Understanding Member Engagement

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WHITEPAPERUnderstanding
Member Engagement
Executive Summary
Member engagement directly impacts an association’s ability
to survive and flourish. Associations that report higher rates of
engaged members also report higher renewal rates. The industry
lacks a standard definition or measurement method for member
engagement, putting the burden on individual associations to
develop their own internal definitions and scoring methods.
Thankfully, this can be easier than first thought might indicate and
is a worthwhile undertaking.
Every association can and should define member engagement
internally and measure against that definition to understand
its engagement status. Accurate measurement eliminates the
guessing and allows associations to enact programs that bring
member engagement results and scrap programs that siphon
valuable resources without delivering value. By understanding
where its members stand, an association can build up its levels of
engaged members and move a larger percentage of them up the
scale from “check-book” or “engaged” to “loyal advocate” and
ultimately to “brand ambassador”.

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Defining, Measuring and Maximizing Member Activity
Member engagement is a big topic of discussion among association
executives. When searching the phrase “member engagement” Google
returns roughly 219,000,000 results. There are LinkedIn Groups, YouTube
videos and entire blogs dedicated to the topic. With all this discussion, it
should be clear what exactly member engagement means. But it’s not. The
definition of member engagement is nebulous and the ways associations
measure it—if they do at all—are numerous.
What is clear, however, is that member engagement directly impacts an
association’s membership renewal rates—studies show that involved
members are much more likely to renew than passive or “check-writing”
members. It builds loyal members and brand ambassadors—those that
renew automatically, see the value of membership, are involved in the
association and carry the message to their colleagues on behalf of the
association. Ultimately, member engagement impacts the association’s
ability to work toward its mission.
Therefore, it’s safe to assume that associations should put priority on
engaging their members in order to build or maintain high renewal rates.
According to the MGI 2012 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report,
associations that report an increase in overall membership growth are
statistically more likely to report having higher levels of engagement. It goes
on to note that associations who have higher proportions of members
engaging in the following three activities are significantly more likely to report
having a renewal rate of 80% or higher than those reporting a renewal rate of
less than 80%:
• Purchasing or maintaining insurance through the organization
• Attending annual conference/trade show
• Upgrading membership1
How does the association know if its efforts are working? The key is to
create a clear picture of member engagement among the association’s staff
by establishing an internal definition that is measurable. This definition of
member engagement will help the association engage its members on regular
basis with programs they want and cultivate loyal members.
Attend at least one professional
development course or meeting
23%
23%
22%
17%
17%
Attend the annual
conference/trade show
Acquire or maintain a
certification with the association
Attend at least one webinar
Purchase a non-dues product
Top 5 Member
Engaging Activities
SOURCE: MGI 2012 Membership Marketing
Benchmarking Report

The Member Engagement Spectrum
Each association has an engagement scale on which its members sit—
from potential member to brand ambassador. Once engagement has been
defined and measurement plan implemented, the association can gauge the
percentages of members it has in each area and work to move them toward
the ultimate level of engagement, brand ambassador.
The Importance of Creating Brand Ambassadors
The highest two tiers of member engagement are key to an association’s long
term health. At these levels, the most highly engaged members see the value
the association delivers and share it with others. They become steadfast, loyal
consumers of the association brand and increasing their numbers is important.
The more engaged members are in an association, the more likely they are
to attend the meetings and events, buy products, volunteer and renew their
membership automatically. These characteristics simultaneously earn the
association revenue and save the association operational expenses allowing it
to spend on its true mission.
In its 2012 benchmarking report, MGI found that “associations with renewal
rates of 80% or higher are significantly more likely to report that greater than
50% of their members have attended at least one professional development
meeting and/or acquired or maintained a certification with their organization.
This finding suggests that opportunities for professional development and
the promise of an earned designation to possibly improve career options is a
meaningful member offering to increase member engagement.”2
Types of Association Members
Potential
Member
Check-book
Member
Sporadic
Member
Engaged
Member
Loyal
Advocate
Brand
Ambassador
New to the
industry, may lack
resources or time,
or not a “joiner”.
Needs to
understand value
of association
membership.
Writes dues
check, but doesn’t
actively participate
in association
programs.
Renewal is not
guaranteed.
Occasionally
attends meetings
or participates
online.
Renewal is not
guaranteed.
Gets involved
in association
programs on a
regular basis.
Renewal is likely.
Gets involved
in association
programs,
volunteers for
committees,
appreciates
the value of
membership.
Renewal is highly
likely.
Champions the
association’s
mission.
Renewal is
automatic.

