Drive Value By Keeping Your Members Engaged

There have been many articles on how to get your members engaged in your organization and how an engaged member is a retained member.

A great way to drive value with your members is by focusing on a SoMoLo strategy.  This is a term I have heard over the years – or in other words, make your connections with your members social, mobile, and local.

Most chambers are using Social Media – (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.).

The key is are you making sure all of your communications can be maximized on a mobile device?

And of course the final piece of the SoMoLo strategy is are you focusing on your community?  Speaking of the local piece, there is a saying at Institute for Organization Management, if you’ve met one chamber, you’ve met one chamber.  All the more reason to focus on your local program of work.

Can your members not only receive but easily sign-up for your programs?  Do you have true e-commerce on your mobile site?

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some stats from the digital space to back-up why it is so important to focus on your SoMoLo strategy:

• 91% of adults have their mobile phone within arm’s reach - every hour of every day!
• 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within five miles. (Wordstream, 2016)
• 30% of mobile searches are related to a location. (Google, 2016) 28% of searches for something nearby result in a purchase. (Google, 2016)
• Local searches lead 50% of mobile users to visit stores within one day. (Google, 2018)
• Nearly one-third of all mobile searches are location-based queries. (The SEM Post, 2016) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)

For a great blog post by Hubspot to get the above statistics and so much more go HERE.

Good luck with your SoMoLo strategy!

Driving Member Engagement through Digital Channels

What are you doing in the digital space to drive member engagement?

I recently attended an educational seminar that spoke to this specific issue led by Melissa Harrison of Allee Creative.

Questions during the session addressed, effectiveness, lack of budget, inability to produce relative and timely content, and not willing to give content away for free.

The main message, don't think "free" but thought leadership, relationships and trust and deliver on those attributes.

A message that I did not expect is that print is back. Don't be afraid to send your members some printed pieces on your program of work.  I'm a fan of an all of the above strategize.

Digital channels are not a member benefit.  You are building awareness and building a brand through these channels.

Digital marketing is content focused.  It needs to be relevant content that provides value and you are engaging them, you ultimately want them to take an action.

Digital marketing reaches your audience on their time where they are.  The Internet is always open 24 hours a day.  So choose channels that you have the resources that you can respond to any questions or queries received from members or prospects.

You’re building relationships and trust through the digital channels.

46% of people check their phones for social media sites and their email as they get out of bed.  That might be a good time of the day to send your content marketing?

Four generations in the workplace and your membership.  Guess what, they are all on social media, albeit they use it differently.

While there are multiple digital channels, you need to focus on what you can handle and handle well.  Find out where the bulk of your members are spending their time in the digital space and plant your content in that space.

80% of the vetting process is done online so make sure your digital house is in order and easy to navigate.

Her final comment, "engage your members by creating a digital marketing plan with content that is about THEM.  Make it STICKY.  Make them see you as a RESOURCE throughout the year."

Put a content calendar together to manage your digital presence.  SPROUT SOCIAL is a great source to schedule your social media and has a robust analytics component

Engaging and Retaining New Members Using Drip Marketing

Amazon has 22 benefits - they introduce you to a few at a time through weekly or monthly emails.  I'm a member and I've personally experienced these onboarding emails. That's how I learned about e-books, prime music, etc.

I recently attended a session led by Larry Guthrie and Leslie Whittet, both from the Association for Corporate Growth where they talked about how to market the benefits of your organization a little bit at a time with your members.

If you're an Amazon customer you're familiar with their monthly email that talks about a specific benefit or two.  What they are doing is putting their benefits in bite size messages.

They spent a good amount of time discussing the difference of onboarding versus an orientation?

Onboarding improves retention rates - period!  An orientation is just the beginning of a true onboarding process.  The onboarding process could be the first 90 day period of your new members interaction with you.

This is where drip marketing comes into play. You communicate with them on a regular basis over this 90 day period by introducing the different benefits of your organization.  You might want to communicate on a biweekly basis.

The value proposition is a major part of your onboarding process.  Advocacy, education, networking are benefits that you are providing your members, are you doing a good job of communicating those benefits?  Your communications should always be member focused not chamber focused.

Maybe your onboarding (90-days) communications might be:

• Welcome kit
• Communication on an advocacy effort you're working on with a link with more information
• Communication on how to participate in your next networking event
• Communication on a couple of benefits that they might not be aware of

 Your goal is to have your members "learn it and use it!"

Drip marketing is showcasing your member benefits in your communications in a strategically planned out process.

I also think it's important that in these communications you are not asking for more money.  Remember, they just paid you a sum of money to join.

Think of drip marketing as a guided tour of your chamber.  You're breaking up your value proposition into small digestible bites of information. Make your communications clean and concise.

Biweekly emails focusing on a different set of benefits is a plan worth considering.

Once you've finished your 90-day onboarding with new members you might want to check in with them at the 6-month interval. Remember, at the 9-month interval you'll be sending your first auto-invoice.  That three-month window before an invoice is sent will be a great time to fix any problems from the information you might get at that 6 month check-up.

Good luck!

Digital Marketing Essentials

At a recent breakout session I attended on digital marketing by Aidan Augustin and Jeff Bunkin of Feathr was focused on retargeting, geofencing and lookalikes.

Retargeting - someone visits a website and you get an ad later when you're on a different web pages (Facebook, papers, etc. - banner ads or a video ad).  This is all about getting you to purchase a product once you've left a site where you were browsing.

Retargeting is all about paying to reach a warm audience and you don't need their email.  They've just visited your website.

