Association Marketing Tools & Metrics for Member Engagement

Member engagement, retention, and growth are undeniably linked. According to the Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, “Associations that reported an increase in member engagement in several areas are more likely to report one-year and five-year membership growth and an increase in their renewal rate over the past year.”

However, these insights still leave associations wondering how they can engage members and keep them invested in the organization. From personalized communication strategies to multichannel outreach, there are many ways that your organization can leverage strong marketing techniques to strengthen members’ loyalty. In this guide, we’ll review the association marketing tools and the metrics your organization can track to boost engagement.

How Can Effective Marketing Boost Engagement?

There are many reasons associations market their offerings, such as events, networking opportunities, and exclusive resources. While marketing is commonly used to spread awareness of the organization, attract new members, and drive more revenue, it also engages current members. Their engagement then supports the long-term success and stability of your association.

As Fonteva explains, effective marketing and subsequently boosted engagement can lead to:

• Increased retention. Members who are more invested in your organization are more likely to renew their membership.
• Community-building. Retaining members over the long term builds an established member community, which is why many members join an association.
• Non-dues revenue. Members’ other purchases of products, education, and events that provide much-needed funding to fuel your association’s work.

From social media to email, your marketing strategies allow you to connect with members year-round, strengthen your brand identity, and conveniently engage members through the platforms they use every day. However, to generate the most engagement from your marketing streams, you must be strategic about the kinds of messaging and platforms you employ.

You can gauge how effective your strategy is by tracking essential marketing metrics based on member responsiveness. Let’s review some of the most important metrics to keep an eye on.

Key Marketing Metrics for Measuring Engagement

A single marketing and communications strategy won’t appeal to every member. To deeply engage your members, you need to adjust your outreach to match members’ individual needs and preferences.

This is where data can guide your marketing and communications strategies. By paying attention to the right metrics, you can understand whether members are engaging with certain marketing streams and whether those channels are being used effectively.

In particular, be sure to track these marketing metrics:

• Social media marketing. This includes marketing via social media platforms, such as Facebook or Instagram. These platforms are equipped with built-in metrics that are easy to view, helping you understand which content and campaigns your members respond positively to.
  • KPIs For This Channel: Channel return on investment (ROI), number of followers, and the number of likes, mentions, and tags
• Email marketing. This includes any day-to-day communications and campaigns you send to members via email. These metrics reveal who and how many of your supporters engage with which email campaigns. From this data, you can also determine what kind of content is performing well and plan your steps to improve future email campaigns.
  • KPIs For This Channel: Channel ROI, email open rates, and click-through rates (CTR)
• Association website. This includes insights from the various aspects of your website, from your landing pages to the lead-generating content on your blog. These metrics can help you understand how members find your organization and digitally engage with you.
  • KPIs For This Channel: Number of visitors, which channels lead visitors to the site, search queries that lead to site visitation
• Event outreach. Metrics surrounding your association’s event marketing may align with any of the above metrics. However, other important information to assess includes attendance and satisfaction with the event experience. Gaining insights along these lines makes it critical to survey attendees about their experiences and track key event marketing metrics.
  • KPIs For This Channel: Attendance rates, paths to registration, overall event satisfaction, and attendee feedback

Once you’ve collected this critical data, use it to assess the performance of each marketing channel and campaign. Additionally, you can segment your data based on members’ interests and engagement with your marketing materials.

For example, while your younger members may respond well to your social media content, you may focus your email marketing campaigns on older members for higher open rates.

Marketing Tools to Boost Member Engagement

To effectively engage your members and streamline your marketing efforts, software solutions are an invaluable resource for your association. In particular, the following tools can make a world of difference when it comes to tracking, strengthening, and managing your association’s marketing and engagement strategies:

• Association management platforms. Leveraging association management software (AMS) unlocks powerful engagement tools across your marketing channels. In addition to monitoring member responsiveness, this solution equips organizations with event management, financial management, and data reporting tools to streamline the daily responsibilities of running an association.
• Social media marketing software. Social media platforms come with an array of readily available multimedia tools and community-building features, like the ability to edit videos and share others’ content. These tools can help you design and create more engaging content, closely monitor your campaigns, and thoughtfully engage with members.
• SEO software. Search engine optimization (SEO) software allows you to track your online content’s authority, thought leadership, organic web traffic, and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). With these features, you can strengthen your association’s online presence and digital content marketing strategy by making your website more easily discoverable for online searchers.

While you may be hesitant to invest in new technology, digital marketing tools are tailor-made to help your organization better connect with members, reduce time and labor costs, and create effective marketing initiatives. The benefits of these solutions far outweigh the initial investment costs.

Engaging your members is an ongoing process that requires continuous work from your association. As you implement new strategies and track the performance of your techniques, you’ll inevitably need to adjust your approach in some areas. Not to mention, your members’ preferences will change over time. As they do, so should your engagement tactics.

However, these metrics and best practices should ease the struggle of maintaining a strong engagement strategy. With these insights and the right software solutions, you will be well on your way to crafting more engaging, inspiring, and personalized marketing strategies for your association.