Membership happiness

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Membership Happiness

Tips to Engage and Attract Members

by Amanda Kaiser

www.webbrightservices.com Page �1

http://www.webbrightservices.com

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Membership Happiness

Tips to Attract and Engage Members

Are You Using Predatory Marketing Tactics With Your Members? 3 First Impressions Matter 5 Membership Experience Not - Membership Math 8 Who Should Welcome Your Members? 11 Do You Know What Your New Members Want? 13 Are You Still Relevant to Your Members Today? 16 3 Tactics for Exceptional Conference Experience 20 3 Best Practices for Exceptional Member Experience 23 Opportunities for Engaging Members Your Association is Likely to

Miss 26 How Can Associations Reengage Experienced Members 28



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Are You Using Predatory Marketing Tactics With Your Members?

Have you ever felt great about receiving a cold call? Even if it’s an institution that I do business with or feel affinity with those calls leave me feeling annoyed, guilty, and inconvenienced. I know that charities champion worthy causes and use our money for research and for helping affected families. Your university gives college-aged kids opportunities with your pledge. Associations have to have enough attendees to make a conference viable. We know the cause is a good one and we know that their request is legitimate however some marketing tactics leave us cold.

I have heard this sentiment from more than one member - I became a member and now I feel like all my association does is try to sell to me. You can bet these folks have tuned out most of the association’s communications.



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You have a choice. You have the choice to employ various marketing tactics simply because they work. Or you have the choice to use the marketing tactics that build trust, educate and leave your members better off than they were before.

Telemarketing

On the surface telemarketing, especially to existing members, seems like just one more tool in the toolbox. The problem is no one welcomes telemarketing. This method has been degraded over the years because it is a preferred channel for misleading sales people guided by overly pushy scripts.

Its not that your members don’t want to talk to you on the phone - they do. They just want to talk to you when they want to talk to you about issues they care about. Interesting that some associations run telemarketing campaigns but staff members in other departments don’t return member inquiries. If you are trying to build long-term relationships with members, ditch the telemarketing campaigns, and instead build the ability to handle member inquiries quickly and with a lot of thought so members come away from each interaction feeling cared about.

Being remarkable gives your members something to talk about. An authentic referral is worth thousands of cold calls.

Email

Why would a member, someone who has purchased membership, opt out of an association’s emails? Because too many messages are clogging up their in box. Too many messages that they feel don’t apply to them.



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Associations can annoy members with email when there’s a high frequency, when the messages are too promotional and when campaigns duplicate the same message over and over. If you keep blasting out mediocre promotions via email over time you can ruin that communication channel.

How do some organizations improve their email opens and perhaps even make these messages something to anticipate? By being generous. They educate their members or offer them provocative things to think about. Only every once in a while these organizations plug their products, services or events. But mostly they are being generous. WildApricot’s blog is a great example. Posts are well written, timely and relevant. It’s a work of generosity and I look forward to each new post. Yes they do promote their posts in a variety of social media channels but they are still saying - here are some ideas that may help you solve a business problem or two.

Remarkable and generous marketing tactics like content marketing are much harder and take longer than cold calling or email campaigns. But employing generous marketing tactics helps you build trust while the latter may actually denigrate your relationship with members. You have a choice.

First Impressions Matter

We are super adept at making snap judgments. In seconds we can sizeup a person, organization, thing, animal or situation. Our brains very quickly tell us if it is good or bad and whether we should go forward or



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run away. Experts say this is a survival instinct developed during the time our ancestors were busy running away from saber-tooth tigers.

Today in the business world, the reason why first impressions are important is because they play an important role in setting our future expectations. An article in the Tufts Journal by Max Weisbuch illustrates the point, “let’s assume that on your first day at a job you decide your boss is stern. What happens then? Recent experiments have shown that prior impressions of hostility can actually cause us to see anger on a supposedly hostile person’s face. So even if your boss is not expressing anger just yet, your prior impression of sternness may cause you to literally see an angry expression on his face.” How does this play out for associations?

Those first critical impressions become the lens that the new members look at the association through. When a new member tries to connect with staff and doesn’t get a response she will assume that the association is unresponsive. KiKi L’italien (@kikilitalien) shares her first experiences with an non-responsive association and how “without knowing it, my membership clock started ticking”. In the same way, if a new member joins over the phone and the staff member taking the membership application is rushed and terse the new member may think the staff, maybe even members, are aloof. Good or bad, the first



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experience that a member or potential member has with your organization can set the tone for the rest of their membership.