You can use segmentation to dig deeper in what they viewed on your website and then you can decide what ads they may get from you to make sure you're delivering relevant information to them - think an exhibitor versus an attendee and giving them the right information to sign-up.

Another example is the shopping cart abandonment, where you can retarget them with the registration process and get them to check-out and finish the process.

An ad exchange is an auction site to decide what ad is shown at the higher price on the webpage that is being loaded in real time.

Geofencing - showing ads show within a specific geographic area, think a 4 block radius.

For a great resource on the specifics of retargeting go HERE for an article by Social Media Examiner.

A Data Driven Approach to Member Recruitment Strategies

At a recent membership and marketing session I attended addressed membership recruitment strategies based on data.

It was conducted by Kerri McGovern and Joseph Cephas, both staff members of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID).

The main point I want to focus on from the session is identifying what to focus on and how you are communicating with members and prospective members.

Speak in your members terminology not yours.

Current issues that need to be addressed as you move to the future - aging members, value proposition, legacy members resistant to change

You must be mobile friendly!

Resources - they talked about how your website main page must be enticing to your members.

They also talked about the sales funnel, and oh by the way, the sales funnel is not dead as some may say, and depending on who you speak to or which article you read there is always a tweak in how you are using it.  By the way, it's a great way to organize your sales:

• Lead generation - prospects who have visited your website, list purchase or attended an event.
• Lead evaluation - prospects that took an action, clicked through your email, etc.
• Lead qualification - prospects that respond to direct membership outreach.
• Qualified lead outreach - ongoing dialogue of prospects who have expressed an interest.
• Closing qualified leads - point of sale.

For a resource go to Wikipedia's site HERE.

Messaging is key when putting together a membership campaign.  You must have a consistent message weather it's a direct mail piece, website, or your social media presence.  Their organization tapped into the theme of "belong" as their messaging - "You Belong Here!"

Are you leading with a similar theme?  Your Community: Be a part of a better future!  When discussing membership with a prospect lead with your advocacy work, economic development, and community development initiatives versus leading with a list of benefits of membership.  That should be on the backend of your communications.

If you've not read the study by ACCE titled Horizon Initiative: Chambers 2025 you should and it can be found HERE.

3 Ways to Make Mobile Interactions Count

At a recent seminar I attended, the speaker, Adam Hostetter, NotchPoint Consultants, talked about how organizations can use mobile interactions to engage your members.

He started off by talking about "Micro Moments" - a term Google pegged in 2015

Your members have micro moments all the time - little things that can make a difference for your members - think of them as experiences your members have with your chambers over a period of time.

He stressed that these experiences should be consistent whether you're on a phone, iPad or computer - since our members are switching between the three 91% of the time.

He went on to say exclusivity and urgency are key in getting members to take action when marketing - think early bird pricing that ends at midnight not 30 days away.  Time kills deals - get them to take an action now!

Is your next program plugged into Amazon Echo so when your members ask when is the next (your Chamber) event, Alexa will respond?  I must admit, I hadn't thought of that one before.

Are you worth it?  Make sure you continue to deliver the goods during these micro moments.

His final three comments in this fast paced 30 minute discussion discussion, you need to:

• Seamless experience - online and offline.

• Bring it - deliver fast, relevant, assistive experiences.

• Use your data - enable personalization.

His final comment worth noting, if you remember nothing else - "delight and be useful."

For more information on "Micro Moments" go to Google's webpage found HERE.

Growing Membership in the Digital Age

I recently participated in a webinar by my friend Rick Whelan with Marketing General Incorporated.

I've written about their annual membership benchmarking survey before and the latest survey can be found HERE.

He talked about how this new digital age offers you the opportunity to reach out to many folks that you may not even know about.

The Direct Marketing Association recently stated that each person gets 2,500 impressions each day.  Wow!  That's a lot of clutter.

Communication channels are clogged with messages.  You must be able to target by demographics - profession, jobs, experience, age, specialties, certifications.

You must define what your prospective member pressing needs or challenges are and have the tools to fix it for them.

Value Proposition: What's in it for me (WIIFM).  Your members are thinking - how can I be smarter, save time, save money, and solve a problem.

So what messages are you using to attract new members?  Do any of these ring true:

• We're the place to get info you can't get anywhere else;
• We can solve your problems; and
• Here's how you will benefit from membership (not what they'll receive but how they will benefit).

For a previous blog post on that subject go HERE.

He talked about how you need to identify the right people, at the right time, and the right benefits/solutions to make the "membership sale."

He also went on to talk about the membership lifecycle.  And there has been much written about this, but this was his definition:

• Awareness - tell your target audiences who you are and what your value is, invite them to engage with you.

• Recruitment - find your target audience, invite them to join you.

• Engagement - Give them something for their money, deliver value, encourage usage of your resources.

• Renewal - invite them to renew, early and often.

• Reinstatement - invite them back, new and improved products and services if they happen to lapse.  A large number of our members will lapse at some point in time.

While there are many marketing channels to fill the funnel of prospects: events, telemarketing, database marketing, direct mail, social media, webcasts, app, online advertising, and email marketing.  Decide on what channel works best for you to be successful?

Find out what is working for your chamber, in your community, because it might be different than another chambers success in another community. Track and measure everything you do!

A great resource on membership trends by Marketing General can be found HERE.

What I took away from this webinar is that all ages join organizations but for different reasons - check out MGI benchmarking study to learn more HERE.

And don't forget what Seth Godin has said in the past, "Everyone is not your customer."

Until next time!