gave Amanda the Introvert the confidence to approach these conversations with gusto. I’ve come away from each reenergized and excited to share what I learned with others.

There’s no shortage of advice suggesting that you reach out and gather member feedback on a regular cadence. With time in short supply, nonprofits have turned to digital means to gather the information in bulk. Surveys remain a popular and important option for getting a volume of responses and a statistically significant sample to help drive smart decisions (check this blog post for tips on getting the most from member surveys).

Yet it’s one-on-one conversations and interviews that give us real insight into what constituents think. Member feedback can illuminate things we hadn’t considered, tell us what people feel is important or to help us recognize, or validate, areas ripe for improvement. Member feedback is valuable when:

• You’re looking for inspiration. Maybe you want to answer the big picture questions, revisit your brand, grow in new ways.
• You want to understand behavior. Have members who aren’t renewing? A survey will tell you some things, but a phone call may tell you more.
• You need to answer a specific question. Are you getting ready to increase dues by a certain amount? Are you adding or changing a feature on your community? Asking a yes or no question is helpful but getting the why behind the answer is often more informative.

4 Tips to Improve Your Member Feedback Efforts

Interviews create opportunities for the exchange of information, but effective interviews are about listening. Look at the interview as a research opportunity where you’re looking to learn as much as you can. While the information from an interview can drive a sale – whether it’s improving the membership process, making it easier to register for event, donate to a cause – but the primary goal of your conversations shouldn’t be measured in term of dollars and cents.

Get the most from interviews by:

1. Identifying (and documenting) your goal

What do you want to learn? If you’re working as part of a broader team, what do they want to learn?

Being crisp and specific about what you’re hoping to glean from the conversation is paramount to driving the kinds of insights you’re looking for. Starting with a goal that’s too broad, e.g. “learn about members” is setting yourself up for failure because the questions will lack focus and consistency. A clear, concise goal related to something more specific can not only direct how you conduct the interview but ensure you have consensus among stakeholders looking to benefit from your learnings.

2. Get comfortable (both of you).

Are you nervous? The chances are good that the person at the other end of the conversation may be too. Opening up to a complete stranger about things that someone may consider personal is an awkward process. People are more likely to talk honestly if they feel relaxed, trust the interviewer and are comfortable with the process.

Minimize any first date-style awkwardness by:

• Establishing some sort of contact before the interview. Reach out via video chat or phone call – at the very least and send a quick email reminding them of the time scheduled for your conversation and thanking them for their time!
• Setting expectations up front by starting the interview with a quick explanation of why you’re talking and how any information you gather will be used.
• Making sure your interview subject feels heard. Take notes, make eye contact. Acknowledge their statements with simple phrases like “That’s helpful, thank you.” This is not the time to multitask.
• Using your manners! Let anyone you’re interviewing finish their thoughts – don’t interrupt! Please and thank you also go a long way so use them often. And don’t rush. Gently slowing your speech has a calming effect that suggests you’re relaxed and have time to listen.
• Being authentic, and not faking interest. Acting can make you appear disingenuous. It is better to be yourself; don’t say something if you don’t genuinely feel it.
• Starting with easy questions that will help you get the ball rolling and build momentum in your conversation.

3. Prepare questions before the interview.

Speaking of questions, bring to your interview a list of questions you want answered as part of the member feedback exercise. Documenting your questions in advance helps you set expectations with your internal stakeholders, gives you the chance to write clearer questions than you might in the moment and ensures you don’t forget what you were looking to learn.

When writing your questions, be sure to:

• Prepare for different responses. You don’t know what you don’t know. However, anticipating answers to the best of your ability can help you prepare. What would you say if your interviewee didn’t have a response for your question? What follow-ups might you ask to get a valuable answer?
• Limit your questions to just one thing. Instead of “Do you use social media and, if so, which sites do you use?” try, “How often do you check your social media?” and then follow up with “Which sites do you use most frequently?”
• Avoid leading questions. Your interview is designed to help you learn about your constituents. Don’t frame your questions with assumptions about what they may or may not think. For example, a question like “Why did you like our 2018 annual conference so much?” suggests the constituent enjoyed the conference. Another approach would be, “Why did you attend the annual conference last year?”
• Keep it clear. Vague questions can be difficult to understand and risk confusing participants, making them uncomfortable or feeling guilty because they don’t understand what you mean.
• Prepare more questions than you have time for. Some interviewees give long answers while others respond at a rapid clip, with brief snippets of detail. Prepare for both scenarios by ensuring you have the right number of questions to deliver the same amount of information.

