May 4, 2022 • 50 mins
How can a solo marketer reach members in a personal way? How can you reduce member email fatigue? What happens when your marketing software doesn’t integrate?
See how our fantastic panel of association marketing professionals solves these challenges, and more.
You'll hear from:
- Ashley Baker, Executive Events Director at NiUG
- Brad Hon, Digital Content Coordinator at the Australian College of Nursing
- Amanda Dollman, Marketing and Communications Manager at the Resolution Institute
Along with Beth Arritt, your host and former marketing association VP.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome to the member engagementshow with Higher Logic,
the podcast for association professionalslooking to boost retention,
gain new membersand deepen member involvement.
Each episode I'll bring on some experts.
We'll talk shop about engagement
and you'll walk away with strategiesproven to transform your organization.
I'm Beth Arritt, an association evangelist with over 25 years experience
(00:26):
in marketing and member engagementAnd I'm so happy you're here.
Now let's start the show
Welcome back to the member engagementshow.
On today's episode,
we're going to hear from our Australianmarketing movers and shakers for 2022.
This unique groupmade for a fantastic panel
and had so much to offer upfor both inspiration and practical tactics
(00:47):
that I couldn't wait to share.
Hope you enjoy. We have.
I'm just going to say the names and thenlet them introduce themselves, actually.
So first we have Amanda Dollman. Hi.
Before I start,
just like to acknowledgethe get a goal of the ... nation
with the traditional custodians
of this land and pay my respectsto the elders, both past and present.
(01:08):
And thank you for this nomination.
And congratulations to everyone who'snominated Especially to Brad and Ashley.
I'm really looking forwardto being part of this panel with you guys.
Next, we have Ashley Baker
from the NiUG Asia Pacific.
Hi, everyone. And thank you, Beth.
And congratulations to everyone elseon this panel, to Amanda and Brad.
(01:31):
It's really great to be here.
And I am really looking forwardto having this opportunity
to talk about some exciting thingsthat everyone is accomplishing.
And then we have Brad Honfrom Australia College of Nursing.
Hi, everyone.
Thank you for having me on this panel.
So I'm very excited to be
(01:51):
be joining
everyone this morning to be talking about
what we do and to be listening
to what everyone else is doing as well.
We're actually going to startwith Amanda again.
And so the way this is going to workis I'm just going to ask them
a couple questionsabout the things that they've been doing,
what they were nominated for,
and then we'll go intosort of a roundtable, just discussion.
(02:13):
We've got some questions we'll talk about.
So, Amanda,
I'm just going to read a little bit
about from your nominationin less than a year,
Amanda has led her amazing team atResolution Institute to take your in forms
from not having even a working template,let alone having sent a single email
to these multiple beautifully brandedtemplates for newsletters.
They've got story level targeting.
(02:34):
And now that working with automationand she's also building
a growing web tracking datasetto work with She's averaging, last
I checked, over 750 users on user visits
in a week for this year with more than
1250 in
the last seven days and also showinga great increase week over week.
(02:57):
So I know you're truly really movingthings along and you're shaking things up
and I am excited that I actuallyget to work with you every now and then.
So it's fun.
So what I wanted to know is with for you,can you just talk a little bit
about the process,how you got from there to here
and then the ups and downs and sort ofmaybe some of the challenges,
how to work through them.
(03:19):
So one of our strategic objectsin technology and operational excellence,
which involves embracing efficient, modernand automated ways of working
supposedly reducing manualand inefficient processes.
So but our current system is very limitedand only enabled us to
make minimal changes to design and oftenhave minimal reporting functions.
(03:42):
So we couldn't achieve what we wantedand what we'd set out to achieve
in our strategic objectiveto increase organizational
effectiveness and assistin making Evidence-Based Decisions.
And we all know that data is key.
We couldn't target and segment
our audiences and we didn't have creativefreedom to design what we needed.
We needed automationand we needed it fast.
(04:03):
So we looked into the various platformsand decided to go with improvements
specifically for its reporting messagetargeting and personalization
possibilities.
A major issue for us, though, was thatit did not integrate with our AMS.
So at the same time,we're exploring our AMS options
We knew that we had to move forwardsuccessfully.
