Strategies for Driving Member & Event Engagement

The following are my notes that I thought were worth sharing from a great session on the title of this blog post I attended presented by Results Direct and their team.

First, they started out with suggesting you need to create an engagement strategy.

Understanding the needs of your members and meet them where they are is a great place to start.

Here are their 10 strategies:

Engagement Strategy 1

Multi-channel communications – email has been the main way your members have gotten information from you.  Now it’s time to think of multi platforms (think social media) where you can connect with your members or prospective members.  A large number are engaging on mobile.

Engagement Strategy 2

Personalization – get to know your members and communicate with them directly where they are (think the different generations) and how they want to receive your organizations information.  

Engagement Strategy 3

Year-round networking and community – staying connected is key in keeping your members engaged and will help your retention.  Mobile communications is a great way to keep them engaged.  Create forums where they communicate with each other (think listservs).

Engagement Strategy 4

The medium is the message – meet the member where they are.  Manage your message and how you are distributing that information.

Engagement Strategy 5

Deliver content in the format members want – is it written, video, audio?  Do you use different digital formats to reach your members and prospects?

Engagement Strategy 6

Create experiences – shared experiences with your members.  Your role is to facilitate this process.  When in person, this is where you need to take full advantage of creating an experience your members will tell their peers (think memories).

Engagement Strategy 7

Incentivize engagement – reward behavior you want your members to do on a regular basis.  You have to decide what reward you want to give out (free meeting registration, gift card, etc).

Engagement Strategy 8

Engage members before, during and after events – think about continuing to push relevant content to your members through a mobile channel.  That is the easiest way to stay connected to your member throughout the year.  Have you thought about creating an app for your meeting

Engagement Strategy 9

Capture moments of time – use technology to get you content to your members.  People’s attention spans has shrunk.  So, think about less is more in your communications.  Another way to think of it, how can your members consume your information on the go!

Engagement Strategy 10

Create an integrated engagement strategy – create a dashboard on where you are creating your content and events and make sure they are integrated.  Decide what is successful for you. Some people may call it the member journey and you’re creating the road map for them to engage.

They ended with the comment that the goal of all these strategies is to engage your members which translates into higher retention numbers.

For more information from Results Direct go HERE.

Making Connections: Supercharging Your Networking Activities

I attended a great webinar the other day on how to supercharge your networking activities from the folks at NXUnite.

The following are my notes in no specific order based on a series of questions they asked and answered.

Why is it critical for networking at your events?

• It’s a top result from surveys and a top benefit.
• Relevance bringing our members together.
• It is hard to measure.  Getting with folks just like you who understand the world you live in.  Celebration, collaboration, and share failures with your peers too!
• Don’t forget to let technology allow for other ways to network during your events.
• Our job is to create the space to have our member’s network and learn from each other.

How can we help our members authentically engage versus just showing up?

• Scheduling is key.  Make it a priority!  Plan with intent not just having a reception.  Have a plan to bring your member’s closer together.  Issue based, geographic, etc., are a couple of ways to segment your networking.
• Remember, this is a big part of the reason your members are attending your events.
• It can’t be frivolous or just have a “cheese plate.”
• Maybe have a speaker or sponsor in the room and introduce them with a fun fact!  It’s a great way to get the networking started.
• “Ask me about (attendee fills out something unique about themselves” on name tags.  It’s a fun networking starter.

Difference between in-person and online networking?

• You can do both, but you need to be intentional.  You need to build spaces for the networking to take place.
• It’s not about having an open chat room online.  Be specific on the reason for any rooms you’ve created online.
• Focus on the experience your members will have online.  You need to figure out what your members want.  Remember, online, you can only have one person talking at any one-time vs in-person where everyone can be interacting.

How should you evaluate your current networking activities?

• Look at your AMS data, registration data, and folks who may have uploaded their profiles.
• Ask specific questions in your follow up survey.  Find out which members want the networking and learn from them by digging deeper on who they are.

Advice for upping the Annual Meeting networking?

• Coffee breaks, be intentional on how you can use this time wisely.
• Create an experience that your member may not be expecting.  Do you have an element of surprise in your networking events.
• Promote your networking events but hold back that surprise element.
• If you have an awards program as part of your event?  Do it on the front end not on the backend so people can react and network with that person in the next day or two.
• Gift giving networking event?  You have to get someone a drink or they have to get you one as an ice breaker.

Final thoughts:

• Not all of your attendees want to network, so don’t force it on people, but make sure you do focus on networking for those who want it.
• If you can survey your folks before your event for what they want, try to respond with what they’ve told you.
• Involve your sponsors in these networking events and they may also have ideas they’ve experienced somewhere else that you could integrate.
• Introverts could thrive in your online networking where they may feel overwhelmed at an in-person event, something to think about.
• Don’t forget to use your name tags as a networking opportunity.

For other ideas on networking go HERE and HERE.

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