4. Practice

Self-proclaimed King of All Media Howard Stern once said, “In my real life, I have a hard time having a conversation with anybody.” Host of NPR’s Fresh Air Terry Gross has shared, “I try not to equate (an) interview with real life.” Although both of them sometimes struggle – in very different ways, with very different styles – with the intimacy of an interview, they’ve become the best in getting stories from their subjects the hard way: with practice.

Set yourself up for success by spending some time with your questions. While it may feel foolish, read them out loud. Daydream about the conversation and think about where it may go – where you want it to go. You’ll come away feeling more prepared and will exude a level of professionalism your constituents will appreciate.

Conclusion

Understanding member feedback is key. While big-scale efforts like surveys have their place, interviews can be a quick and easy way to compliment macro-level data with depth and qualitative insight. An approach that includes both allows you to develop an accurate, thorough sense of your constituents and leaves your organization with higher feeling of confidence with the information you collect.

The post What’s the Story? 4 Tips for Eliciting Member Feedback appeared first on Personify.

Is it just me or is 2019 flying by?

It feels like yesterday that I was rolling my eyes at Valentine’s chocolate displays because it was only January but when I went to Target over the weekend there it was, staring me in the face….the wall of graduation cards.

Graduation? Already?

It’s true. According to the National Center of Education Statistics the coming weeks will see universities and colleges across the country award close to 4 million associates, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees awarded at universities and colleges.

Many of those receiving their diploma have augmented their studies with the support of professional associations. Student membership makes a lot of sense, providing access to additional training information, news and other resources designed to help them apply what they’re learning in the classroom.  But while 87% of Millennials and Gen Z surveyed in Personify’s Young Members 2.0 study (PDF) report that it’s important to be part of an association, less than a quarter of student memberships convert to full membership, down 5% year over year. And that’s being optimistic: Marketing General’s 2018 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report (PDF) recently shared that 40% of associations report their student-to-full conversion rate is even worse, at only 10%…or less.

Helping new grads fly with a net

The needs of student members don’t stop the day they receive their diploma. Career-focused programming and content remains core to a young members’ interest in association membership, with 92% of Millennials and Gen Z identifying educational content as “very important” and 87% placing a high-value on the networking opportunities made available through membership, according to our research.

Extending the value of student membership, even if just repackaging the same – or similar – programs at a different price point, can be an easy but hugely influential way to keep new graduates involved in your organization but curating programs may not be enough. Watch our on-demand Webinar where we review:

• What young members are looking as they make the leap from student- to full-time membership
• How to create and introduce the perfect offer to support new graduates
• Tips to get the word out with collegians before they receive their diploma
• Ways to ease the financial burden and keep membership accessible
• …and much more

The post Totally GRAD-ical appeared first on Personify.

All these months of brainstorming meetings with your team have finally come to fruition. Now, it’s time to open the community to your members. You can just kick your feet up and watch the magic happen, right? Not quite.

You are still an active player in your Community and we want you to know what you can expect for the first 90 days after you launch.

You Can Expect to Start Small

Your boss has set high expectations and you want to meet them. Good motivations can set community managers on a course to focus too much on high acquisition rates and elaborate strategies than on a core group of members.

As psychologist Dr. David McMillan says in his article on the Sense of Community, “Faith comes from within the member. Acting on such faith represents a risk and requires courage since humiliation can result if the faith is not validated…In effect, when we believe that we will be welcome, that we fit or belong in a community, we have a stronger attraction to that community.”

We don’t need to mass import 50,000 users into a community and see what happens. We want to find the people who will be the most engaged in your community and focus on making their experience as a new user. How do you do that well in the beginning?

You Can Expect to Facilitate Discussions

In the early days, you will be the one to seed the majority of the content and that is normal. Imagine you are introducing three of your friends to each other for the first time. You are the one who is going to ask questions to help them connect with strangers. We want to utilize these same principles in community by facilitating productive discussions on a daily basis.

You will need to have a content calendar to build out what topics you want to present to your first community members. Make it relevant to what you think they want to talk about in the first few months. Here’s the beauty of community: you don’t have to guess. You can ask your members what they want to discuss. Be open to the possibility that your original path may not be the one you stay on for a year. How do you change course when you just began your journey?

You Can Expect to Adjust Strategies

The first few months are a critical period of observation of your members. What actions are they taking? What patterns are forming? You need to focus on your small-but-mighty group of participants and use them as the foundation. This data may show you need to change the direction of your content or implement a new approach.