In order to move forward successfully,we needed to have a more responsive
(04:25):
operating system.
So Phil and I, the I.T.
analyst, researchedthe best ways to do this
and whether we could actually workwithout integration.
We finally convinced ourselvesthat we could do this.
And I'm not talking a couple of days.
I'm talking months of researchand going back backward and forward
with hard logicto see how it would work to set a goal.
(04:47):
An entrepreneur,marketing guru, once said,
if it scares you,it might be a good thing to try.
It certainly scared us, and we didgive it a try, and we're still trying it.
We set about redesigning our templatesand all mouths.
We go to a graphic designerand board to assist with redesigning them,
and we said Nothing informs.
We spent the next monthdoing the training videos
(05:08):
and trying to work outhow to send an actual email.
Set up the unsubscribe linksand add call to action buttons
because we did not have these in the past.
All of this while we were doing our dailymarketing job.
But the one big niggling questionin our heads, apart from getting it wrong,
was how do we maintain one source of truthas we couldn't integrate
(05:28):
our data would be stored inboth our arms and informs what do we do?
So we decided we'd export the data onceor twice a week and upload it into forms,
and then manually removeall unsubscribes and.
All right.
It's time consuming, although that with itstill not fully prepared, though,
we set a date and decidedto send out our first email on July
the 27th 2021 at precisely 8:55 a.m..
(05:52):
It was quite a simple mailerwhich advertised an arbitration course
and we were excitedly able to call themput in our first call to Action button.
We we're amazed at how quicklyit was sent, as previously our EMS
could take up to a couple of hoursto fully send out one email alone.
And the other exciting aspectwas that we could immediately
use the published mailing tab and see
(06:14):
who was clicking where we were in heaven.
Since then,we have sent out over 200 miles emails
with an average openminded over 30%.
We've trainedmost of our staff on the platform
and all our members now have a consistentand professional look and feel.
We send out weekly floorsMonday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
We try and find a freeand we also send out a very detailed
(06:37):
monthly newsletter.
Our first campaign,which was a Fellows upgrade,
started on 25th January and will rununtil the end of the financial year.
30th of June, designed to increaseour fellowship member membership numbers.
We haven't been able to do thisin the past.
We wanted to take our members on a journey
and let them know thatwe knew how long they've been with us
and what changes they have witnessedduring my time as a member.
(07:00):
So what I really love about Informes wasthat we could have personalization groups.
We can personalization groupswhenever we want.
So we added the year, a number of yearsthey've been with us and it showed them
how many years
that they had actually been with us, whichwe never been able to do in the past.
The story level targetingthen took them on a journey
(07:20):
and we were able to segment our audienceand we could send out particular emails
aimed at how many years of servicethey had been with us.
Since that campaign started.
We had over 165 requestsfor the fellow application forms.
25 of them were saved and approved.
Prior to this, we would have been luckyto have one request per quarter.
Unfortunately,
(07:41):
this is as automated as we canget at the moment without integration.
And whilst this is still whilstthe still manual process
involved, it's much quicker and efficientusing phones.
I do currently have a short test campaignsitting in phones
because I like to play around with itand I can safely say it's
looking like a dream and going upwhen I see it's a simple campaign
that has a stop, a stop,a wait and a notification button in it.
(08:05):
But it's good practice of how to set upand think about how campaigns work.
It has been a very rocky ride for usand a massive learning curve.
And without the support of my team of manyand I take a risk.
So we'd still be exploring all optionsand procrastinating.
Many redesigns our newsletterevery month and for manages the data
on next big project and quite a scaryone will be a membership renewal,
(08:28):
which we'll start working on shortlyonce we are fully integrated
with on us, which hopefully will beby the end of this year.
And we're also redesigning a website.
But of course
there is no way we would be where we arenow without one source of truth.
But just I've been privilegedto watch you guys go through it
and you and Phil McQueen are just amazingand to see you guys.
(08:51):
So you guys just keep pushing forward
with a smilewhere so many people have just gone.
I'm sending emails.
That's all I'm doing has just been a joy.
It's so much fun to work with you guys.
The journey that you've taken insuch a short time is amazing.
And the way you're doing your email,the way you're doing
your searches and stuff,just by uploading the data and stuff.
