The sun is finally shining on the UK and on the membership sector. As swathes of people prepare to take some important and valuable time off during the summer months, the membership sector has an opportunity to use this period to reflect and to rebuild ahead of conference season, but to also use quieter periods to audit and revisit the membership offering.
Surveys and competitions
To help keep members and followers engaged during quieter periods, it is worth considering launching incentivised surveys and competitions to help continue to build your following and engagement, but also provide important information about your association, the sector and your members.
During busier periods, where communication frequency is greater, these initiatives can get lost in your members’ inboxes or social media feeds. Quieter periods may also allow for more in depth answers, a higher open rate more traction on social media, where other campaigns may be quieter.
Website audit
With many associations experiencing a quieter period, the sunshine brings the chance to audit digital assets. While website traffic is typically lower for many associations during July and August, data from the past ten months gives digital professionals insight into which pages and features offer the greatest return in both membership recruitment, but also user experience. Using Google Analytics and any other third-party web traffic tools, membership organisations can gain an incredibly strong understanding of their online visitors by the pages they visit, where they visit from and their exit pages.
Furthermore, a year-on-year analysis will also shed light on the impact of the pandemic and any ensuing online initiatives on the behaviour of their website visitors, particularly in the form of online resource access, online training and member benefits, helping associations to better tailor their offering for the autumn.
Under and post graduate members
For many membership organisations, a significant proportion of their members will be in the earliest stages of their career, some still in or even just starting Higher Education. The summer provides opportunity to plan and implement campaigns to raise awareness of the membership offering to course providers and academic institutions, but also provide an irrefutable offering for potential life-long members that are graduating in the sunshine and embarking on their careers.
Freshers’ week
Freshers’ week this year will hopefully once again provide digital and face to face opportunities to introduce your membership offering to new students, which means an integrated approach to on and offline campaigning is important. Any digital marketing efforts will need to embrace social media channels, where appropriate Instagram and even TikTok as a means of connecting with undergraduates and demonstrating that the association is current, contemporary and approachable. It is also worth considering introductory offers with heavily discounted membership fees, that take into account limited budget, but potential to convert student members to full paying members in the future.
Post graduate/early careers membership offering
Do you have a solid understanding of your younger members? If so, does your membership offering provide opportunity for those earlier in their career? You may wish to consider a mentoring scheme, additional training and professional development options and also provide opportunities for early careers members to get involved with shaping the organisation by joining committees or other councils.
Ealy careers members often have a strong desire and drive to be heard and represented, and providing them with a voice and a platform to make real change in their industry empowers both them and their colleagues, but also your association. This summer, why not plan a survey or a focus group to gain a strong understanding of the needs of early careers members, and how the pandemic has affected them and their embarkment into the job market. How can your association best support them?
Most importantly
Whilst we can never truly stop in our pursuit of the perfect membership offering, the summer does provide breathing space to audit, understand and improve our members’ needs – most specifically members either joining, in or leaving academia.
After a turbulent eighteen months, this summer is a unique opportunity to not only enjoy a degree of consistency and normality, but to celebrate and plan for a new and improved post-covid future that embraces the next generation of workforce with the information and tools to continue to grow. So whatever your team’s plans are this summer, take this opportunity to keep being the best you can for your members and your sector.
CJ Association Management is an established, specialist association management company providing support services tailored for the membership sector.
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