Slides

Dave: Welcome, everyone! I’m Dave, co-founder and CEO. While I won’t be leading today’s session, I wanted to introduce our amazing Client Success team—Ashley, Megan, Melissa, and Cathleen. If you haven’t met them yet, they are the driving force behind these discussions.

For those of you who are joining us for the first time, welcome! I love seeing new faces and the celebratory emojis in the chat. This is a meeting, not a webinar, so we encourage as much interaction as possible. If you’re eating lunch, haven’t showered, or are in the middle of a workout, no worries—we get it!

Before we get into today’s topic, I want to share our LinkedIn Membership Masterminds group. It’s a space for membership professionals to discuss engagement strategies, tactics, and best practices—not just PropFuel-related topics. We hold monthly meetings that have been incredibly insightful, so if you’re looking to connect with peers and gain new ideas, I encourage you to join.

Now, onto today's topic: evergreen campaigns. I’ve been preaching this for years—setting up automation that works in the background to engage members without constant manual effort. I call these "evergreen campaigns," but you can name them whatever you like. The idea is to create automated sequences—usually through an integration with your AMS—that trigger actions based on member behavior. A classic example is new member onboarding. You build it once, and it runs automatically, ensuring that members receive timely, relevant engagement without you needing to manually reach out each time.

Some call it "set it and forget it," but I prefer "set it and stay informed." With the right setup, you can receive alerts prompting you when an action is needed—whether it’s following up with a member, making a personal call, or addressing an issue. This approach saves time while keeping interactions meaningful.

Melissa: Thanks, Dave! As Dave mentioned, this is a roundtable discussion, so we encourage participation. If you’re comfortable turning your camera on, we’d love to see you.

Before we dive into specific examples, I’d love to hear what you’re hoping to get out of today’s session. Are you looking for new ideas? Inspiration? Best practices from peers? Drop your thoughts in the chat.

Evergreen campaigns continuously enroll contacts from your AMS or marketing system and engage them with timeless content. These campaigns allow you to automate engagement while ensuring consistency, even when your workload is high. Some key benefits include:

• Reducing manual effort by setting up automated sequences.
• Ensuring members receive consistent touchpoints regardless of staff availability.
• Providing long-term value as these campaigns continue running without constant updates.
• Enhancing renewal and engagement efforts by nurturing members over time.

We’ll cover various use cases, including onboarding, renewals, certification campaigns, and abandoned cart follow-ups.

Megan: Evergreen campaigns apply at every stage of the membership journey—acquisition, onboarding, continued engagement, renewals, and even feedback collection. We have blueprints available for each of these, and we’re constantly adding more.

For example, acquisition campaigns can target event attendees who aren’t members, nurturing them toward membership. Onboarding campaigns help new members integrate into your community, ensuring they receive timely information about benefits and engagement opportunities.

Certification campaigns are another powerful automation. If someone indicates interest in a certification program, an automated sequence can guide them through the process—sending reminders, sharing success stories, and answering common questions.

Renewal campaigns can also be automated, prompting members at key intervals before their expiration date. Some organizations even offer discounts or incentives for abandoned carts—helping recover lost opportunities for membership or event registration.

Margaret: The abandoned cart strategy is interesting. Could this integrate with Salesforce?

Megan: Yes, if Salesforce can generate a report of abandoned carts, we can automatically pull that data into a campaign. The same applies to most AMS platforms that allow query-based reports.

Leah: At the Oregon Society of CPAs, we’ve automated three acquisition campaigns. Every month, we receive lists from the Board of Accountancy, which we upload to our AMS. We’ve set it up so that when a marketing start date is added, the contact is automatically enrolled in the appropriate campaign.

Instead of guessing what potential members care about, PropFuel allows them to select topics relevant to them. If they show interest, they move into a targeted nurture sequence with more direct messaging about joining.

This approach has significantly improved engagement compared to traditional email campaigns.

Ashley: Even if your AMS can’t fully automate, there are still ways to streamline your engagement efforts—such as adding people to nurturing sequences based on their responses.

Leah: We also automated onboarding earlier this year. We used the PropFuel blueprint, making a few tweaks to match our needs. It runs for six months and includes a Net Promoter Score survey, helping us gauge member satisfaction.

In our previous system, we had a 3.6% click-to-open rate over a year. In just four months with PropFuel, we’ve seen a 29% engagement rate—a huge improvement! Plus, the data we collect now helps drive strategic membership initiatives.

Janet: Do you use an anniversary-based or calendar-based membership model?

Leah: Our membership runs on a fiscal year (April–March). If someone joins mid-year, they pay a prorated rate but still receive a full onboarding experience.

Margaret: Our onboarding campaign includes open-ended questions, allowing members to share their experiences. If someone has a concern, we can address it personally. PropFuel helps automate engagement while maintaining a human touch.

Lily: I’m a PropFuel superfan! At PIHRA, we use it for renewals, onboarding, profile updates, and volunteer interest tracking.

Our renewal campaign starts 75 days before expiration with five touchpoints. If someone needs an invoice or extra time, we receive an automatic alert.

Since launching this approach, our retention rate has improved by five percentage points. The automation allows us to focus on higher-value interactions while maintaining strong member engagement.

Melissa: The Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association also customized their onboarding for renewed members, ensuring they receive relevant engagement rather than a generic welcome.

Ashley: If you lack time, evergreen campaigns help automate interactions while maintaining engagement.

Megan: ASAE uses an automated certification nurture campaign. If a member indicates interest, they’re enrolled in a follow-up sequence guiding them through the next steps.

Melissa: CoreNet Global embedded a feedback campaign in their order confirmation emails, collecting over 36,000 responses since 2019.

This is a great example of engagement beyond email—consider where else you can embed check-ins to collect valuable insights.

Cathleen: We’ve added AI-powered features to streamline email subject lines, content, and reporting. Our new engagement metric tracks how many people interact with at least one question—giving you real-time insights.

Dave: One automation example—when clients launch their first PropFuel campaign, they’re added to a swag box campaign. Salesforce notifies PropFuel, which alerts me to send them a package.

If you haven’t launched an evergreen campaign yet, reach out to our team! We’d love to help you get started.

Melissa: Thank you all for joining! See you at ASAE!

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