(09:13):
I've actually told several other peopleabout that,
that it's possiblethat you don't have to be limited.
You can find ways around itthat aren't that bad.
I mean,
I know when Phil was first doing it,it was like upload, upload,
upload every night,
but we got it to that point where it'slike once or twice a week and that's it.
And that's way better and you're ableto do all that dynamic stuff
(09:34):
and we're going to start targeting.It's, it's amazing.
We are very tonight with him.
Yes. I would love tojust put my head in the sand and run away.
But that's not who you are, though.
Yeah.
It's such a great example of how much
a small teamcan accomplish in such a short time.
(09:56):
If you just put your mind to itbecause it's been just just done.
It's just been just under a year, I guess,since you and I first talked about that.
Yeah.
I've seen people using softwarefor way longer than that,
and they're still just sending emailsand nothing else, so well done.
Let's move on to Ashley.
(10:18):
I know you've done amazing work with NikeAsia-Pacific.
You've been growing the membershipthrough outreach, email, phone
calls, Tremendous amount of contentthat you put out for a team of one.
So youwant to talk a little bit about that?
I'd be happy to tell youa little bit about that.
I think so you're familiar Nayak is a
is a user group for China's users.
(10:42):
It's a community based organization.
And a lot of the workthat I have been working on
over the last couple of monthsand over the last year, quite
frankly, has been that personal outreachand that community building.
But in particular, I guess our our journey
with within forms was really
it was really a critical central piece
(11:04):
in the success of our virtual conferencefrom last year.
So we had perfect timing in the sensethat the integration
between Informsand I was DMS perfectly aligned with
our marketing campaign,and we were able to use it to really
do some specific targetingfor different audiences
(11:27):
within the IMAs communityand just get some extra outreach
and some extra comes out to to people.
And with that specific opportunityto have the recording, the feedback
and you know, it'sjust such a powerful tool
that it really gave us a comprehendslook at what was really happening
(11:47):
within our communication so that we couldthen take that into consideration
and adjust and change thingsfor our marketing
in particularfor the lead up to our conference.
So we held a two day virtual conferencelast November
and had over 150
attendees, which I thinkis quite a big amount for us.
(12:09):
We're not a large organizationand the community is not incredibly huge
in Asia Pacific, but it's still fantastic
and so for us it's just really givensuch a great opportunity to
to be able to have the ease and access toit comes out.
I'm a solo employee,
so a team of one who does our marketingand our membership and our events
(12:32):
and all the things that happenin your typical association
and the ease of in formsjust makes my job so much easier.
So often I think I've said to Beth, like,I would be getting emails out
I wouldn't be getting reporting backor anything happening
for us as an organizationwithout our ability to use in forms.
(12:54):
It's just given me so much more free time,
if anything, to to be able to quicklyand easily communicate with our community.
And that also includes our newsletters.
So I'm quite impressed with Amanda's andthese letters that they're getting out.
We only do quarterly newsletters,but it's been fantastic
(13:14):
to be able to work on those optionsfor us as well.
And we are only just now kind of dipping
our toes into the campaign space.
I'm really excited to kind of unpackthat a little bit
more in the year aheadwith some targeted campaigns and
plans
for everythingfrom our new member onboarding,
(13:37):
which is done manually at the momentto our different campaigns
for the lead up for eventsthe majority of the work we do is
educational, so it's webinar conferenceand event based.
So I'm really excited
about the opportunityfor us to move forward with that.
I think we've I'd say fullywe've only been really up and running
(14:00):
with everything since the third quarteror the fourth quarter of last year.
So it's kind of aa new and exciting journey for us.
We have been in this in forums userspreviously, but it's been
it's just been a dream for usin terms of the new integrations
and it really allows meas an individual employee to accomplish
(14:22):
so much more than I would beif I didn't have in forums.
It's not just about the software.
I mean, I obviously I love the software.
I used it for years.
It really and I loved it so much.
I came to work here,
but it's the fact that you guysare all been
just so you've embraced technologyand you've embraced
what it can do and the marketingand what our marketing automation can do,
(14:45):
and you've shown it.And that's what I love about it.