For example, a study done by California State University, found that most members who join a support community are not looking for emotional support like one might assume. They are actually most interested in informational support to facilitate patient empowerment. Many online health communities form because they think their members want a dedicated space to talk in forums. They may need to change their approach to build out more robust resource libraries to provide the latest information. Observing your member’s action, listening to their feedback and being flexible with your approach will keep your members coming back to the community.

If you can set your expectations correctly, your community will see growth within those first 90 days and you, as a community manager, will gain insight into your core audience. Now, what do you do after those first 90 days are over?  If you are coming to PersoniFest, we are hosting a session, Looking Back: Lessons from the First Year of Community.

We’ll be interviewing Cynthia Nazario, who has just completed her first year of community management. We’ll talk about the pitfalls that befall some community managers and practical applications you should implement to make your community successful in year one. We hope to see you there!

The post Your New Community: What to Expect in the First 90 Days appeared first on Personify.

Last month, Personify published our Young Members 2.0 eBook and much of the report focuses on young members and their concept of value. For example:

• When asked about their experience with the association in which they’re the most active, almost half of young members, Millennials and Gen Z, responding to Personify’s recently published Young Members 2.0 report agreed that their experiences with associations have been “underwhelming.”
• Almost half of respondents in this study agree with the statement, “There isn’t a strong return on investment when it comes to participating in associations.”
• One in three respondents and two out of five Millennials agree with the statement, “I have no idea how being in association actually benefits me.”

Moreover, only 40 percent of young members report their experience is “worth the dues (I) pay to be a member.” When asked why they let their memberships lapse, young members told us, “(Associations) need to increase the value of benefits if they are increasing fees,” and, “Sometimes I need a payment plan.”

What is Affordability?

During a recent live webinar where we walked through the data with association professionals, we were asked, “What is affordability?”

It’s a great question. What is affordability? What can young members afford? How can associations work to eliminate those barriers and make membership more accessible to those Millennials and Gen Z interesting in joining?

Affordability is defined as the extent to which something is affordable, as measured by its cost relative to the amount the purchaser is able to pay. While the perception of affordability is shaped by value – the more someone sees the value in a particular good or service, the more likely they are to ensure they have the money to pay for it –young members face additional financial pressures:

• According to Statista, the median debt balance for Millennials living in the country’s 50 largest cities is $23,064. Student loans account for the highest share of America’s Millennial debt, comprising 40 percent of their total credit and loan balances.
• 45 million people across the U.S. are carrying student debt with a fifth of them owing $100,000 plus.
• Data from the Federal Reserve shows that the amount of student loans stood at $480 billion in 2006 and by 2018, the debt had mushroomed to $1.53 trillion.

Although they’re showing signs of a greater aversion to debt than their Millennial counterparts, Generation Z is earlier in their career and just entering the workforce. Entry level roles with lower wages and less influence over management purchase decisions, the burden of potential student debt and the costs associated with starting their post-college lives may leave Gen Z with less budget for discretionary spending and no funding for membership from their employer.

Aligning membership packages with the programs young members value most is paramount. Ensuring the content, networking opportunity and career support millennials and Gen Z are looking for are available is essential in establishing the perception of value necessary to getting them to commit to your organization.

However, curating programs may not be enough. Introducing additional flexibility into how young members engage and pay for their membership can create the affordability necessary to get – and keep – them on board

 Watch our on-demand Webinar now!

The post Young Members 2.0: Affordability appeared first on Personify.

About a week ago, I went to my mailbox and found in it two magazines. Both featured cover stories around the emergence of Generation Z. Then there was the post-holiday onslaught of email newsletters with articles like:

• Make way for Generation Z in the Workplace
• How Generation Z Will Impact Your Workplace
• How Generation Z Will Transform the Future Workplace

The focus and attention on generations is understandable. It’s a fascinating, ever-changing topic with broad application and a lot of appeal. We each belong to one of the groups studied and have an opportunity to talk with others about how we either align or differ from stereotypes presented.

In addition to our personal lives, as noted from the content showing up in my inbox, the potential implications of demographic shifts on the workplace are nothing short of seismic. Millennials, generally identified as those born between 1981 and 1996, are expected to represent half of the global workforce by 2020 while Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, will make up an additional 20 percent by 2021.

