For any organisation – whether it’s an association, club or industry body – if your main aim is working for your members, keeping those members engaged is vital.
How to engage members
There are lots of ways to engage members, including emails that keep them updated on the work you’re doing, social media posts that give snapshots of what is happening within your organisation and across the sector, and events that allow members to meet.
Keeping members engaged, however, can be a struggle. You need to find a balance between too much contact and not enough. You also need to find the best communication channels – or mix of channels – because one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to sharing information with your members.
You also need to remember that engagement is something every member of your organisation is responsible for because every contact is a form of engagement. This means every phone call, email, complaint and compliment matters, as does every interaction on social media and every time you appear in internet search results.
Improving engagement
When you do appear in search results and people visit your website, this is often the first impression they will have of your organisation. It’s a good idea to invest in a site that is fit for purpose. It needs to provide potential members with enough information to help them decide whether to join you, along with members-only areas that provide information and the opportunity for members to communicate with each other, such as through online forums.
You’ll also need to make it easy for members to look up details of their membership, such as renewal dates, or other member benefits. This can be pulled from membership software such as that developed by www.ofec.co.uk/web-and-software-development-services/membership-management-systems.aspx.
Membership software has lots of other benefits, too, helping streamline your processes and saving you time. You can manage your contacts, for example, automate event registration processes, accept online payments, and process renewals. You can also create a range of reports to help you track your performance.
Each of these on their own can go a long way toward engaging members. When combined, they allow you to take your membership management to the next level, making investing in a membership management system something you definitely want to consider.
