Keeping Members Engaged

keeping members engaged

People only contribute time, knowledge, and ideas when they perceive an opportunity to impact the outcomes they seek. Keeping and winning higher engagement levels happens when Associations create ongoing opportunities for their constituencies to contribute knowledge and collaborate with other members.

Assess your Association’s constituency segments within the following 4 level framework. For example:

  1. Disconnected Observer. Lurking on website or on-line community, communications scanner, congressional staff, the general public
  2. Appreciative Recipient. Event attendee, subscriber, product purchaser, ad/exhibit/sponsorship purchaser
  3. Knowledge Contributor. Speaker, writer, availability as a knowledge expert, mentor. This can also be the constituent that translates or transfers knowledge between stakeholders
  4. Solutions Collaborator. Board, committees, roundtables, special interest groups, legislative campaign

Steps To Keeping Members Engaged

The following steps will help keep members engaged:

  • Understand the 4 levels of engagement & look for constituency segments that are primarily distinguished by one or two (of the 4) levels.
  • Identify member behaviors that impact the industry or profession.
  • Create opportunities for members to engage in the design of new solutions that drive member outcomes.
  • Success is measured in member behaviors that motivate connectedness. Target high probability segments to move to higher levels of engagement.Differentiate the “experience” at the national level and understand which member segments are best served at the local level.

Keeping Members Engaged

Everyone is busier than ever, especially as associations emerge from the recession and continually shift their attention to growth strategies. As such, people will only contribute time, knowledge, and ideas when they perceive an opportunity to impact the outcomes they seek. Keeping members engaged begins with understanding the 4 levels of engagement.

keeping members engagedFree eBook “Accelerating Strategic Member Engagement” is available for all Association Executives at www.potomaccore.com

By Dan Varroney

3 decades of experience working with multiple Industries and understanding different Association challenges by helping build strategies that add long term value. Comprehensive understanding of Associations, as Senior Vice President for the National Association of Manufacturers’ National Membership & Grass Roots operation, as President of the American Solutions Advocacy organization, & as President and CEO of the Association for Corporate Growth. Considerable background on impact of legislative and regulatory policy on Industries, has provided analysis on economic performance and M&A trends in outlets that include CNBC, CNBC Europe, Fox News, Fox Business, Dow Jones Marketwatch, Bloomberg, and the BBC. Strategic perspectives are frequently sought out by CEO Update, a leading source for Association news and information. Authored over 145 blog articles on Strategic Planning & Member Engagement. Facilitates knowledge sharing among forty -five Association CEO’s at the Growth Strategies & Member Engagement Forum.  Served as a member of the Prince William County, Virginia Strategic Business Planning Team. District Three Councilman in the Village of Palatine, Cook County, Illinois, twenty one years. B.A. in American History from the Catholic University of America, Washington D.C. and earned a Certificate from the Yale School of Management, New Haven, Connecticut in Leadership and Team Effectiveness. Member of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE).