What does member engagement look like? Why are the programs used by associations beginning to fail? What are members REALLY LOOKING FOR? Answers to these questions and practical recommendations are presented in this presentation.

1. Erik Schonher, MBA
Vice President
Marketing General Incorporated
Membership Engagement:
Ideas that Work!

2. Today…
• Offer a new paradigm
• Define what is “Engagement”
• Look at its role in an association
• Discuss the flaws in the typical approach
• Present some new ideas on tactics and
strategies

3. From the Association’s Perspective,
Member Engagement is Important
Individual Trade Combination
Top reason for not renewing: 28% 40% 35%
C-Suite ranks engagement
as very important: 44% 53% 48%
It…
• Promotes your association’s culture
• It allows for individual’s to integrate into the association
• It fulfills the primary function of most associations:
• Transmission of knowledge
• Information dissemination
But from the Member’s Perspective, it’s about…

4. Delivering Value 4

7. Up until recently, Engagement
Programs targeted the general
membership and the evaluation of
their effectiveness was pretty
straight forward.
Build it and they will come…

8. • Governance
• Annual Convention
• Discipline-specific
divisions
• Leadership
Conferences
• Magazines &
Journals
• Grants & Prizes
8
• Webinars
• Other Digital
Content
• Email
• Member Directory
• Online Advocacy
• Government
relations
Features of the “Typical”
Member Engagement Toolbox

9. Working Definition
It is the emotional fabric that drives
an association’s success.
Engagement = Relationship + Action

10. But let’s face it, these programs fall far
short of creating the “emotional bond”
that we’re looking for and discuss in
our working definition.

11. In truth, our job is better
described as…
Social
Scientist

12. Schonher’s 80/20 Rule
“80 percent of our life is
emotion, and only 20 percent
is intellect. I am much more
interested in how you feel than
how you think. I can change
how you think, but how you
feel is something deeper and
stronger, and it's something
that's inside you.”
- Dr. Frank Luntz, PBS Interview
Emotion, 80
Intellect, 20

13. • Stand out from the crowd
- Project a unique social identity
• Feel a sense of belonging
- Feel like part of the group
• Be the person I want to be
-Fulfill a desire for ongoing self-improvement
• Succeed in life
-Find worth that goes beyond financial or socio-
economic measures
What does a member WANT?

14. We Need Others
Plato’s The Symposium
When in doubt, “Mimic”
The Mirror Nueron
Group-think

15. It’s NOT what you say, but
what people hear.
It’s NOT what you show, but
what people perceive.
It’s what people UNDERSTAND.

16. So you may be asking…
What does this
mean to me?

17. Control what you can control
• Use testimonials
• Personalize
• It’s easier to influence smaller groups
• Use ALL of the channels available
• Be consistent in your message
• Be persistent in your messaging
• Ask for a response

18. Communications and Message
Refinement
Effective marketing communication is moving away
from “mass marketing” tactics and moving towards
more intimacy.

19. 19
One-to-One
Engagement

20. Shift in Perspective
Move from Members being Dependent
UPON US…
…To Partnering WITH US!

21. Learn More About Our Members
21
Domestic or Global

22. Data Modeling
• Outline Membership Path
• Identify Members at Risk
• Develop “Persona’s”
• Snapshot/summary
• What makes her tick
• Motivations and challenges
• What’s important to her?
• What would she like to change about the dental profession?
• How to engage
• Media consumption
• Value proposition and key messages

24. Always tie recruitment efforts to a specific membership benefit that they can access for
free immediately…so they can experience a great benefit that will compel them to join.
24
Early engagement is especially critical for retaining first-year members. Need to reinforce
the value of joining in the first year.
Set up an automated email campaign to send weekly then monthly introducing new
member benefits and engagement opportunities depending on how they entered the org
and/or topics relevant to their job titles.
Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report
When one of our retention efforts got held up, as an emergency fallback, we sent emails
letting members know that their memberships were about to expire 10 days prior to
expiration and again at 5 days prior to expiration. This worked so well, it quickly became a
part of our retention communications strategy.
Practical Advice from the
2015 & 2016 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report

25. Sell benefits before features, getting to the heart of why someone joins or
what they are looking for in their membership.
Targeting content to specific groups within the membership to ensure only
relevant material is surfaced to a particular group. We experienced cut-
through issues with juniors. We created dedicated content just for our first
year juniors, very specific to their career stage. This had better traction than
previous general marketing materials and supported by brand ambassadors
had good traction.
We have a 2 for 1 special in one of our slowest months for membership, if an
existing member brings a new person who joins they both get to join at half
price. It's been successful and the long term value of the new members
makes this very worthwhile.
Retention, email open rates, member satisfaction surveys, involvement with
volunteer opportunities, meeting attendance