The last several years have seen the introduction of multiple studies designed to help nonprofits understand different generations, highlighting what makes each unique and providing guidance on how to best meet their particular needs. But we couldn’t help feeling like there was more to learn. For example:

• How do the trends we’re seeing in the nonprofit align or differ from what’s being reported in other areas of media?
• Has the behavior of Millennials changed as they’ve grown in their careers?
• Are there notable differences in the preferences of Millennials and Generation Z that nonprofits should be aware of?

We had questions and wanted answers.

While the publicly available data was helpful, Personify took the step of fielding our own original research and in December of last year asked 1,000 Millennials and Generation Z members for their perspective on a variety of topics including their lives, how they learn about organizations, make the decision to join, the best ways to engage them—and the best ways to retain them.

The good news?

Across the board, young members remain steadfast in their commitment to membership with 87 percent of those responding to our survey reporting it is important to be part of an association and more than half (51%) reporting that being part of an association is becoming more important than it used to be.

But there’s more to the story.

The complete findings are being published today in our brand-new, complimentary report, Young Members 2.0: Understanding and Benchmarking the Membership Preferences of Millennials and Generation Z.

We’ll be walking through the results in more detail in our upcoming webinar: Young Members 2.0. While the data affirmed some of the things that we believed to be true, there were a number of surprises:

• The role that personal, one-on-one IRL (in real life) interactions play at different stages in the membership journey
• Which social media channels topped the list – and which fell flat
• How young members are, and are not, engaging with the events programming driving your non-dues revenue
• The potentially catastrophic retention issue taking root with Millennials and Gen Z

Membership matters. While each organization’s membership is unique, we believe our findings can inform and support strategies designed to support the long-term growth and success of your organization.

Young members, Millennials and Gen Z, like generations before them are turning to organizations for leadership, knowledge and the personal connections as a springboard to their personal success. The time has come for organizations to do the same. Let’s get to work.

The post Young Members 2.0 Our New Benchmark Report appeared first on Personify.

After many years in the nonprofit sector, and more than several working specifically with associations, I have yet to meet anyone who loves talking about increasing the price of membership dues.

(Ok, maybe finance who is looking forward to seeing that extra revenue hit the bottom line and ensure the financial health of the organization.)

At the core of associations are the relationships with its members, and the trust they’ve established after proving the value delivered as part of membership. Most members understand that, in exchange for the goods and services provided by your organization, they pay a fee which supports your operations, continued growth and service of your mission. But while they’re willing to pay for their membership, are they willing to pay more?

Broaching the topic can be a challenging one, made more difficult by the fact that you often have to rely on impersonal channels like email, direct mail or large annual meetings to make the announcement. Yet every organization will eventually reach a point where they need to raise the price of dues – to fund a technology investment, expand programming or just because the dollars coming in no longer cover the cost.

Many organizations are either working or placing the finishing touches on the 2019 planning process. If increasing dues are on your radar for the year ahead, here are some tips to help the process of introducing the change go more smoothly:

1. Honesty is the Best Policy

It’s tempting to bury a price increase – they don’t tell members their dues are changing until they get an annual renewal notice or attempt to complete their transaction in your online store. There are also organizations who don’t even mention it, changing dues prices without mentioning it in the hopes that the increase will go unnoticed.

These behaviors, while seeming to provide an easier path, undermine the trust that your members have in your organization. Be honest. Tell them about the increase and give them time to understand how it may affect them, especially if the increase is a significant one.

2. Explain Why

Context is the friend of the dues increase. As a nonprofit, members will appreciate associations aren’t trying to drive profit for shareholders but without the benefit of understanding the rationale behind an increase they may jump to their own conclusions.

Provide a fact-based, high-level overview of the reasons behind a dues increase. Reaffirm your commitment to providing them the best experience possible and remind them of the value you’ll be delivering with the additional resources.

3. Offer Options

Some dues represent a large investment for members – especially those who may be early in their career. If your planned increase is a sizeable one, it’s important to understand how the increase impacts different members and may pose a risk to retention efforts.

Should you introduce a new tier that provides fewer features but still creates a place for those unable to afford the new rates? If you do have tiers, do you need to introduce an increase across all levels simultaneously or can you stagger it to minimize the impact? Are installment payments an option or can you instead offset some of the anticipated revenue from a dues increase through the introduction of non-dues resources?

Although nonprofits are different in many regards, price increases are a normal part of business. Customers of all types understand raising prices to address increased costs offer a better experience. However, those changes need to be communicated honestly, presented in the context of value and alleviated by options if and/or when appropriate.

The post Don’t Shoot the Messenger appeared first on Personify.