Some organizations are great at first impressions – Disney, Apple and Zappos for example. While all of these companies couldn’t be more different they use similar strategies to create amazing first impressions, they:

1. Cater to a target audience; what they offer is not for everyone

2. Solve the problem of that target audience

3. Nurture great customer service and build the culture to support it

4. Value trust, they trust their customers and their customers trust them

5. Create experiences for the customer, they don’t just sell product

How can an association provide more great first impressions

1. Discover what the new member touch points are – Determine the couple of steps that most members take to connect with your association for the first time. Do they call? Do they register on-line? Do they download something for free? Do they sample an event

2. Evaluate those first experiences – Try to put yourself in your member’s shoes. Spend time on your automated phone answering system, register on your website and observe what it’s like for a new-



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attendee at your conference. If you need more input, objectively ask new members about their first impressions.

3. Improve impressions – Did you find any inconsistencies between member’s first impressions and your brand promise? Figure out solutions and ways to implement solutions to these gaps long-term.

4. Moving to remarkable – How about delighting more and more members right at the start? Learn from some of the best in the business, like Disney, and highly develop one or more of the strategies they use to create great first impressions.

Your member’s first impressions are critically important and set the stage for the rest of their relationship with your association. While you don’t have total control over their perceptions you can create experiences that foster great first impressions.

Membership Experience Not - Membership Math

I am standing at the entrance gate of the zoo with the line piling up behind me trying to do some quick mental math to figure out whether membership is worth it. As my young son is tugging on my arm as I figure that family membership equals approximately the cost of three individual trips. Quickly I scan the other nine benefits and see they don’t apply to us. We won’t take advantage of things like $25 off of summer camp (yet) or the 10% discount at the concession stand (often). Regardless membership is worth it, I am pretty sure we will take more than three trips to the zoo in a year.



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That was two years ago. I did join but they almost lost me as a member because I was deciding to join nearly exclusively on cost.

Now imagine a different scenario. I see moms like me with kids like mine having special, engaging and unique experiences at the zoo. I learn how the zoo is teaching families about conservation and how this helps kids learn to be better citizens of the world. Additionally as a member I understand I am eligible to go to special member only events like sunset lectures and behind the scene tours. In this scenario belonging to the zoo helps me teach my son life skills like compassion, curiosity and a love of learning. I decide that a person like me joins an organization like this.

Think about the difference in point of view between the two scenarios:

1. I will join because it is cheaper, verses

2. I will join because people like me belong in organizations like this



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Which would you rather have as your member?

My zoo illustration is not unique to this zoo, this happens with members of associations all the time. How do you move members away from doing that mental math? How do you make joining less transactional and focus more on experience?

Help members solve more important problems

Our visits to the zoo solve many problems for me. Superficially, we are active and outside – but I can get this at a playground. More importantly, we are having fun and learning something. Most important, I believe that experiences like this can help teach my son those life skills that will help him be well rounded, fulfilled and giving person.

The zoo markets fun and learning but stories from higher up the list of mom’s needs would resonate far more. You see this play out successfully with the big brands. Harley Davidson means freedom not transportation. Coke means youth and fun not sugar water.

You can provide the most value when you help solve your member’s most important problems.

Provide special member experiences

Many member benefits lists read like a math equation: 10% off for members, a $50 savings, and 1 free guest. This is hardly compelling reading and it is not so compelling in the decision making process either. The logic is there but the emotion is missing.



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Give me experiences that I never will get as a non-member. Teach me things I can’t learn otherwise. Help me meet people that I may not have crossed paths with. Create special member experiences and you make membership special.

Want to move membership from a transaction to an experience? Take the financial calculation right out of the equation and add some emotion instead. What can you do that will help members feel they want to belong?

Who Should Welcome Your Members?

Your members want to matter. They want to be respected. Many of them also joined with the intention of belonging to a community. The first impression your members have of your association will stay with them for the lifetime of their membership. For all of these reasons and more developing a strategy to whole-heartedly welcome your members can significantly improve the value you deliver to them.

Great first experiences with your association put members on a path to learning, openness, collaboration and sharing. Welcoming members is another great way to provide a great first experience.

Before you get started watch how other professionals in other industries welcome customers. Wait staff, hotel reception, car services and others, especially in high-end service-oriented industries can give you interesting ideas for your member welcoming plan. In addition watch when welcoming goes wrong. A greeting can be flat, mechanical or insincere and possibly do more damage than good.