26. We have developed an engagement score that is computed monthly. It is simple,
concentrating on the key areas where we want members to be engaged. We use
the scores to thank our most engaged and to contact our least engaged to
hopefully get them more engaged.
A basket of indicators which designates a members at 3 levels: not engaged,
engaged very engaged. / / A engaged members would sign-up to emails,
respond to surveys, log on to website etc / A very engaged member would vote
and stand for election, spend a certain amount of money, attend events etc /
We have radically increased our direct/phone/support communication with every
member. The personalized coaching services set our company apart from our
competition. It is a highly personalized boutique approach. We've also duplicated
our model for doctors and extended it to staff members who now engage in their
own wisdom share groups and utilize benchmarks. Membership has extended from
one owner to several key team members.

27. We offered lapsed members the most recent digital copy of our journal for free to show
them what they had missed since they hadn't renewed.
Telemarketing to lapsed members is expensive but good ROI overall. We've created a
position whose full function is member engagement. He/she will make calls/outreach to
new, lapsed, and graduating members.
For unengaged members, we have found that if a member calls them and invites them to
attend an event as their guest, versus free, the accept the invitation and attend. They are
introduced to other peers and recognize the value of the network and get more engaged.
This year we began letting employers know their renewal rates (no names of course, only
numbers). Employers work hard to encourage certification, and want to keep them
certified. They are in a position to remind employees to recertify and of the employer-
offered benefits to recertify.
Creation of multiple committees grouped around subset of membership, either
geographically or sector-focus. Increased participation on these committees from 10% to
50% of membership, and among those who participate, renewal rates are nearly 100%.

28. We use short descriptors for FB articles, 75% of all content targeted at the most likely FB
audience with are the 25 - 35 year olds, juniors and students. This seems to garner
greater traction. / Our more established audience tend to favor Twitter so we keep that
content as more of a broadcasting channel and FB as more of an engagement tool.
We live-tweet participation in industry events (not our own events -- events we attend) --
this brings us new followers, higher social media engagement, and often new members.
Geotargeting special interest audiences through FB has been instrumental in driving
traffic to our website. Content marketing with our president's blog drives the highest
audience participation to our website, which we market through FB. Next up is a more
organized approach to our YouTube channel, utilizing HubSpot to calendar content in
2016. It is labor intensive and we've just secured a consultant to deliver services.
We host all of our peer-written articles through our blog. We have a high open-rate and
our members seem to really like the articles for their professional development. We
started this back in 2015.

29. New Member Onboarding
1. A welcome email .
2. A New Member Packet .
3. An email containing a one-question survey asking which benefits
/resources the member is most interested in (sent one month after joining).
4. A welcome phone call to anyone who did not respond to the one-question
survey.
5. After 3 months , a new member survey to determine which benefits and
services they found most useful so far.
6. An email encouraging them to get involved by writing a blog post,
presenting a webinar, or self-nominating for a board seat (six months after
joining).
At 9 months we begin the renewal process.
Kim Pawlak
Director of Publishing & Operations
Text and Academic Authors Association

30. 30
INDIVIDUAL
Participation in your public social network
Participation in your young professional program
Participation in your private social network
Attendance of webinars
Number of members who acquire or maintain a
certification with your organization
Attendance at your professional development meetings
Number of visits to members-only section of website
50%+ MEMBERSHIP ENGAGEMENT
TRADE
Participation in your young professional program
Participation in your public social network
Participation in your private social network
Number of visits to members-only section of website
Attendance at your annual conference/trade show
Attendance at your professional development meetings
Attendance of webinars
Number of members who acquire or maintain a
certification with your org
Number of membership upgrades
COMBINATION
Participation in your public social network
Attendance of webinars
Participation in your young professional program
Participation in your private social network
Number of visits to members-only section of website
Attendance at your annual conference/trade show
Donations to your association foundation or PAC

31. Control what you can control
• Use testimonials
• Personalize
• It’s easier to influence smaller groups
• Use ALL of the channels available
• Be consistent in your message
• Be persistent in your messaging
• Ask for a response

32. THANK YOU
Erik Schonher
Vice President
(703) 706-0358
Erik@MarketingGeneral.com