Defining Member Engagement Across the Industry
While there is no industry-wide standard definition, industry veterans have
put forth their definitions. C. David Gammel, CAE, executive director of the
Entomological Society of America defines member engagement on his blog,
High Context, this way: “Member engagement is the result of a member
investing time and/or money with the association in exchange for value. The
more of these precious resources they invest, the more engaged they are.”3
Anna Caraveli PhD., Managing Partner, Connection Strategist, Co-founder,
The Demand Perspective describes another approach on her blog, “One
way membership organizations define it is by numbers: the number of events
attended and benefits utilized by a member; the amount of time volunteered
and degree of interest in the association’s causes and initiatives.”4
Defining Member Engagement Internally
Expert definitions are a useful guide, but the reason there is not one accepted
definition is that the concept of member engagement is specific to an
individual association. Therefore, it falls to each association to develop its own
internal definition.
The definition must be measurable so that the association knows if the
activities and benefits it is offering are perceived as valuable to the members
and thus having a positive impact on renewal rates and member loyalty.
Developing a definition starts with picturing the end result first. Based on
what the association knows about its membership and its own mission and
goals, it should paint a picture of the ideal member. Then establish criteria that
describe how the association views successful member engagement. Criteria
for the illustrating an engaged member could include identifying the following:
• What we want members to do – does the association value one or
some of its benefits over the others?
• Where we want members to engage – does the association value
in‑person over online engagement or vice versa and why?
• When we want members to engage – how much activity over what period
of time? Is it enough for a member to attend one conference per year, or
does a member need interaction with the association more often to be
considered engaged?
Based on the answers to this criteria an association can then define what
member engagement means. For example, one association might determine
that attending a webinar is a behavior it values more highly than reading its
blog, whereas another association would rather see daily interaction on its
social media.

Measuring Member Engagement
Once the definition of member engagement is clear, the challenge is to
measure it. There is no standard formula within the association industry
in which to measure engagement. Recently, however, MeetingsNet.com
interviewed Aptify chairman and chief executive officer, Amith Nagarajin, about
his formula for engagement scoring. He outlines it in five steps:
• Step 1: Identify Key Performance Indicators
Key performance indicators (KPI) are activities that members engage in that
are most aligned with the strategic objectives of the association such as
the number of meetings and events attended over a given time period, total
revenue generated from the member or years as a member. [It could also
include how active members are on the association’s knowledge sharing
tools like email lists, intranet topic rooms and even social media activities.]
It’s critical to pick the three to five most important KPIs so the focus is not
diluted. The KPIs should be selected by looking at the strategic objectives
of the association and choosing the activities that most support those goals.
They differ from association to association [and industry to industry].
• Step 2: Weight the KPIs
The KPIs are then weighted for importance and assigned a point total so that
all add up to 100. If there are five KPIs and all are equal in importance, then
each would be assigned 20 points. If they are not equal, then event attendance
might be assigned 40 points, while advocacy is 20, years as a member is 15,
revenue generated for the association is 15, and volunteering is 10.
• Step 3: Assign Points for Activities
Next, points are assigned for activities within each KPI. So, for event
attendance, points would be assigned based on how many meetings a
member attended within a given time period. If the member attended one
association meeting in the past three years, he might earn 10 points within
that 40 allocated to the KPI. If he attended two to three meetings in the last
three years, he might receive 20 points. If he went to more than four and
volunteered or sat on a panel, then he might get all 40 points.
• Step 4: Tally Up the Scores
After point totals for each of the KPIs are added together, the member
will have a Composite Engagement Score that quantifies his level of
engagement.
• Step 5: Use the Data to Engage
An association can aggregate the data to arrive at an average engagement
score, which provides the organization with a benchmark on which to
improve. It can also drill down into each of the KPIs to identify strengths and
weaknesses. For example, if the average engagement score for meeting
attendance is lower than the others, then leadership knows that steps must
be taken to get more people to the meetings.5