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Are you thinking about how you can welcome your members? Here are some ideas:

When do you welcome members?

When members first join let them know you are glad they are a part of the association. Perhaps a few weeks later connect with them to see what their biggest challenges are and guide them to resources that can help.

Welcoming is not just for new members. Welcome long-time members when they participate in the association in a new way. ‘Tim thanks for following! Good to see you again and so glad to see you here on Twitter.’

Welcoming is not just limited to members. Welcoming sponsors, exhibitors and speakers to your conference and events shows you care about the extra effort they are adding.

How do you welcome members?

Often the first communication a new member of an association gets upon joining is a receipt. If this is the case for your association how about changing that important first communication to a more valuable message like the best 3-5 ways to get started?

In addition to welcoming members you can also go out of your way to welcome conference, event and online event attendees. In-person event attendee welcoming is pretty straightforward but welcoming online event attendees? Are you wondering how to do this? Check out the



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association Twitter chat, #AssnChat, Tuesdays at 2PM ET to see how host @kikilitalien does it.

Who should welcome your members?

Tone matters. Some greeters want to process members and attendees. As an attendee approaches the registration desk they ask the perfunctory ‘name?’ Others naturally play the role of the host. ‘Welcome! How was your trip?’ they will ask. Members and attendees love the host who is interested in them! Select, train and show staff and volunteers how to be a great host.

Watch out for the blahs

The hard part of welcoming, especially when you have many members, is to be genuine and enthusiastic. Over time and with mass it becomes too easy to build policies that become automatic thus mostly meaningless.

How do you make members feel they matter? Genuinely welcome them to your association.

Do You Know What Your New Members Want?

We love engaged long-time members. Engaged long-time members feel they belong. They find affinity. They want to give back.

Engaged long-time members tell their friends. They totally believe in the association’s mission and can clearly and with passion articulate



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what the association does to help them. Long-time members leverage the resources of the association. They understand how to navigate the association and which resources are most important to them. Starting a new project? They turn to the association first. Long-time members will give you the benefit of the doubt. Typo, president blooper, email mistake --no matter, one mistake doesn’t detract from many great years.

New members, on the other hand, are not at all like that. New members have not yet formed an emotional bond with the association. There’s no feeling of belonging –yet. There’s no engagement – yet. Perhaps there’s just a low level of affinity – so far.

New members probably won’t tell their friends

These new members may still fear they made a mistake. Perhaps becoming a member was a waste of money? New members don’t fully understand the association’s value yet. Additionally they have not made



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the emotional connection of affinity, engagement and, best of all, belonging. Until they understand the value and form an emotional bond they won’t spread the word for fear of being wrong.

New members may not use what you offer

They don’t know the full breadth of what you offer so they may not turn to you first. Of course this perpetuates the problem, the less they use your website and other resources the less familiar they will be with what you offer.

New members will not give you the benefit of the doubt

When new members find it hard to locate resources and information they will quickly assume you don’t have it and go somewhere else. If they get a terse staff member on the phone they think ‘well, they must all be like that’. They carefully read the first handful of email promotions and if neither the product nor content applies to them they stop reading. Perhaps joining was a mistake after all?

The same way the clothing label ‘one size fits all’ really means ‘doesn’t fit anyone’; ‘new member’ only means newly joined. New member is not a target segment. New members have different worldviews, different goals, different problems and different opinions than long-time members and perhaps from each other. Most associations are complex and ‘one-sizing’ new members is a recipe for disaster.

Want to see some data around this issue? Check out Naylor’s Association Advisor blog post: Associations Still Trying to get by with One-Size-Fits-All Messaging.



http://www.associationadviser.com/index.php/associations-still-trying-get-one-size-fits-messaging/

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Serve new members by segmenting them

Rather than serve up the same product, resources or content to all new members try to segment them as quickly as possible. This can be difficult because you don’t want to inundate new members with questions. However a few well thought out questions can point you toward their most pressing problems and help you understand their professional goals.

You may find that you need to segment your membership around industry or profession. Perhaps segments like new-to-the-profession, new-manager, or new director make the most sense for your members.

There are a million ways to define your key member segments so start by focusing on the key need areas, their problems or goals. New to segmenting? Keep it simple focus on 2-3 key segments because you will notice that moving from one audience to two segment will double your workload.

Once you’ve defined and segmented new members create messaging, content and maybe even products with their needs in mind. When they get marketing messaging that meets their particular needs their affinity and engagement, in your association, will grow.

