By Guest Blogger:
Ben Sturt, Managing Director
CRM discussions have always led the way in conversations related to improving member engagement, but are we forgetting about the importance of your website? Digital savvy members are demanding more and more, they want to feel individual, they are more time poor and expect you to make them feel special.
While a robust CRM system is vital to improving this process, you have to be able to collect and analyse quality data; but the website has to have the functionality to deliver the right content at the right time in a personalised way. You can’t under estimate the need for a flexible website/content management system (CMS), they need to work hand and glove. The CRM owns the data, but the CMS must be able to display meaningful content at the right time.
The top goal for membership organisations and associations this year – as it has been over the last two years – is to increase member engagement*. The likelihood of a renewal with actively engaged members is significantly higher, combine this with the likelihood that they will recommend makes them extremely valuable to the organisation.
Top membership goals – MemberWise Digital Excellence Survey 2019
In fact, 64% of marketing executives indicated that they believe word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing.** Supported by a recent study from Nielsen stating that 83% of those surveyed trust recommendations from people they know***. Many membership and not for profit websites have grown and changed as the organisation has evolved, thus creating a very varied collection of content, sometimes very siloed. Is this talking to members in their language?
By putting on your members hat, looking at the content as a whole, you can restructure this to increase the engagement. For example, policy, professional standards etc are very important, but they are generally not critical to your member – you should be able to find them, but should they be part of the key navigation? Quality of content can vary considerably as many functions have contributed over time, again is this addressing the key audience? Talking to them in their language? While the content maybe correct is it engaging? We have worked with many organisations at varying stages on this journey, while it can be daunting, taking the whole process back to the original business requirements, aligned with the organisational objectives will help start the journey. It is not all about ripping and replacing the systems, but understanding the gaps both in systems, skills an knowledge, the journey is individual to the organisation but if you would like to see some example of how our clients have approached this click here.
We have written a few other articles designed to help you with your digital journey, if you are interested click here. We are always happy to provide help and guidance , never be afraid to ask.
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.
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