Joining an association is an investment, and if your organization is experiencing high lapse rates, chances are your members aren’t seeing enough of a return. If this situation sounds similar to your association, ask yourself this question: does your membership program lack value, or are members just not engaging with your content?
If the answer is the latter, there’s a solution: invest in a member engagement platform. Member engagement platforms give your association the tools to connect with members, attract attention to your association’s offerings, and cultivate an energized community.
To teach your association about the purpose and benefits of a member engagement platform, we’ll cover:
- Member Engagement Platform FAQ
- How Member Engagement Platforms Benefit Associations
- Member Engagement Platform Features
- Top Member Engagement Platform: Tradewing
Before diving into how to better manage your members, let’s go over a few basics about these platforms.
Member Engagement Platform FAQ
What is a member engagement platform?
A member engagement platform is a tool associations use to interact with members and guide them toward content and activities. Member engagement platforms are often called community engagement platforms, as your members make up your association’s community.
However, membership management platforms and member engagement platforms are two different things. Member management tools allow associations to keep their members organized by providing features for dues collection and association-to-member communication. In contrast, member engagement platforms have features like a community platform and member-to-member communication. There is some overlap between these types of platforms, as both will often have analytics and event management tools.
Why does member engagement matter?
Associations only exist because of their active membership bases. If members aren’t attending events, responding to your content, or interacting with one another, your association lacks purpose and direction.
When members are invested and engaging at high levels, your association will experience increased:
- Retention. When members engage with your content and activities, they are more likely to see the value of their membership and want to continue being a member. This leads to increased loyalty and retention rates.
- Value. For trade and professional associations, highly engaged members tend to spend more on event tickets, certification programs, and add-ons. As members continuously engage with your content, they’re more likely to want more content and increase their membership levels.
- Recruitment. Active members are more likely to recommend your trade or professional association to their friends and colleagues. This leads to improved word-of-mouth marketing and easier member recruitment.
Engaged members understand the value of your association and want to continue accessing your unique benefits. Ensure your association leverages tools that make engagement easy.
Is an AMS a member engagement platform?
No, association management software (AMS) is not the same as a member engagement platform. While AMSs offer some of the same features as a member engagement platform—such as website builders, external marketing tools, and eCommerce setup—these tools ultimately focus on different aspects of running an association.
In general, AMSs focus on:
- Member recruitment
- Member analytics
- Backend organizational tasks
In contrast, member engagement platforms prioritize:
- Member-to-member communication
- Content creation and sharing
- Frontend tools for members
Due to these differences, many associations employ both an AMS and a member engagement platform. For example, you might use your AMS to set up your member application forms and collect monthly due payments. However, your association’s actual offerings, such as community opportunities and webinars, are hosted on your member engagement platform.
For a seamless experience, choose an AMS and member engagement platform that integrate with each other. That way, your two systems can work together to create a more efficient and enjoyable member experience.
How Member Engagement Platforms Benefit Associations
Improved Communication
Member engagement platforms, as the name implies, are designed to maximize member engagement. As such, associations can use these tools to improve communication by:
- Promoting engagement opportunities. Members can only engage with content if they’re aware it exists. Member engagement platforms have marketing tools for promoting opportunities and re-engaging members, such as email and push notifications for when new content goes live.
- Personalizing content. Take note of what types of content and activities members engage with, and use your member engagement platform to create communications that target their interests. For example, you might create a new member welcome series that promotes a variety of opportunities, such as webinars, events, and community groups. Then, for your next round of communication, you could send messages based on which content they engaged with.
- Enabling open conversations. 71% of trade association members cite networking opportunities as one of their top reasons for purchasing a membership. As such, a platform that enables open communication between members is ideal for professional and trade associations.
Some member engagement platforms are accessible through your organization’s website and have an app. This allows members to engage with your content from anywhere without distractions.
Increased Retention
Engaged members are much easier to retain. While member engagement platforms often lack recruitment tools, they still help associations grow by providing tools for retaining the members you currently have.
Use your member engagement platform to:
- Facilitate engagement opportunities. A member engagement platform can double as a content hosting tool. Host online events and webinars, post blog content, and share videos and photographs.
- Improve networking. Networking is a core part of any association, and member engagement platforms allow your members to engage directly with one another. Members can create profiles, search your database, start private messages, and create public posts viewable to the rest of your community to start conversations.
- Provide retention tools. A member engagement platform helps you create a lively community, which can help retain members. However, some community engagement platforms have tools specifically designed to improve retention, such as community notifications, engagement analytics, and membership grace periods.
