Your members are individuals: Get personal to boost member value

Member acquisition, member retention, and member engagement are the top three goals for Membership organisations, according to the 2019 Digital Excellence report. Given an ever-growing variety of membership options available, how do you demonstrate to members that they are truly valued? One way is to increase and improve the level of personalisation at every stage of your member’s journey. 

Here are a few quick ideas to start with: 

1. Provide a seamless, intuitive joining process 

If the process of even becoming a member is too confusing and long winded, people might quit before they complete the joining process. Make sure your process is simple, easy to navigate without too many questions or being too timely to finish. Focus on core, baseline information – you can learn additional details as you engage with them during the new-member onboarding process.

2. Welcome your members and detail your onboarding process 

If you don’t welcome your members it may seem that you are indifferent to have had them join, which can lead to your new member feeling the same about joining. Following up with each new member creates a sense of excitement and allows you an opportunity to provide a brief overview of all the benefits they now have access to. Having a documented onboarding process makes it easy for your membership team to give each new member the same personal welcome that will make your organisation stand out.

3. Make your emails personal

Over 60% of people said they are more likely to respond favourably to emails that address them by name (Smart Insights, 2018). This simple technique helps the reader feel as though the email was sent especially to them instead of being a part of a larger campaign. 

4. Tailored Content 

Being able to send content that your reader is specifically interested in makes them feel valued and as though you have gone out of your way to provide them with such a service. More than half of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority (HubSpot, 2018).  Analyse your successful posts to improve the focus of your content creation which will also help members receive value in being able to learn and develop industry knowledge on a regular basis. With Fonteva’s reporting tools, you can track engagements in real time allowing you to put in place tools to boost engagement. 

5. Communication across a variety of channels

There are now many more channels to reach members, including emails, texts and social media. As the saying goes, time is money and members expect to receive quality answers in a short space of time. Having a lengthy process to respond to enquiries will lead to customer dissatisfaction. Make it easy for your members to engage with you across channels by showing you are actively engaged online. 

Fortunately, there is a wealth of technology out there to make personalisation easier to achieve. Don’t fret, you don’t need to spend hours sending out individual emails or picking up the phone to ring each member; automation has made it possible to send person specific content on a mass scale, whilst also helping you know what content is being consumed. Analysis of content is much easier to achieve with a strong CRM solution in place, taking out the lengthy time scale with a clear 360 degree view of your members. Understanding your members and being able to target them effectively is key to providing value on a personalised level. 

Join Fonteva at our CRM Select Seminar on the 26th of September, in partnership with MemberWise and Salesforce, to discover more about personalisation & automation and how they can boost your member experience.