I mean, actually youthat virtual conference that you ran,
I know that there are a lot of technicalchallenges and you just tackle them
because you wantedto put on a really good conference
for its users and Asia-Pacific,and it was phenomenal.
I've been on both sidesof those conferences, more time
(15:07):
online conferences like that, more timesthan I care to even think about.
And it was just it was so smooth.
And you did it like just it was you,but you were the one who push it forward.
You were the engine behind it,which is just it's amazing.
And you move things alongand you sure things up and you show
your arms users
(15:28):
on a consistent basis.
What's possible with I.A.,which I also make no secret that I love.
And you show peoplewhat's possible within forums
and what's possible with reaching outeven by like Zoom
or telephone are like communication wisebecause I know that you
how much you care about the Amoscommunity, whether they're members or not,
really comes throughwhen I talk to you about it.
(15:49):
And I'm sure that that helps get membersbecause your dedication
definitely doesn't go unnoticed,
but you serve a very large areaand you're one person.
So I mean, how do you keep it personalwith all these members and prospects
that you talk to? Thanks, Beth.
You know, it's definitely it's a lotit's a lot of outreach.
And it's that conferencewas was a huge, huge success despite some
(16:11):
technical difficulties
and, you know, I thinkI think the other thing that I just say
really quickly, too, is, you know, it isthe fact that we have embraced technology.
But it's it for me in particular,as as an Amos user and someone who
who runs a user group for other ideasusers, it's it's about ideas,
but it's also about the waysyou can integrate with an Amos.
(16:35):
I think that's when you combineall the right technologies,
you really can be incredibly successful.
And especially for me as a solo employee,that's that's an important thing.
And I guess one of one of those things is
Zoom is one of those key technologiesthat I use on a regular basis.
And and for me in terms of membershipoutreach and and growth on that front,
(16:59):
I do a lot of personalone on one virtual coffee chat
I think it's really importantfor an association
to get to know their members and alsoget to know nonmembers in the community.
I mean, really the way I look at theI miss world is we are all one
ecosystem of immense users.
(17:20):
There's solution providers, there's ACIand everybody plays a part
within the community.
And the more we can connect withone another, the more we can collaborate
with one another and share,the more we can all learn from each other
and the betterwe can all support each other.
And I think that's kind of really the coreof the work that I'm doing at NYAg
(17:41):
and in particular has beenyou know, such a like
it's been
it's funny, this week I had two differentvirtual coffee chats with our members,
and it's just it'sone of my favorite things that I do
as part of this job is just to sit downand get to know I'm as users
get to know each other, not for profitsand associations learn about the work
that they're doing to help themcelebrate their own successes,
(18:05):
encourage themto share their stories with the community,
but then also find out what their needsare as well.
And and then make sure that we as nyagare able to incorporate
that into our learningand development programing for the year.
So I think for us that's kind of bit ofa big component, and that's even a factor
(18:26):
that played into a lot of the marketingthat led to our virtual conference.
I took the time to actually makepersonalized videos for different target
marketing groups and send those videosso that
because I don't want to be another email,I don't want to be another
social media per se.
I actually genuinely want to get to knowpeople and I want people to feel like not
(18:49):
I guess an approachable associationand so I.
For me, in my marketing approach,it's really all about looking for ways
to kind of break down those barriersand really personalize
and you make it an authentic experience.
I think that's probably the key,the key component of it all,
the fact that you are the headof Association of Associations I think
(19:12):
has a lot of impact too, and just showinghow you can push through the stuff.
And that's one of the things I loveabout the work
that you do, is so many associationscan be impacted by it,
which means that all their membersare impacted by it.
And it's just it's exciting.
And last but absolutely not least.
Only by alphabetical order,AM is Brad Hunn
(19:32):
from the Australian College of Nursing.
And so, Brad,I know when you and I talk to you
when you first got to ASEAN, I rememberyou saying that there were a lot of people
using it forms in different departmentsand a lot of different emails going out.
And I know you did a lot of workto really reduce optimizing email
(19:53):
and take all that communicationsgenius letters.
So can you talk a little bit about that,how it how it went?
Yes, definitely.
So when I first joinedthe organization, so
had I had a talk with my my managerand we looked at a situation,
think there was about about nine over
nine email us weekly to two members.
