Your objectives are clear – grow the organisation’s revenue, through diversifing from existing revenue streams, retaining more members, increasing member engagement, whilst acquiring new ones… that’s no small task for any organisation, especially in the a tough economic climate, that is getting tougher.
Member requirements are changing so fast digitally, servicing existing member segments and not leaving them behind while evolving and expanding can feel like a constant battle. But looking on the flip side the opportunities are great, if you are collecting and using the data on your members and non-members it can help you make the right decisions for your organisation.
Member aquisition
Something that we see a lot of Membership organisations wrestle with, is balancing how much they give to non-members, while trying to hook them into joining, whilst ensuring that they are continuing to deliver value to their existing members.
Do you let non-members attend events and conferences, what can they access on your website, can you draw them in by valuable content that you create without giving them full access which perhaps membership could unlock. Do you track these event/webinar attendees, can you segment and target them with relevant content, are they visiting your content multiple times. Can you partially restrict access via your website, what are your workarounds? Do you/can you track the website traffic and segment this, what data are you looking at to determine what content is working?
The balancing act is constant.
Member Engagement
This is an ongoing challenge for all membership teams, how do you continue to deliver value to the different members, communicating with them in a targeted and clear way, delivering new fresh content that they have been interacting with etc. Can you segment them to help with this targeting, or is this a manual and painful process?
As above it’s a balancing act!
Looking at a recent Memberwise digital survey you are not alone*. Member Engagement is the top goal for the fourth year running’, this is not something that we have obviously cracked but knowing where and what to start with is half the battle!
Your action plan
You do have options
- Do very little or nothing – tweaking some existing resource and a refocus of efforts can help you grow in the short term, it won’t fix the problems or manual sticking plasters you are faced with and in the longer term will prevent sustained growth.
- Adapt/Re-train – looking at the skills in the organisation can help you refocus your efforts, perhaps stopping some of the things to refocus and prioritinse the areas of growth. Assessing the processes you are running, how do you free upresource. One of the hardest things to do is to ‘stop’ something but if its not driving to one of your objectives then now is the time to make those tough decisions.
- Digital Transformation – while this sits in the ‘harder to do box’ if you have gathered your business requirements the process can be far less daunting, it will help you understand the ask of the organisation and look at the art of the possible. Embarking on this journey does require resource and eventually budget but the potential rewards far outbalance the initial fears. Taking a good look at the systems and processes in the existing organisation can really help. Taking a step back and asking yourself those tough questions.
Do you have the right skills in the organisation today, can you re-train or do you need to evolve?
Do your systems allow you to do what you need to do?
What are the processes you use, are they fit for purpose?
Do you know who your members are today, can you segment them?
Who are you trying to attract, are there leads fro non members that are interacting with your content?
Can you report on what you need to drive your business?
Identifying gaps and segmenting your members will help you plan and make the right decisions on changes needed in the organisation. Some may be relatively simple, which can be implemented quickly, while others larger and more complex – being able to evaluate what you have first is key and the first step to moving forward. In many organisations, the base data does exists, but its held in silos and the right skills and processes are not in place to use this.
The balancing act is clear, and the demands on your organisation are going to continue to challenge you, but clear data can help you make those tough decisions.
Chrysalis Digital provides a digital transformation service designed to help build a more agile, efficient and innovative organisation. With its broad cross-sector experience Chrysalis has helped many organisations map their digital path and through careful planning and assessment, choose the right technology partners. Chrysalis Digital is 100% agnostic when recommending CMS and CRM suppliers to its clients.
If you need any help with the next steps in your journey, please call Ben Sturt on 07469 768990 or email [email protected]
*Memberswise digital excellence survey 2021-22
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