Of course, remember that your engagement platform is just a tool in your retention strategy. To build a loyal community, always show appreciation, provide valuable opportunities, and listen to members’ feedback.
Enhanced Membership Value
66% of prospective members don’t join an association because they fail to see the value of a membership. With a member engagement platform, you can contact members with association offerings, encourage user-generated content, and turn a membership into a community.
In the membership funnel, member engagement platforms power the retention and re-engagement stages of membership marketing.
In these stages, associations continue to market content and provide members with engagement opportunities. However, don’t think of your member engagement platform as just one more marketing channel to post the same content that you would on social media.
Instead, member engagement platforms create members-only areas that are dedicated to providing gated content. By ensuring this content is valuable and members can engage with it, you reinforce your membership program’s value and increase retention.
Member Engagement Platform Features
While various member engagement platforms will have different tools based on their audience and vendor’s focus, most platforms for trade and professional associations should provide the following features.
Online Community
Member engagement platforms with a community engagement element give associations the ability to create an online space where members can interact with one another like they would on social media. This includes being able to:
- Post content
- Comment on other members' posts
- Scroll through posted content chronologically
- Use a search tool to find specific posts
- Browse notifications
- Message members directly
Additionally, some member engagement platforms allow your association’s staff or members to create groups. For example, a professional association might create a group for board members, encouraging board members to interact with the rest of your community. Their member engagement platform may also double as a board meeting planning and communication tool.
Communication Tools
To encourage members to use the platform, many solutions provide communication tools designed to foster engagement. For instance, email marketing features give associations the ability to:
- Alert members to new content
- Send reminders, such as to attend upcoming events
- Maintain a regular newsletter
- Invite members to join their online community
While your member engagement platform should keep members on your website, your email strategy should bring them back to your website after they log off from your membership portal the day. Use insights gathered by your member engagement platform to determine what kinds of content spark engagement, and highlight those posts in your next email newsletter.
Event Management
Many associations invest in separate event management and member engagement tools. For complex events, it makes sense to have dedicated event management software, but for smaller trade and professional associations, a community management platform with event hosting features can be a cost-effective alternative.
Your member engagement platform should allow you to alert members to upcoming events, whether in-person or online, and host virtual events through your website. Look for software that comes with the following features:
- Virtual conferencing
- Event chat
- Sponsor promotion options
- Event alerts
When investing in event management software, consider your association’s entire technology budget. In some cases, purchasing a more expensive member engagement platform with event hosting tools makes more sense than buying subscriptions to separate community engagement and event management tools.
Plus, by hosting your events in the same place your members already go to engage with your community, you can easily alert them to upcoming events and boost attendance.
Analytics
Ensure your engagement strategies are work using your member engagement platform to monitor your community. These tools should allow you to view:
- How many posts members are making
- Whether members are interacting with each other’s content
- How active each member is
With these tools, you can determine what content resonates with your members, when members are active, and which members are at risk of lapsing due to a lack of engagement.
Top Member Engagement Platform: Tradewing
When it comes to member engagement platforms, we recommend our very own community engagement solution: Tradewing.
Tradewing is an out-of-the-box community engagement platform for trade and professional associations. With our tools, small and medium-sized associations have a convenient, cost-effective way to connect with their members, encourage community engagement, and promote their association’s offerings.
Here’s an overview of a few of Tradewing’s top benefits:
- Centralized member engagement. If your association’s community currently operates on third-party platforms like Facebook, chances are that you’re not adequately capturing their attention. On external sites, like social media, your association constantly fights for your members’ focus. But when you host your community on Tradewing, all of your association’s members are brought to one place to engage with your offerings.
- Quick setup. Tradewing has customizable features, but its real strength is its out-of-the-box functionality. Rather than spending hours customizing your solution or requiring developer assistance, associations can set up Tradewing quickly and leverage its automation tools to save time and keep everything running smoothly.
- AMS integrations. For associations already using an AMS, Tradewing doesn’t have to replace their current system. In fact, Tradewing integrates with many top AMS solutions, allowing you to plug its community engagement platform into your current system.
For trade and professional associations looking to engage members, build communities, and increase their offerings’ value, Tradewing is the go-to cost-effective solution on the market.
More Member Engagement Resources
Member engagement platforms give your association a toolbox for interacting with members and increasing your membership program’s value. When researching platforms, look for solutions that offer the tools your association needs and also align with your size and budget.