Are You Still Relevant to Your Members Today?



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Seemingly overnight, technology and customer preferences can change our need for formerly popular goods and services. Think about the fates of: Smith Corona typewriters, Kodak cameras, and the five-and-dime giant Woolworths. For the folks working in these companies, in the last few years of their existence, it must have seemed like customer allegiance suddenly flipped but, was that really what happened?

After Kodak went bankrupt 2012 we learned that the staff had fielded customer research on digital photography years earlier. The results of that research said digital photography would be the future of photography and the research even indicated when digital photography would fully take hold. Not all organizations have the ability to hire a research firm to field a multi-million dollar piece of research but there are still ways to tell if you are relevant to your members or if you are on the downward spiral.

Is Relevancy a Key Topic at Your Association?



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Relevancy seems to be on the minds of many association staff. I am not sure what the average age of professional and trade associations are but I suspect many have been around 40 years or more. Even if your association has been in existence for only 10 years it is worth a look to see if you are still relevant. Technology and industry trends can change significantly in even a couple of years, just ask the music industry folks.

Before you work to become more relevant you first should determine if you are still relevant and why.

Learn if There Really is a Problem

Use your data to figure out if you have a problem. Are revenues declining? Are you making budget? Are members switching from profitable services to unprofitable services? Which benefits are they using less? Which revenue making offerings have been harder to sell? How about email opens, when you measure apples to apples, how are those stats? Has members’ time spent with you declined? Do they spend less time doing their research on your site? Are they less willing to participate, contribute or volunteer? Are fewer members coming to your events and spending less time while they are there?

Use your data to determine shifts. Are your members aging? A decade ago was the mean member age 40 and today it is 50? Has your geographic spread changed? Is there industry consolidation among your members? Has one member segment grown or held steady while others have declined? Explore all the things that may have changed or shifted.

Still Relevant or Less Relevant?



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Your current data or survey results can tell you that there is a problem but cannot tell you why you have a problem or what to do about it. Additionally without knowing the why we can trick ourselves into thinking that some external force is to blame and there is nothing to do about it. The economy is bad, competition is moving in or there’s a decline sure, but we might rebound any day, right? Answer the why and you’ll know for sure how much your organization’s relevancy is in your control.

To find out the why and the what to do about it you need to use a different kind of exploratory research method, again, your data can’t help you here.

When I conduct member interviews my favorite set of questions revolves around:

1. What are your biggest professional problems?

2. What problems does the association solve for you?

When the answers to these two questions widely differs I know I’ve hit upon the reason engagement is declining. Tons of detail around members’ current problems gives us the building blocks for how to solve their problems.

Don’t let your association become irrelevant over night. Frequently determine if you have a relevancy problem and if you do, talking to members will help you figure out why and what to do about it.



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3 Tactics for Exceptional Conference Experience

Our fate is sealed from the start. The moment members walk into the conference area and find registration they unconsciously start deciding if they are going to like it. Do they like the conference and by association our association? As one event professional told me, if registration is less than perfect for attendees the whole conference will be less than perfect.

There is just one goal you need to achieve at registration to ensure an exceptional experience. It is an unconventional goal. The goal is: attendees, particularly new attendees, must walk away from registration with a clear idea of what to do next. When they know what to do next there is no confusion. There is no sense of being left out, alone, or the only one not in-the-know. When they know what to do next they feel in control and have a sense of purpose.



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Related article: First impressions matter for associations too!

This one goal is tricky, however, because to reach it you need to do three tactics well.

Flawless Administration

All preregistered attendees must have a badge with correct and complete information and if they do not, it is made easy and fast for them to correct it. Registration staff must be able to put their hands on attendee badges and other personal information within seconds. Bags and other materials are stuffed and at arms length so they can easily be grabbed without a thought. Why put so much thought into the administrative part of registration? So staff and volunteer hosts are freed up to be exceptionally attentive.

Engage the Personal Touch

There’s a huge difference between saying, “name?” and asking “how was your trip?” How we welcome attendees matters. Since we have flawlessly executed the administrative part of registration our hosts are free to attend to the member. When these hosts are super welcoming and kind you have made a great impression. To go the extra mile though, make sure that everyone knows where they are going next. Does a member look wide-eyed and lost? Help her.

