Slides

Dave: I'm so glad to see you guys here at our first roundtable of the year. I see some new faces, and I see some people who have been around a little while. Notice I didn’t say old faces—I see more experienced PropFuel users and some new ones. I’m really glad to have you here.

Today's topic is, I think, a really interesting one because it wasn’t originally on our radar. It was actually you guys who brought this to the table, and then we built some functionality to support it. We call it profile building or member profile updates.

What’s really cool about this is that PropFuel’s primary purpose is to understand and act on our members' needs better. And while we don’t often think about an alternate email address or a job title in the context of member needs, they are closely related. Having accurate information helps us serve our members more effectively now and in the future.

PropFuel is great for engaging people on the fly via email, but another valuable use case is capturing data about members so we can engage them better down the road. That’s what profile updates are all about.

As usual, Melissa, Ashley, and Megan will walk us through some of the things they’ve learned from working with you on capturing member profile updates. Sound good? Give me a nod if you agree. Excellent. And if you have any specific questions, bring them on. Melissa, am I handing it over to you?

Melissa: Yeah.

Dave: All right, it's all yours.

Melissa: All right, bear with me while I get my screen set up. Can everyone see my slides?

Dave: Got it.

Melissa: I know, everyone’s favorite—a slide deck! But I promise, our goal is just to have a conversation about member profile updates, show you some cool examples, and hopefully inspire you to work on this in the coming months.

Before we dive in, I’d love for you to drop in the chat: What’s your biggest pain point when it comes to maintaining member data? What keeps you up at night?

Guest Responses: Bad emails, no updates, duplicate records, outdated info, getting data organized.

Melissa: This is great—keep those rolling in chat.

Dave: One of the things I’ve heard from our clients is how difficult it is to get people to update their profiles. Sending a broadcast email asking them to update their profile is like pulling teeth. And I know we’re going to touch on ways to reduce that friction and capture information more easily.

Melissa: Yeah, lack of responses is definitely a common issue.

The purpose of profile update check-ins is twofold:

1. Cleaning up old data—maybe a mailing address is outdated, an email is no longer in use, or a job title has changed.
2. Enhancing or building new fields—perhaps you want to start capturing birthdays, demographic data, or areas of interest.

We need to make this process easy—not just for members, but for you. We don’t want you manually entering all this data into your AMS. That’s the purpose of our connectors—to automatically sync data between systems.

I also want to reframe this as a win-win: we often focus on why we need this data, but we also need to communicate to members why it benefits them.

For example:

• For you: You need an updated email address for deliverability.
• For them: They get the communications they actually want, at the correct address.
  
  
• For you: You want updated contact info for SMS outreach.
• For them: They receive important reminders and updates on their preferred platform.

Similarly, instead of making renewal a burdensome process where members have to update 20 fields at once, why not capture updates throughout the year?

Now, I’d love for you to share in the chat: What fields are you hoping to update?

Guest Responses: Areas of interest, birthday, email addresses, demographics, career stage.

Dave: One quick shoutout to PIHRA—they were the first to educate me on "The Great Resignation" and the importance of capturing alternate email addresses. If members leave their jobs and you don’t have a personal email on file, you lose them. This has now become a standard best practice.

Melissa: Exactly! That goes back to Liz’s question in chat—how can you update email addresses if one is bad? The key is proactively collecting alternate emails before they leave their job.

Dave: Another option is SMS—people rarely change their cell numbers. The challenge is many organizations haven’t yet established SMS opt-in relationships with members. But for now, collecting alternate emails is the best proactive strategy.

Melissa: Exactly. And now I’ll hand it over to Ashley to share examples of successful profile update campaigns.

Ashley: Perfect. I’ll start with PIHRA’s campaign.

PIHRA (the Professionals in Human Resource Association) realized that many of their members' email addresses in their AMS were work emails. With high turnover in HR, they proactively sent a check-in asking members to provide a personal email before they left their current jobs.

They captured 236 alternate emails—236 members they otherwise may have lost contact with! And since this is a drip campaign, it continues to collect data over time.

Another example is MSTA.

Kara: Hi, I’m Kara from MSTA! We were considering going digital-only with our magazine, but instead of just assuming what members wanted, we asked them. We offered them the option to opt out of the print version and receive digital instead.

The response was amazing. By reducing our print distribution, we’re saving $30,000 per year!

Ashley: That’s huge. And it’s an ongoing campaign, so those savings will continue to grow.

Kara: We also ran a similar campaign for membership cards, which has saved us even more.

Ashley: Another great campaign was VMUG’s job role update.

Instead of overwhelming members with 50+ job titles, we bucketed roles into five categories (Manager, Developer, Admin, etc.). When a member selected a category, they were shown a smaller list of job titles specific to that category.

The result? Over 6,000 job title updates in Salesforce in a single weekend!

Finally, Tennessee Bar Association ran a practice area update campaign.

Mindy: Hi, I’m Mindy from Tennessee Bar Association. We needed better data on members' primary and secondary practice areas. Previously, we could only tell what sections members purchased, but we wanted a broader view of their interests.

We worked with Megan to add new data fields in our AMS and ran a check-in campaign. Now, we can market relevant CLEs and events to members based on their practice areas.

Dave: This is a great example of using member data for personalized follow-ups. Did you put CLE opportunities in front of them immediately?

Mindy: Yes! The data now updates our marketing system so members only get relevant communications. We also sent lists of responses to our section leaders so they could personally reach out.

Dave: Love that! It’s all about cutting through the noise and giving members information they actually care about.

Now, Megan, I know you have some best practices to share.

Megan: Yep! Here are some tips for profile updates:

• Show members the data you already have
  • Example: "We have your address as [123 Main St]. Is this correct?"
  • If data is missing, have fun with it—one client used "Supreme Galactic Commander" as a placeholder job title to encourage updates.

• Write-backs require a connector or CSV upload
  • Each AMS is different, so check your integration settings.

• Use dropdowns for long lists
  • Great for states, job roles, etc.

• Test before launching
  • Always test check-ins to ensure write-backs are working.

Dave: This has been fantastic!

Last question—do you all find these roundtables helpful? Would you prefer monthly or quarterly? And what topics would you like us to cover next?

Guest Responses: Keep them monthly! Would love sessions on lapsed member win-back, onboarding, and increasing response rates.

Dave: Love it! Thanks, everyone. Reach out to Melissa, Ashley, or Megan for help. See you next time!

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