Slides

Dave: Welcome, everyone. Today, we're not focusing on AI, but I do want to mention something exciting—our beta launch of blueprints. If you’re a PropFuel user and didn’t see our email, blueprints are now live for everyone as of this morning.

Blueprints take our best practices, combine them with automation and AI, and help you quickly create campaigns. Instead of taking hours to build, you can generate a campaign in minutes and then refine it. If you haven’t checked it out, take a look.

If you’re new to these roundtables, I love seeing your faces, but no pressure. These are meant to be interactive, more of a meeting than a webinar. We’ll start with content to spark discussion, but please jump in at any time.

Historically, we’ve focused on specific topics like new member onboarding or renewals. Today, we’re looking at creative ways to get members more engaged. Forget specific use cases—we’re going to talk about different ways to get members to take action, whether it’s volunteering, joining a committee, submitting abstracts, or opting into auto-renewals. With that, I’ll hand it over to Melissa.

Melissa: Thanks, Dave. Our goal today is to share examples and open the floor for discussion on how to increase member involvement. We’ll have a few clients speak, so thanks in advance to those who agreed.

I’d love for you to drop in the chat one area where you wish members would raise their hand more often—whether it’s joining a committee, becoming a mentor, speaking at events, or something else. Let’s get a list going.

Great responses so far—volunteering, committee seats, board members, networking event RSVPs, opting into auto-renewal. These are all great examples of areas where you want people to take action before a deadline instead of waiting until the last minute or not responding at all.

We want to make it easy for people to express interest. When members don’t act, it’s usually not because they don’t care—it’s because the process is too complicated or they’re overwhelmed. A big part of what PropFuel does is reducing friction by asking a simple question, capturing intent, and automating the next step.

Let’s dive into some real examples to show how this works.

Dave: Darrin had a great one—opting into auto-renewal. That’s a big one because members often forget about renewal deadlines, and a simple check-in can dramatically increase opt-ins. Same goes for SMS opt-ins, which we covered in a past roundtable.

Melissa: Right. If you haven’t seen it, Megan or Ashley can drop the link to the SMS roundtable recording in the chat. The key takeaway is that people are more likely to opt in when asked directly, rather than having to find the option themselves.

Another great way to drive engagement is through volunteer opportunities. ASAE did this really well. They have a small window for volunteering each year, and they wanted to ensure they got enough responses before the deadline.

Instead of just relying on broadcast emails, they sent a simple PropFuel check-in asking, "Are you still interested in volunteering?" They got a 32% response rate, which is huge, considering many of these members had already received multiple emails about it.

Dave: That happens all the time—organizations send tons of emails with little response, but when they switch to PropFuel and just ask the question directly, engagement skyrockets. It’s like what happened with Endocrine. They needed members to submit stories about how the organization helped them, but their initial outreach barely got any responses. Then they sent a PropFuel check-in and got over 150 responses. Just a small tweak in approach made all the difference.

Ashley: Let’s talk about mentorship programs. I know some of you mentioned struggling to get enough mentees to sign up. ACTFL had the same challenge.

They sent a check-in asking, "How many years have you been teaching?" If they had fewer than 10 years, they were asked if they’d like to be a mentee. If they had more than 10 years, they were invited to become a mentor.

They got 114 mentors, which was fantastic—but only 12 mentees. That’s a common issue. A lot of early-career professionals are overwhelmed, and mentorship feels like another thing to juggle.

If you’re struggling with this, one idea is to showcase testimonials from current mentees. Once members see how mentorship has helped others, they might be more likely to participate.

Dave: Another idea—partner with schools or educational programs that could promote the mentorship opportunity. That could help bring in more mentees while also raising awareness about your association.

Melissa: Moving on to committee recruitment. FEI Dallas needed to fill committee seats, but as a volunteer-led organization, their members were already stretched thin.

Instead of sending long emails, they sent a PropFuel check-in: "Would you like to serve on a committee?"

Those who clicked "yes" were asked to select their top three committee choices from a list. They had a 20% response rate, and 45% of those who responded signed up to serve.

The impact? Their membership chair said, "I don’t think we’ve been this well-staffed in years"—from one check-in.

Ashley: That’s the power of asking the right question at the right time. Speaking of timing, focus group recruitment is another area where this can help.

Darrin, you’ve used PropFuel for this. Can you share your experience?

Darrin: Absolutely. We run focus groups every year, and recruiting for them used to take weeks. We’d send emails, update lists manually, suppress certain contacts—it was a nightmare.

Last year, we switched to PropFuel, and in just five business days, we filled all our focus groups. This year, we did it in six business days, which is still way faster than before.

The biggest time-saver? People who said "no" were removed from future outreach automatically. We only focused on those interested, cutting down on unnecessary follow-ups.

Melissa: That’s a great example of reducing wasted effort. Instead of repeatedly emailing everyone, you focus only on those who are actually interested.

Dave: And that same logic applies to conference engagement. Darrin, you also use PropFuel to gauge attendance interest, right?

Darrin: Yes. Before our annual meeting, we ask, "Are you planning to attend?" If someone says "no," we ask why.

The top reasons this year? Travel costs and not liking the conference location. That told us before registration opened what challenges we were facing.

We also learned that ER doctors often can’t get time off. So instead of bombarding them with registration emails, we stopped sending them conference promos and focused on people who were more likely to attend.

Amanda: That’s really smart. We’ve struggled with district event attendance—has anyone used PropFuel to figure out what event formats members prefer?

Melissa: Yes! Asking members what type of event they’re most interested in—networking, education, social—can help shape future programming.

Megan: That’s exactly what the Renal Physicians Association did. They asked members what conference topics interested them most. Then they followed up with, "Are you an expert in this area and willing to present?"

Most people just wanted to learn more, but they got two dozen responses from members willing to speak. That helped expand their speaker pool and shape their event sessions.

Ashley: Another great example is awards nominations. Emmy, you ran a PropFuel campaign for nominations—how did that go?

Emmy: It was a game-changer. Traditionally, getting members to nominate themselves or others was like pulling teeth. We used social media, emails—nothing worked.

Then we sent a PropFuel check-in. Almost 400 people responded, with 120 submitting open-ended nominations.

It was so successful that we now have nominees lined up through the first quarter of 2024.

Dave: That’s incredible. And again, it’s all about reducing friction. Instead of making people jump through hoops, you just ask the question directly.

We’re at time, but thank you all for the great discussion. If you want help implementing any of these ideas, reach out to your client success manager. See you next time!

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