I know, this can be super tough, particularly when lines build up and there is a wait. But, first timers will feel better if they get some special attention so they know what to do next. Here are a few ideas:


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1. Add a small mark to first-timer badges so registration hosts know they are first timers and take an extra few seconds to tell them about the conference, what not to miss and where to go next.

2. Post new-attendee greeters right near registration and direct new-attendees to them for a quick orientation and any questions.

3. Attach a 3-5 item list of what not to miss while at the conference along with suggestions for what to do first tailored to the needs of new attendees and new members.

Related article: Membership experience not membership math

Advanced Planning

Before the program is set make sure there is something for everyone at the start of the conference. This is particularly critical for newbies. For those new members and new attendees who are traveling alone they likely don’t know ANYONE. It is daunting to spend a largely social couple of days with strangers particularly when it seems like EVERYONE already knows EVERYONE.

The association I used to work for recently instituted a new attendee orientation. It was one part orientation and one part networking and helped these new attendees feel like they started the conference already recognizing some friendly faces. Additionally, at the start of the conference everyone had a place where they belonged: new attendees met others at the orientation and learned how to navigate the conference, manager-level members were in the pre-conference


http://www.webbrightservices.com/the-association-blog/bid/207269/Membership-Experience-Not-Membership-Math


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workshops and the long-time members, a close-knit group would convene by the pool or lounge.

If registration has traditionally been a largely administrative function see what happens to your members’ conference experience when you change it from an administrative duty to more of a host/greeter role.

3 Best Practices for Exceptional Member Experience

Who is in charge of providing an exceptional member experience at your association? Is it the director of member experience? Is it member services? Is it the membership manager? Marketing? Business development?

How about every staff person? Certainly every single member facing staff person impacts member service and our members’ experience. It used to be easy to define member facing but now, with digital, member facing has expanded.

Who is member facing? Whoever answers their phone and talks to a member; this includes member service but also the research department, accounting and more. Member-facing also includes all the media that touches members: print, video and audio so marketing and editorial are member facing as well. Conference teams and professional development staff touch and connect with members. Finally and relatively new to associations is the digital face of the association; IT is becoming member facing too.



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This may scare some of us. We may think that the member experience is our responsibility not IT’s. Or we may think the member experience is not our responsibility when in fact we touch members.

So what does this mean for us?

"Every staff person can enhance member experience."

Related article: 3 Tactics for Exceptional Conference Experience

Whether face-to-face, over the phone, by email, online or in print we staff impact member experience during every single touch with our members. These touches add up to an overall feeling about the organization. Mostly positive experiences and our members don’t hesitate to renew. It is important that we consciously cultivate great member experiences and we do this by:

1. Solving Problems – Members have big problems to solve. They have challenges that make their job tough, time-consuming tasks that take attention away from strategic planning or changes in their



http://www.webbrightservices.com/the-association-blog/3-tactics-for-exceptional-conference-experience

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environment that upset their status quo. Members also come to us with small problems: a vegan option at the conference, unable to log in or they stopped receiving emails. Big or small, the way we respond to their problems signals to them what kind of organization we are. What are members looking for? They need solutions, staff responsiveness and in some cases being a proactive staff who has a deep understanding of them, their company, their industry, their job and/or their problem.

2. Being Generous – When asked about what a non-profit professional association means to them, members often reply “they are not in it for the money”. Instead, members think, associations are built on the principle of doing a great job. When we staff are generous with our time and the resources of the association, members are impressed. When we impose policies that protect the association from the members and develop poor new products in a attempt to find a revenue stream trust erodes.

3. Communicating Well – Some of us have a way with words…. and some of us don’t. I remember leading an association website redesign with a partner that staffed with programmers from India. By and large this was fine but every once in awhile we would learn of a very obscure error message that was badly written even sometimes harshly written. Members want us to communicate using their words. They want us to communicate with empathy. They want us to communicate in a way that respects their precious time. Finally they want us to communicate. Unreturned phone calls and not responded to emails are sadly common in the association industry. Nothing makes members more crazed than to take the time to reach out and not get a response.



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Opportunities for Engaging Members Your Association is Likely to Miss

What truly separates associations from our for-profit competitors besides the non-profit designation? For-profits are churning out some of the industry’s best conferences. For-profits are offering online-communities and other ways to network. For-profits are developing educational opportunities and certificate programs. They are getting into benchmarking research, publishing guides and sending out newsletters. They are engaging members.

If they are going to do what we do, we need to out do how we do what we do! When I talk to members of association and ask how they feel about non-profit professional associations, they feel overwhelmingly positive. They have the impression that associations are more objective, more passionate about the profession and helping members and they put their mission ahead of the money.

