Come Together, Right Now…Community

If you read the title while also singing the melody to the chorus of The Beatles, “Come Together,” you’re a superstar and my new best friend.Member growth and retention is a major part of any association. Not only are you looking to attract new members (especially as you engage a new generation of them), but your goal is also to keep the ones you have. And here’s the tricky part – what you’re calling member benefits are being seen more and more as table stakes by your members. Exclusive event pricing? Table stakes. Access to certain content? Table stakes. These aren’t really considered benefits any longer, but more expected perks of paying your association money on an annual basis.Enter community. Online community has the power to deliver experiences to members that are not already a part of the suite of “benefits” being offered. As community managers, when we think about how we can deliver value to the rest of the organization this is a major area that we should be thinking about. And we should be thinking about it in innovative ways that provide something special to association members or possible members to be so that they will keep wanting to have those experiences, versus having one more thing they may or may not use. Not only will it help drive association growth, but it helps drive community growth and member loyalty.What does that actually look like? I’m glad you asked. Here are three ways an online community can help drive member growth and retention within an association.Offer unique member experiences through communityThis takes some deliberate thought and intentional collaboration across the association to deliver on (which you should be doing anyway). Members will tell you exactly what they want and need through annual surveys, focus groups, user interviews, etc. The problem is we sometimes go into these means of data collection with a bias toward looking for specific information and that’s how we decide to action on the feedback we receive. For example, you might hold a focus group on what kinds of content members find most engaging. Through that focus group, you might find that members enjoy the opportunity to interact with the content author when they can. Based off of that feedback, you might say “oh, well let’s make sure we have a well facilitated chat on our webinars and make sure that the author is engaging with attendees there.” What if, instead, you test a book club hosted in your online community held specifically for members and the first 25 who sign up get a free book and get invited to the discussion with the author, audio/video enabled and everything. This becomes more than a webinar. This becomes a fun and interactive way for members to dive into meaningful content, connect with one another, and have fun discussions with their peers as part of a shared experience. If I was a member, this is something I wouldn’t want to lose as a true benefit. Think outside of the box with these types of solutions.Don’t just use surveys to get member insightsMost associations have an annual membership survey to understand how people are feeling about their membership, understand how likely they are to renew, and see how they’re feeling about the association overall. If you have a member who has been with the association for 10 years, I can bet they’re wondering what you’re doing with all of this feedback, especially if they haven’t seen any noticeable change as a result (which is a different problem for a different post). What’s really awesome about community managers is that we are amazing relationship builders, whether people interacting in the community are members are not. Our role is to ensure that the community experience meets the needs of those interacting there. That means that, at some point, we’re having conversations with the community members. Actual conversations. Like, phone calls or Zoom meetings. I tend to think that tools like surveys are sometimes used an easy way out of figuring out exactly who the people that pay their dues /attend your events are and can almost absolve us from rolling up our sleeves and really digging into what they need. I’m not suggesting that you do away with surveys because they have their place, but I am suggesting that you treat these people as people, not a data set. Send an email to a few of your most engaged or long-tenured members and ask them if they’d be willing to have a 30-minute chat with you so you can find out what’s working and what isn’t. As community managers, we should be doing this anyway. Capturing this information as part of our normal outreach allows members to feel heard. And having conversations with those who are NOT members, allows you to understand why they haven’t made the leap and where you might be missing the mark on value delivery. Talking to people who are already invested doesn’t always give information you need to know so don’t be afraid to expand your audience here.Use community as an intro to the associationA lot of what I’ve referenced in this post has revolved around member retention – what to do to keep people who are already paying annual dues. But where does community come in for those who aren’t paying member dues…or better yet, who don’t even know your association exists? Let’s face it, because of the power of the internet there are tons of ways people can find what they’re looking for. As community managers, we need to figure out what experiences allow us to bring people in who have never heard of the association before or, if they are engaged, keep them coming back. If you have a user experience design person on staff, I urge you to partner with them to do some user research and hold design sessions with community members (paying or not) to fine tune the community experience. If you don’t have a user experience designer on staff, this is a great time to learn a new skill and incorporate it into the way you approach community management. What this also will mean is that you are no longer just thinking about the community experience, but how the community is experienced as an extension of/intro to the overall association. Think of community as the welcome reception. Invite people in, allow them to mingle, and when they ask where they can get some more of that fabulous dip (or great content or interesting thought leadership), be the gracious host that you are and point them in the right direction.To sum it all up, community brings people together, but not just for the sake of bringing people together. Community plays an integral part in total connectivity across an association. That connectivity leads to better experiences which leads to member growth and loyalty, which means that that these folks are far more likely to come in and stick around much longer because you’re taking the time to learn who they are and what they want. It’s hard work, but when done well, works like magic.How are you creating opportunities for discovery, member growth, and retention within your association through community? Tell us in the comments below!