Digital Marketing for Membership Organisations: The Most Effective  Tools, Channels and Platforms

The use of the internet and other media and technology to support ‘traditional marketing’ has given rise to a range of new digital tools, as well as industry jargon. With the variety of digital marketing channels, platforms, and software available, it can be hard to choose the tools that will work best for your association.

In this article, we’ll look into digital marketing tools that work best for associations and membership organisations, and explain some of the common digital marketing terms.

First things first, why digital marketing? There are quite a few benefits, among them:

• • • Targeting and personalisation: the ability to target and personalise member experiences is crucial. With digital marketing, you can send relevant messages to relevant people at a relevant time and on a relevant device.
    • Low cost and high ROI: the cost of digital marketing is relatively low, and it allows real time tracking, so you can  keep track of every single cent that goes towards your campaigns.
    • Easy to measure and adjust: when you see that things aren’t going right, you can jump in and adjust the campaign as you go. Tools such as A/B testing allow you to adjust on the run and determine which campaigns are the most effective. A/B testing is available not only for emails, but also for landing pages and more.
    • Enables two-way communication: it’s the human interactions that are most important for building a strong membership community. Digital marketing lets you not only send one-way communication but also receive feedback about your association and the needs of your audience.

 

Digital Marketing Types and Tools

The field of digital marketing is changing so quickly that new types and tools are appearing almost every year. So let’s start with the most popular digital marketing types and tools.

 

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

SEO is the fundamental part of digital marketing because it’s about how easily your audience finds your website in search engines like Google. And your website is the centrepiece of your digital marketing activities.

The technical definition of SEO is the process of taking steps to help a website or piece of content rank higher on search engines such as Google. 

By itself, your website is a very powerful channel because it’s not only a channel for your information, but also a medium that can execute many campaigns, facilitate interactions with members, create member experiences, run transactions, and so much more.

Therefore, your website should be fast, mobile-friendly, and easy to navigate. 

Traditionally, SEO was all about terms, keywords, and technicalities. And while this technical aspect of SEO still exists, Google is now becoming more ‘human’. So focusing on things like user experience and article readability will improve your SEO dramatically and help you rank higher on Google.

Click here to read our article on the 10 most typical SEO mistakes for associations.

 

Email Marketing

Email marketing remains the primary digital marketing tool for professional associations.

If you look into your Google analytics and statistics, you’ll know that nothing works as well as email marketing in terms of driving people to your events and membership.

If executed and delivered well, email marketing can help you build relationships with your members and drive engagement.

Read our articles on email marketing below:

• • • Send Dramatically Better Emails With Our Simple Guide
    • 3 Easy Steps to Prevent Emails From Going to Spam
    • Email Marketing Checklist

 

Content Marketing

This is a big part of marketing for associations because a large piece of what associations do is produce content!

This marketing information sharing and storytelling to increase brand awareness. When you hear “content marketing’, think about your blogs, articles, e-books, white papers, online courses, infographics, podcasts, and webinars. You can create content marketing initiatives around each of these resources to drive new audience.

 

SEM/PPC (Search Engine Marketing/Pay-Per-Click)

SEM has become slightly old fashioned term as it has been replaced with PPC, which stands for pay-per-click. Search engine marketing is simply Google and other search engine advertising, whereas pay-per-click refers to this as well as advertising on any other platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

PPC enables you to reach internet users on a number of digital platforms through your ads, including banner ads, keyword ads, or search engine ads.

The main benefit of PPC advertisement is that it can be highly targeted at a particular audience to the point where you can upload your list of contacts to platforms like Facebook and only run campaigns to this list of people (for example, when you run a membership renewal campaign, you only want to target people whose renewals are due).

 

SMM (Social Media Marketing)

The primary goal of social media marketing is… yes! being social. So in social media, customer eccentricity is particularly important. 

Use your platforms to build relationships and encourage conversations, rather than making statements about your association like. 

When it comes to using your marketing resources wisely, it’s always important to choose the right media to distribute your content. So, what social media platform works best for associations?

Let’s compare two: Facebook and LinkedIn.

It greatly varies from industry to industry, but for many professional associations and industry bodies, LinkedIn is a superior social media choice, especially for organic interactions (not paid).

Not only is LinkedIn a B2B platform, but its algorithm is not as strict as Facebook’s for content exposure and engagement. It’s a well-known fact that Facebook’s algorithm restricts the number of people who can see your business page posts, whereas LinkedIn allows you to tag connections and organisations in your posts to boost your exposure to their networks.

Below is a case study with one of our clients:

“At the beginning of 2020, when we started running a client’s social media accounts, they had the same amount of followers on LinkedIn and Facebook – between 9,000-9,500 on both. We posted the same content on both platforms, and ran paid campaigns on Facebook. Although we used no LinkedIn advertisements and stuck to the platform’s features (i.e. tagging people, saying congratulations, sharing posts), by the end of the year our client only gained 500 new followers on Facebook, yet reached 18,000 followers on LinkedIn. Just in a year they had doubled their amount of followers on LinkedIn with zero investment from paid advertising!”

Olena Lima, MemberBoat founder

Still considering Facebook? No problem!

If you would like to use Facebook for your member engagement, we highly recommend exploring Facebook Groups. At the moment (end of 2022), the Facebook algorithm favours groups posts, placing Groups content at the top of your news feed, providing maximum exposure.

When running a Facebook Group, don’t forget to think about the keywords and phrases your members might use when searching for your group. Incorporate these keywords in your title and description to help bolster your group’s standing in Facebook search results.

 

Affiliate Marketing and Influencer Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest forms of marketing. It’s where third-party publishers – the affiliates – earn a commission by promoting your product or service online and achieving a specific result for your association.

The known term for this amongst associations is referrals – specifically membership referrals. 

Influencer marketing is another form of affiliate marketing which we encourage to use by association professionals. Typically, when we talk about influencer marketing, we think about Instagram bloggers promoting a fancy products. But influencer marketing also exists in professional communities. Think about respected, acknowledged and influential professionals in your community. Try to collaborate with them and encourage them to share stories about your association. It is an extremely powerful tool because this marketing comes from those who are recognised and respected in the industry.

 

SMS and Mobile Marketing

While SMS marketing simply involves sending SMS blasts to people, mobile marketing can be leveraged with the help of mobile apps. You can develop apps for your association and run different notifications through your mobile.

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AND BEYOND:

As mentioned earlier, the digital marketing field is rapidly developing, with many other types of marketing now available: lead generation, video marketing, marketing automation, sponsored online content and more.

But above all this is digital marketing analytics – the translation of customer behaviour into actionable business data.

Digital marketing analytics tools help associations understand what consumers are doing online, why they are doing it, and how this behaviour converts into digital marketing campaigns, membership or your events.

It’s crucial to remember that everything you do goes into this data, and this is something that you need to read, understand, and translate into your future business decisions and campaigns.

Does digital marketing have to be expensive? Read this article to find out how you can run digital marketing campaigns for free.