Take every opportunity you can to connect with your members.
This may include your newsletter and your personalized drip marketing campaign. It may include your social media accounts or your conference evaluations. Perhaps you pick up the phone and talk to members or hold volunteer meetings. Excellent. Connect every way you can.
"If you spend too much time working on your weaknesses, all you end up with is a lot of strong weaknesses." - Dan Sullivan
So put aside some of the things that are not engaging your members to your satisfaction. Here's another way the more progressive associations are embracing their members:
Ask them 1 off questions via email throughout the year.
Connecting with your members by sending more stuff at them is not going to get a very good ROI on engagement. Associations need a new arrow to add to their quiver.
Ask questions. give them a channel to talk to you.
We've been trained over the last decade that as a consumer, a member a customer... we have a voice. We can talk back to any organization. Or we better be able to. And if you're not providing that channel, your members are forced to find their own method (Twitter) or not communicate with you at all.
Ask questions. Here are some examples of questions you can ask:
- New member retention campaign:
- first week of membership: What are you most looking forward to as a new member of our association? (Multiple Choice + open ended follow-up)
- 1 month later: How well did we do at welcoming you to our association? (Scale + open ended follow-up)
- 1 month later: Are you interested in becoming more involved in our association? (Y/N with a follow up prompting them to list their skills.)
- etc...
- Net Promoter Score campaign: (great loyalty, growth and retention check-in question)
- Every 6 months: Would you recommend X Association to a colleague? (0-10 scale, open ended follow-up)
- Alternating with the NPS on opposite 6 months: Is there anyone you can refer to our association? (Y/N, with open ended area for contact info)
- Learning Event Campaign: (add a head and a tail to your evaluation)
- 1 week before the event: What are you looking to get out of the upcoming learning session? (multiple choice or open ended)
- Immediately following the event: Event evaluation question(s)
- 1-3 months later: Effectiveness question - Is there something you learned in the X Learning Event that you're applying to your daily operations today? (Y/N with open ended follow-up)
Let us help you get started with no long term commitment. Our 1 hour implementation process allows you to start capturing feedback immediately and regularly over the course of the years ahead.
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