Nicole Rawski, analytics manager at Digitaria shared four tips for measuring
engagement in a blog post on imediaconnection.com. While she is measuring
engagement on websites, her tips (excerpted here) can easily be applied to
interactions with association members:
• Goals and objectives
In order to translate analytics into engagement, it’s important to interpret
them in light of the purpose of the site [association]: Who are you serving
and what do they need or want? At the end of the day, your engagement
analytics should help you make informed decisions on what and how to
improve your site [association].
• User experience
Always think about your users [members]. Understanding your users’ goals
will help you deliver a better user experience in addition to understanding
which actions are most valuable to measuring engagement.
• Segment appropriately
Creating KPIs and custom measurements is a good first step to
understanding engagement, but in order to get to the core of what your
users [members] are doing, make sure you group those users accordingly.
Which users are you targeting? Who do you want to know more about?
Some metrics have built in segments, but sub-segments and geo-segments
may provide more insight into your overall goals.
• Get social
Social sharing by your users broadcast to their massive social networks is
incredibly important for word-of-mouth marketing. But even more important
than that, integrating social sharing provides key engagement insights.
Which content motivated your users to share and how did they reach that
content? Understanding this about your users could be potentially more
significant than the social networks they reach.6
Another option is to automate the measurement. Many association
management software firms now integrate engagement measurement tools
into their software. The association can also conduct surveys to learn which
activities and benefits are driving engagement and where changes need to be
made to increase participation.
To determine where your membership stands on the scale, is to work
backwards and gauge how many renew without any effort from association.
Those are the loyal members. Use word of mouth statistics to begin to
measure to measure the percentage of brand ambassadors within the
association. On the other hand, those members that must be reminder five,
six, or seven times to renew are less engaged with the association. One the
“check-book” or “engaged” members are identified, focus on other categories
of engagement the association has identified as important, such as conference
attendance, and build a subset of that group to determine the “low hanging
fruit.” This subset has the most potential to move up the ladder and will require
more analysis and attention to deliver the programs they value.

Gammel offers a tool in his book, Maximum Engagement: Moving Members,
Donors, and Customers to Ever-Increasing Levels of Participation, which
helps an association plot its activities on a continuum engagement value
where more people are involved in lower value activities and less people are
involved in higher value activities. This chart helps the association identify
gaps in engagement. He points out, “Perhaps you engage a lot of people with
your content and social media, but it costs $3,000 for people to attend your
conference. That’s going to stop a lot of people from engaging further.”7
Increasing Engagement through Measurement
Defining member engagement, understanding where it stands within the
association and learning what members need to increase their engagement is
powerful. It allows the association to segment its membership, take a portion
of the less committed and shift them a little bit forward to the more highly
engaged group. The top performing and active members (brand ambassadors
and loyal members) will always attend and support—it is the 15 to 25 percent
right behind them that need more communication. They are engaged, but
not yet “automatic” in their loyalty. Getting a portion of the second group to
become more active and loyal will drive positive financial and advocacy results
and overall mission fulfillment.
Measuring engagement will yield concrete data from which to work and
limit the number of assumptions staff must make when creating programs.
Accurate measurement will also give the association the power to dump
programs that are not being utilized and are merely taking its resources to
produce. The focus can then shift to identifying reasons why other programs
are successful and capitalize on those features to produce a higher level of
membership value.
The association can explore adding a new benefit, like a loyalty program,
for example, that is designed to entice the second group (the engaged) to
interact more often with the association. Loyalty programs are a new concept
for associations. They change the concept of member engagement from
always asking members to do something or give something to rewarding
them for their participation. They give the association an outlet for connecting
with member on a regular basis and a creative way to incentivize them to
participate in other association programs.