With all these positive feelings you would think that associations would be highly competitive with for-profits, but when we look at the turmoil in the association community we know that is not true. So what is going on?

Even for the associations considerably engaging members, members indicate there are two areas for continued improvement:



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member service (depending how you define member service they really mean customer service) and the second area: innovation.

Related article: How to prevent association extinction: Association Success Stories

Opportunity #1: Member Service

Members would now like a high level of customization. They have problems, which they view as unique. They would like answers to these problems without having to spend a ton of time researching the answer themselves. How does your association answer this? Maybe we can solve this with better site navigation and features or, maybe with problem-oriented member segmentation or, maybe with a more consultative, account-management focused member services department.

There will are a lot of factors for any association trying to implement a higher level of customization such as association size and member expectations so another association’s answer may not be ours. Bottom line our members are more and more time starved. They are being asked to do more with less. They hope that someone understands their problem and can just solve it.

Opportunity #2: Innovation

Association innovation may mean technology but it doesn’t have to. Perhaps a better way to describe innovation when talking about the wishes of our members is to talk about the changes they would like to see. Changes that would solve their problems enhance the profession or protect their industry. Innovation can be found in member services, as in the above discussion. Innovation could be in determining ways to identify



http://www.webbrightservices.com/the-association-blog/how-to-prevent-membership-extinction-association-success-stories

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and invite younger members who have discovered best practices to share them.

And yes, Innovation may be new services delivered online or in an app.

Related article: 5 Proven ideas for providing member value through your website

How Can Associations Reengage Experienced Members

There is a divide among associations. Some associations fully engage those members who are mid-way or more experienced in their career. But they struggle mightily with attracting younger members. This is not the problem for all associations, but it is essential to know what new members want.



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Many associations focus heavily on members who are new to the profession, new to their role, or new to the industry. The association fills knowledge gaps with training and support gaps with networking. Talk to these new members and they will tell you that it was at a New (title here)’s Conference they realized the full value of the association. Because of the association and their association training they have the resources, information, contacts and maybe most important thing, the confidence to tackle their new role.

Where does this leave long-time, experienced members? Ask them and they will tell you the conference seems stale. The topics are recycled. The same speakers speak. Conference content feels trivial. Been there, done that. Can’t we talk about the real issues? The issues that affect seasoned professionals like me? When the focus of the conference and association is too 101, members become unengaged. Eventually, wandering away, missing meetings, getting less and less value all the time. If we are lucky they recommend the association to their staff. If we are unlucky, interest in the association dies altogether.

Perhaps the association still serves members past the new stage. Maybe the organization is still of value during members mid-career years but then value starts to trickle off.

So how can associations reengage experienced members?

Related Article: Don't Treat All Members the Same

Create a Forum



http://www.smooththepath.net/2015/03/17/are-you-leveraging-your-associations-value-trigger-point/

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Long-time members usually have created their own strong network of professional contacts. But they don’t know everyone. In fact their network may be fairly homogeneous. These long-time members are still facing issues in their professional lives, in their industries and in their workplaces. Meet their needs by creating a forum that prompts long-time members to discuss those big weighty, maybe complex problems that don’t get discussed by new members. In a forum they will get a diversity of opinions not just recommendations from a few friends.

Help Them Contribute

After a decade or more in the profession many long-time members have tremendous knowledge. They’ve met some big challenges. They are the perfect teachers for new members. The trick is inviting them to contribute and helping them find the opportunity that serves them the best. Perhaps they are comfortable with leading a session or sitting on a panel. If public speaking is not for a strong skill for some, maybe they would like a more one-on-one environment like mentoring? Do they like writing, how about contributing an article? Invite long-time members to contribute and give them opportunities that appeal to them.

Solve a Problem

Just because long-time members have been around the block a few times doesn’t mean they don’t have challenges they are struggling with. Ask enough members, what keeps you up at night? And soon you’ll understand their specific and unique problems in enough detail you can start to help them solve those problems.



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Do associations take for granted that engaged members will continue to be engaged long into their association membership? It seems that after a while interest tails off. How can we keep up the momentum?

About Webbright

Webbright is a Wild Apricot value added service provider. We specialize in website development for membership organizations. Our services include website migration to the affordable, all-inclusive Wild Apricot platform, website design, consultation, and training. For more information, visit us on www.webbrightservices.com.




Membership happiness

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