Place a Spotlight on the Value Your Association Provides
There’s nothing wrong with healthy reminders. Keeping it top of mind with your members that your association has a variety of value propositions to offer is not only an acceptable thing to do – it’s something you definitely should do. However, you’ve got to have the goods if you say you do. Bottom line, the quality of your content and resources will do a good portion of your talking for you. Nonetheless, every once and a while, it’s fine to give a nudge and say, “hey, that’s pretty good, isn’t it?”.
Of the many ways you can offer a reminder that there’s value to be had, we’ve outlined a few of our favourites that you may want to consider when describing content you’d like to drive more traffic toward.
- Awareness Campaign
- At times, you may just want to make members aware of this resource or that piece of content. This type of approach doesn’t need to focus on any particular theme. Its purpose is simply to bring the specific value to the recipient’s attention. It could be a new asset or an old one that you want to reinvigorate – doesn’t really matter. Since this type of campaign is so general and non-specific, it can be applied to any one of your offered resources. This being the case, your association should run awareness campaigns at predetermined intervals. Don’t go overboard. You don’t want to run them so much that they become stale and annoying – causing your readership to begin ignoring all of your communications. However, twice a quarter sounds like a reasonable pace. You have to factor in that these reminders need to coexist among all the other communications you intend to send out. So, it’s a matter of balance. You want to stay in the ear of your members – but you also don’t want to become a pest. To keep your awareness campaigns fresh, always offer new content and imagery to pique interest.
- Relative to the Industry
- One of the better ways to showcase your value is to make the case that it relates directly to the industry your association serves. The very purpose for the existence of the community your association has created it to provide resources that will benefit and improve the overall landscape of your respective industry. So, play that up. If you have a white paper that speaks to a particular phenomenon currently prevalent within your professional community or a one that forecasts the future of how business will be done in your sector – extol the virtues of industry members having that content at their disposal. It’s not disingenuous to say that you want your members to be granted every possible advantage they can be to support their continued success in the market – so go ahead and say it.
- Tailored for Members
- This is a big one. Everyone enjoys something made for them. When you have a course or resource that you believe would be perfect for a particular cross-section of your membership, point that out. Maybe you have a course on offer that’s slanted more toward young professionals. Well, make it clear to all the younger members in your community that you have something perfect for them. Showcasing tailored content and resources also responds to the following point within this article – listening to member feedback is very important. If your members are suggesting a particular piece of content, deliver on their request. Having resources that are bespoke to your membership’s interests will not only result in stronger uptake, as well as a greater perception of value – it will also make members feel like your association is genuinely interested in providing beneficial assets to the community.
- Gather Feedback
- Just because your members have consumed one of your valuable resources, doesn’t mean there isn’t still an opportunity to highlight it. Once someone has completed a course or the like, you should always follow-up with a survey or questionnaire. The obvious reason for doing this is to garner their feedback, which can then influence future value you provide. However, the other, less apparent reason is that having members, who have consumed the content in question, offer up their thoughts on the resource will cause them to relive the experience in a condensed way. If the content they are reviewing is of a high quality, this reminiscing should be positive. This will nail home a good feeling surrounding the resource, and will set the member up for an optimistic outlook when ready to consume the next piece of content you have available to them.
- Participate in Discussion
- If your association moderates a community forum (online), first off, you should be injecting yourself into conversations in general. The more interaction you can have with your membership, the better. However, a by-product of staying involved is seizing opportunities (when they arise) to highlight a valuable resource your association has in their library, when it applies to the topic at hand. This might just be the best venue to place a spotlight on your valuable resources. Reason being, members within your forums are engaged in voluntary, unprompted passionate discussion. If you have an asset they can consume that relates to the subject being discussed, it’s about as perfect a segway as you can hope for. Point them in the direction of the valuable resource. With any luck, once they’ve consumed the content they will revisit the original conversation and have more to add (because of the resource they exploited).
- Establish a Member Advocacy Committee
- Having a committee that represents your membership is just best practice. However, it is also a fantastic method for receiving consolidated feedback from the members at large, and planting seeds within the representative group with the hope they will disseminate that information to the greater community. Your member committee can act as a hype machine for valuable resources soon to be released. Giving this group a sneak-peek at what your association has coming or has planned can stimulate excitement ahead of availability. Often times, this will result in greater and more expedited uptake upon release.
There are a multitude of ways you can spotlight the value you offer your membership. Just remember to keep things fresh, fun and imaginative and you’ll pique their interest. With your great resources ready to be consumed, the only question left is, does your association management system let your valuable offerings shine?
You should ensure that your solution of choice is intuitive, functional and customized to suit your members. Guild is an AMS that offers all of this, as well as the industry’s best end-user support. If you’d like to learn more about how Guild can help you showcase your association’s value, or would like to schedule a live demo, please click here.
