Connecting membership and marketing teams to create member-centric experiences that deliver business results.

In our everyday practice with dozens of associations, we often see how membership and marketing teams work in silos. This can result in a gap in delivering your brand promise and create frustrating member experiences.

For most associations, the member experience is the cumulative result of different experiences through multiple channels, such as a website, learning management system, in-person events, or online communities. As a result, the member experience is the outcome of systems, processes, and services developed in silos.

In order to deliver excellent member experience across all channels, a close collaboration between marketing and membership teams is required to work together, align resources and design a unified vision to connect the brand promise with the real member experience.

We understand it’s not always possible to create a unified marketing/membership department, however, below you’ll find five critical points where marketing and membership teams need to come together to deliver a better member experience.

 

1. Marketing Sets Expectations, and Membership Team Delivers

The importance of making sure that the experience being advertised to your potential members is consistent with what your members actually experience when interacting with your association cannot be overstated.

Overpromising, misleading messaging, and underdelivering will leave you with nothing but an unhappy member. And the danger of unhappy members is not only that they will not renew their membership, but will spread negative information across their network.

When aligning your brand promise and member experience, there are a few things to take into consideration:

 

    • What is your brand promising through your marketing efforts?
    • Is your association delivering on its brand promise to members at each stage of their member journey?
    • How and where do members interact with your brand (identify your touchpoints)?
    • Where is the biggest misalignment?

2. Empower Marketing with Member Experience Data

Membership teams have the power of being able to listen to members at various touch points as part of their relationship with members. A strong membership team has the capabilities to analyse whether the brand promise is actually being delivered, or highlight where the gaps are.

Oftentimes only the main membership survey results are shared with the marketing team. While there is so much other data available – from phone calls and website feedback to talking directly to members at events and monitoring social media comments.

Developing an effective mechanism for sharing this information with marketing teams will allow them to make informed decisions about future campaigns and adjust their message and delivery.

3.  Leverage Joint Channels and Touch Points

Today’s customer is incredibly knowledgeable and can connect with your association in many different ways, with digital touchpoints playing a critical role in delivering membership services.

By analysing your member journey and working together on all touchpoints, you have a better chance of creating a flawless member experience.

The table below illustrates how two teams can work together on common marketing and member experience channels:

 

4. Combine Efforts to Achieve Common Goals

If marketing and membership teams work together to develop a thorough understanding of how members interact with your association, this will provide them with an understanding of the ‘why’ behind members’ behaviours. With the 360-degree view of their member, marketers can better segment their campaigns to offer personalised content and engagement. For example:

 

    • Churn prevention. A membership team can help marketers to recognise a problem early and develop a responsive engagement plan before the renewal day.
    • Upsell. By knowing your member segments, their preferences and needs, you can offer relevant events, content and other related services, increasing the chance of purchase.
    • Referrals. Enable advocacy with happy members to turn them into active promoters.
    • Win-back. Identifying the reason for a member leaving your association will enable you to reformulate your member value proposition to try to bring them back to the fold.

 

In summary, by ensuring membership and marketing teams work in unison, your association will be able to deliver on its brand promise and enhance the member experience. If your membership and marketing teams are failing to communicate and collaborate, it’s time to remove the silos and start working together effectively.