(20:14):
We have a database of about over
11,000 around 11,000 people members.
So we have over nine emailsgoing out weekly, organizational wide.
And just in my department itself,there are about three emails
going out weekly and giventhat is quite a big organization then.
(20:34):
So there are different divisionswho have the different messaging
to our stakeholders.
So that explains, explain actuallywhy everyone is different departments
who are trying to send out communicate,communicate it to the stakeholders.
So I mean they are important messages.
So my manager and I, we talked about itand we thought that
(20:57):
it would be a great wayto streamline the communications.
So that's why it was Inform.
As we revamped, we did a bit of revampfor our communications.
So we started within our department first.
What we did was to streamlinethose the average of three emails
a week to just one.
(21:17):
So it was more like a consolidation ofof what my department
wanted to send to members every weekand just consolidate them into one email
we said we said a daythat we would send out email.
So we did a bit of testingin terms of the different days that we
(21:37):
that we will send out emails, seeeven time slots as well.
We would test them out, see which dates,which days of the week
which time slot to achieve thethe best open rate and click rates.
So a lot of preparation work went into it.
I I had the privilege of having colleagues
(22:01):
or team members who who are nurses,so people that I had the privilege
of getting some insightsinto the psyche of nurses
into this shift, timing of nurses.
So what time you start work?
So what time are they likely tolook at their phones or check their emails
So yeah, a lot of work was done into it,into the setup off
(22:22):
of what the how to email, how that one
email should or what time it should go outand how it should look.
We've got the advicefrom our and assistants
from a marketing department as well.
So after a streamlined communicationsthink
we we were able to make it work
(22:45):
I'm happy to say that I think
we were able to reduce email fatigue.
And I think we managed to bring downI think early on
I mentioned that there were overnine emails sent out every week
by the organization itselfas a as one organization.
So after we did the streamliningI think we managed to bring it down
(23:07):
to about four and a half average of fourand a half emails a week.
So that was we have that number.
And so that was good.
We were able to also boost the engagement.
So quick rates wentup as well, but very proud of
having achieving this.
Yeah, I think you mentioned to methat your open rates had gone up to 30
(23:29):
to 35% and your clicks,I think like nine went from 9% to 12%.
I think the clickbait was 3%,
around 3% to 9%.
So I thought, wow, even though that's.
Yeah, that's huge.
Well, I think that a lot I think thatthat's attributable in a large part
(23:50):
to all of that work that you putinto finding the right timing.
I think that's an incredibly underrated,well-spent amount of time.
Just in general,when people go into actually looking at
when people are opening and figuring outwhat the best time is to spend.
I think that it's work with, let's faceit, it's work, but it's good work.
(24:11):
I mean, when you get rates like that
and you're bringing informationto people that need it, that's amazing.
And that's that's
one of the inspiring things aboutit is all the work that you put into
just figuring out, okay,this is what it needs to go out.
Bringing people togetherbringing, you know, across departments
and stuff and say, hey, you know,there's a better way to do this.
Getting them to buy into that,because that can be difficult
when you come into an association,especially brand new.
(24:32):
We're really happy about achievingthose statistics and figures
because I think these figures,they don't come by accident.
So yeah, a lot of work goes into
like the preparation and then and yeah,I want that on a T-shirt now.
The metrics don't come by accident.
Exactly.
So I know and you and I talked,
(24:53):
you also mentionedthat you had some big plans for this year.
Can you tell us a little bit about whatyou're planning to do besides managing the
weekly E-Newsletter Communicationsto two members of the stakeholder silos
to manage the online communityon our platform.
On in our organization,we call it nursing engagement online
platform, all in shot Neo. So
(25:15):
we have been using
the weekly newsletterto direct traffic to our online community.
So it has really increasea lot of online traffic to the call
to Neo with the online only community,which are very happy about. So.
However, we have identified the gaps
in terms of the platform that we use to.
(25:36):
So so I think a lot of people
look at post, they do go to the website,
they do go to the platformHowever, they're not taking part.
We would like them to take partmore in the online discussions
and actually postmore and more things, more content.
So I've come up with thislike influencer program.
(25:57):
So it involves thought leaders
in different specialties,nursing specialties, to come and
get the ball rolling, get the conversationstarted with with interesting topics.
