Is your association doing enough to engage with members?
Regardless of the size, structure, type, and mission of your association, chances are good that what you want for your organization is what every association’s leadership team wants: satisfied, engaged members who find value in belonging to your community—the results of which are high rates of retention, healthy operating margins, and unequivocal mission success.
Member engagement strategies vary significantly from one organization to the next, but what doesn’t vary is the fact that the most important elements in the formula for successful engagement relate to truly connecting with members and delivering personalized service, customized content, and seamless experiences.
Knowing your members well is the first step to engaging well
To properly engage with members and give them a seamless and satisfying experience, it’s essential that you know as much about them as possible—tenure and type of membership; event participation; continuing education (CE) points earned; content downloaded from your site; activity on member committees and community forums; interaction with staff; certifications awarded; directories accessed; surveys answered; and other relevant information.
Are you capturing all this information, organizing it so it can be accessed by all departments in your association, and using it to customize each member’s experience? If the answer is “no” or “sort of,” it may be time to let Fonteva and Salesforce help you become the connected and engaging community that your members deserve.
Turn to Fíonta, Fonteva, and Salesforce to ensure member engagement
Think about all the “connection opportunities” that associations have to engage with members and consider how they’re somewhat akin to puzzle pieces spread out on a table. One piece is just as important as the next, but without putting every piece in its proper place, the puzzle is unfinished and doesn’t properly inform the story that it intends to tell.
Similarly, the membership engagement puzzle is comprised of dozens of elements, which together provide a unique view of who that member is and what he or she needs from their relationship with your association. But, like pieces of a puzzle scattered about, it can be challenging to capture all the data points that “mark” or “identify” members and even more daunting to know how to analyze and use all those data points to engage with and retain members. That’s why associations are increasingly turning to Fonteva (built on the Salesforce platform), and Salesforce itself, to solve the member engagement puzzle.
- Fonteva tools collect relevant data from members, so they can be assigned one or more identifying markers (called “badges”), enabling associations to automatically direct members to the most relevant sections of their websites and granting them member-specific permissions to download content, make transactions, update member profiles, register for events, fill out surveys, and complete other transactions.
- Salesforce stores, extracts, analyzes and updates member data, and provides reports to help organizations keep track of member interactions (phone calls, website visits, emails, newsletters, attendance at events, etc.
Member engagement case in point: Fonteva’s event management solution
Perhaps the richest opportunity that associations have to engage with members is at events. From the beginning of planning until the post-event emails are sent, Fonteva Events (100% native to Salesforce) is an indispensable solution that manages all the moving parts involved in hosting conventions and conferences. Member-facing functionality allows members to register, purchase booth space, sign up as speakers or roundtable participants, sponsor a breakfast or cocktail party, and book hotel rooms. Back-office users have robust out-of-the-box functionality, and because the solution is highly customizable and equipped with drag-and-drop flexibility, they’re assured they can meet all of their unique needs. Even more important is the ability to provide a seamless, satisfying experience for their members.
While the power of the Fonteva and Salesforce partnership is undeniable, the path to full functionality can be frustrating for association leaders who are unfamiliar with their platforms. That’s where Fíonta excels. Our expertise with both platforms, as well as with the robust functionality of the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), assures association leaders that they can capture all relevant characteristics and behaviors, and then mine that data to develop deep and lasting relationships with their members.
Beyond engaging with members, Fíonta helps you communicate with them
Fíonta’s nearly twenty years of experience in helping associations thrive has resulted in a deep and broad understanding of their challenges and opportunities. Our long-term relationships with Fonteva and Salesforce solidify our belief that every association can live up to its full potential and exceed members’ expectations. To that end, we have a solid bench of subject matter experts on hand to help associations and other nonprofits with not only member management and analytics, but also with third-party marketing tools like Pardot and Marketing Cloud that craft and deliver personalized messages to members based on their unique characteristics.
One piece of the puzzle is as important as the next
We’ve learned that every element in the formula for successful member engagement is as important as the next. It all starts with gaining an in-depth understanding of member characteristics and providing seamless user experiences (e.g., easy, fast, and responsive dashboards that answer questions and confirm registrations and activities on the spot). It continues when you send members personalized, actionable marketing messages and give them access to the full suite of events, certifications, and content that comes with membership. All of these elements should integrate seamlessly together to ensure your “connected association” is best in class and second to none.
It may sound complicated, but it’s really not—not if you let Fíonta weave it all together. We’ll help you create custom workflows, actionable reports, and personalized messages to ensure that your association is ready for the future and that your members are engaged and committed to going there with you.
Share your challenges with us – contact Fíonta today.