Member Engagement...No File For That!! By: Ryan Rosenbaum, MBA

As part of my association services, I managed a fairly small regional trade organization. During my 2+ year contract with them I was essentially anointed as their only employee. By virtue, I had all of their member records and office assets (computer, archives, and files). As the contract expired, they decided to go in a different direction. This is not unusual and I bid them a gracious farewell. One of their final requests was for me to sit in with their Executive Committee over my final week and transfer all their association’s infrastructure back with them. Once again, I felt this was a reasonable request.

Day 1 – I gave them an information dump on where to find files, how accounting was done, where they should pick up their mail, who owes dues, what partnerships/sponsorships were in place. Essentially every item was categorized, organized and stored in neat little electronic files.

Day 2 - The Board Chairman asked me this exact question “Where is the file for Member Engagement.” I was floored.

The reality is such a file does not exist. It’s a family recipe that is guarded like the formula for Coca-Cola. If such a file existed the entire complexion of associations would be turned on its side. It would be the Messiah of all association news. Yes, there are tips, tricks and strategies but not all could make sense for any one organization. As we know, our industry is specialized, regionalized and diverse in character. What works for a 160 member local group (such as the association I am referencing in this article) will not apply to a 12,000 member international group.

There is no Playbook for Engaging Your Membership. Certainly the term engagement is even debatable. We often think that the immediate reaction to a new member is to recruit them for a committee this making them more engaged. This a topic for another time but what I learned is new members as well as old members prefer not to be forced into anything. The fact that they joined means that they have already made a choice that there was something that the association offers to them.

Member Engagement Tip #1:

Don’t force in Engagement

With that being said, I do have a very viable but old school way of keeping Members Engaged without asking them to be engaged (See Tip 2)

This last statement sounds contradictory but it’s part of the strategy)

Member Engagement Tip #2:

Reach out. Yes, it’s that simple. I am solving all of your association woes with those two simple rules. Here’s how it works. You pick up your cellphone (or if you were born before 2000, you can pick up a phone that has a wire attached to your wall). You then dial 7 numerical digits. Unless you were born before 1980 in which case you may have some letters of the alphabet in that number. You then proceed to call new member and say…”Hi____, welcome to our chapter. I would like to introduce myself. My name is ____ and I just wanted you to know that we are happy to have you aboard. If there is anything we can do to make your membership more valuable, please let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate.” Then you listen then hang up...preferably when they are not in mid-sentence.

This call will be followed with other calls and if you are within an acceptable driving distance then you can drop by and have face-to-face meeting, which is way more personal then texting. This tactic is quite effective for smaller organizations but of course there are variations for larger organizations. Typically you have various staff members splitting up the calls or you have board members helping with calls.

Member Engagement Tip #3

Getting To Know You. This is how it works. You ask them appropriate questions about their lives or their businesses. This is a tricky because you want to be friendly without being intrusive. Bad idea is asking them about their spouses, children, religion and other sensitive topics. Stick to common things like, where they grew up, hobbies, favorite restaurants.

Why Is This Important?

The general concept can be summed up with these famous lyrics “Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name and their always glad you came…” Think about it!! Cheers was not about having the best beer. It was a place where a guy like Norm can go and feel like he belongs.

If you joined my organization and we had an initial conversation about how you discussed a sea bass you caught in the Florida Peninsula in the summer of 1984 and if 6 months after this conversation took place, I recalled this story in detail, you would be impressed. It shows I paid attention, I cared about what you said and your membership is deeper than any dues payment.

So, yes there is a file for Member Engagement. It is stored in a hard drive in our heads. We need to have the innate ability to care, to foster trust and credibility and only then will members feel engaged in what we are offering.