Moving from Analysis to Action
With a clearer understanding of what member engagement means and
how to measure it in a particular association, it’s time to move from analysis
to action. The following four steps are a path toward activating your
membership and driving more member engagement.
First, define success. Determine how the association will define
engagement for itself. What things are most important to the association, to
the financial and business success and especially to the members? Each
association is different and hence what is important to one will be different
from what is important to another, hence the definition of engagement will
be different for each association. Determine how success will be measured.
Will one of the methods previously described work or should the association
develop its own formula?
Second, ask and communicate. Listen to members, via surveys, focus
groups or informal feedback. Conduct a member benefit audit to see
which ones are really delivering value. Create continuous feedback loop.
Understand how the association’s members want to be communicated with
both with the association and between each other (e.g. social media, emails,
forums, or face‑to-face).
Third, deliver extraordinary experiences. Develop activities that are both
business and social. Don’t forego the networking/fun activities that may
be of importance to members. Always think of new ways to bring value to
members, to their businesses and their personal lives. It is not only about
them paying membership dues, but it is truly about what the association
gives them in return.
Fourth, reward members for their engagement. Saying thank you goes a
long way in ensuring future renewals. ACI’s white paper, “The Neuroscience
of Member Loyalty”, covers the impact positive emotions and positive
memories have on member loyalty.8
Finally, focus on building community. People join associations primarily
because they are wired to be social. Give members ways to connect with
each other, share their advice, questions, or daily activities. Give them a
variety of ways to interact with or become a part of your leadership. Their level
of commitment will depend on their perceived value of the project or goal.
1 Define Success
2 Ask and Communicate
3 Deliver Extraordinary
Experiences
4 Reward Loyalty
5 Build Community
5 Steps
to Increasing
Member Engagement

Positive Engagement Activities Generate Longer Term Value
While things like conferences, certification classes, or other standard
member actives are key to building a well-rounded member engagement
portfolio, it is important to also make sure fun, creative programs are part of
the mix. Engagement activities should have some level of positive emotional
value as well.
Recent examples of these types of activities include:
• Crab Boil – a 100% member focused, fun activity that allowed members to
come and socialize while eating crab and drinking beer. No other goals and
objectives beyond the three-hour window of down time and interaction. One
construction-industry association has used a crab boil over the years and it
has grown to a well-attended and supported activity.
• Wine Tasting – one financial-industry association did not realize that this
yearly event was their best way to get existing members to invite one
potential new member until they started thinking of it less as an event to be
endured and instead as a key part of member engagement. Each year this
social event is sold out within one week of offering.
• Industry Thank You Dinner – one organization holds a yearly thank you
and rewards dinner to highlight those in the state and/or industry that have
helped others beyond their jobs. This has ranged from individuals in one
company that helped a competitor who felt ill, or a team of people who
helped at great personal cost of time and money to help support a charity
effort. The attendance in this group has grown from a handful a few years
back to well over a thousand.
• Golf Tournament – one association in the educational industry uses a yearly
golf event to drive support of the three non-profits they support.
Many associations have these types of social and fun activities. They are a key
part of driving positive member engagement and should be embraced.
Open the Door for Loyal Members
Defining member engagement opens the door to establishing a higher level
of member value, driving engagement and increasing the number of loyal
members. Today, with thousands leaving the workforce and many more facing
stiff budget constraints, every member counts. No association can afford not
to improve their numbers of loyal members. It is only with the backing of a
fiercely loyal membership base that an association can work toward achieving
its mission.

References
1. Erik Schonher et al. “2012 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Study,” Marketing General
Incorporated, Alexandria, 2012, p. 9.
2. Tony Rossel “Product and Service Engagement Drives Member Retention and Growth,”
Membership Marketing Blog, http://membershipmarketing.blogspot.com/2012/04/product-
and-service-engagement-drives.html
3. C. David Gammel, CAE “Definition of Member Engagement for Associations,” High Context,
December 28, 2009 http://highcontext.com/2009/12/28/definition-of-member-engagement-
for-associations/
4. Anna Caraveli “Myths about Member Engagement” Tactical Engagement or Counting
the Numbers,” The Demand Perspective, November 8, 2011, http://demandperspective.
com/2011/11/08/myths-about-member-engagement-1-tactical-engagement-or-counting-
the-numbers/
5. Dave Kovaleski, “How to Measure Member Engagement,” MeetingsNet, October 3, 2012,
http://meetingsnet.com/association-meetings-resources/how-score-association-member-
engagement
6. Nicole Rawski “How to Really Measure Engagement,” iMedia Connection, June 15, 2012,
http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=32065
7. C. David Gammel, CAE Maximum Engagement: Moving Members, Donors, and Customers
to Ever-Increasing Levels of Participation, ASAE Press, Washington, 2011
8. “The Neuroscience of Member Loyalty,” Affinity Center International, Reston, 2011.

Understanding Member Engagement

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