Yeah. And then
just to spur members of stakeholdersto actually join in the conversation.
So, I mean, and when Iwhen I say metrics don't come by accident.
(26:18):
So I did some preparation work again.
So when it cameto these topics of interest,
we structured and designed these topicsbased on a survey
that we did with with memberslike a couple of years ago.
So I think based on these feedback,we, we, we customize
(26:40):
so that the topics that members want totalk, want to hear and want to talk about.
So yeah, hopefully this is verythis is a very exciting project.
So we just kickstarted it early this month.
So I'm hoping to see how it affects
and improves the engagement of our onlinecommunity.
I am so excited to see how that works out,
(27:03):
because I know that you will be driving it
and pushing it and looking at the metricsand making it better.
And I'm
I definitely want to talk to you againwhen you've got
a little bit further into it and see howit's working, because I'm so excited.
I know it's going to be amazing.
I know everything.
All three of youhere is going to be amazing.
I'm fangirling out over here a little bit,but you guys have just you've dug in
and you've shown
(27:23):
what I have loved for decadesnow of work about working in associations
and that people who work in associationsand state associations
and gravitate towardsworking them are so dedicated and so keen
to make sure that the experience improvesfor the people who join.
And I just I love that, you know,I mean, we're all in marketing.
(27:45):
We could all go work.
We could go market Cigarets.
I wish we could go market gambling.
Gambling'sa big marketing thing here right now.
We could go market anything, you know,and the fact that we choose to work in
association and
try andmake things better for members, people
who are doing things all over the world,that alone is just inspiring to me.
(28:07):
But then to see what you guys havedone is just amazing.
So thank you all.
Appreciate you being hereand sharing your stories very much.
We're getting the questions.
Do you actually have a couple?
So first of all, as for Amanda, I'm
she's great.
So would you say thatthe courage to decide
to go with higher logic products, becauseI think you have community as well.
(28:30):
Yeah. Yes, we do.
So would you say that particularlyhow logic informs,
was that really driven more by a marketingcommunications need
for the productivity and efficiencyor was it from the technical perspective?
I know that it matches with community.
I know it didn't match with Arrow, but.
And so would you say it was thatwhat would you say was the really driving
factor why you chose to go with Informes?
(28:53):
I think it was a combinationof everything, like how current IO
our current system,our AMS was really limited
so that it was technologically driven,but it was also driven by
the need to be able to segmentand target our audience
because we couldn'treally do much with our system if we did.
Every time we wanted to dosomething different, we had to upgrade it.
(29:16):
Whereas with Informes, we're nowhere nearthe limit of what influence can do.
Like we are reallyat the beginning of the journey,
but what we can do without too muchtraining
is unbelievable and we can really targetand really segment.
And really the data that we get
is probably so important to us.
(29:36):
We've never been able to get it,but we've never been able to.
You click on well, and we can now actually
look and say, Okay,that person's opening their emails a lot.
We don't need to worry about them,
but what about these peoplethat aren't opening their emails?
We can do a targeted campaign with that.
The only thing that's stopping usnow is time and energy.
Exhaustive.
(29:57):
Yeah, I think it's one of both.
It's a combination of both.
That's what drove us and being ableto understand our audience better and
helping our members morewith getting targeted information to them
rather than just chucking everything upand going, Okay, you're not an arbitrator.
You can have this. Who cares?
Yeah,I think that's an important piece, too.
(30:17):
Is just talking about the storylevel targeting dynamic content
and the ability to put out one emailthat has information that might look
five different waysto five different people because it's all
about what they are interestedin, what they need, what they
know, what what actually matters to them.
And that's just the importance of thatcannot be oversold.
(30:40):
Well,I did actually forget to say that I work
for a membershiporganization of dispute resolvers.
So we have a variety of dispute resolutionpractitioners,
including mediators, arbitrators, expertdeterminants, restorative justice, etc.
based as well as Australia based.
So our audience is really,really different
(31:01):
and one'sdeterminative, one's facilitated,
they don't want to receive each other'sinformation so it's a bit of everything
that's a quick trial.
People will quickly just unsubscribeor emotionally unsubscribe
where you don't knowthat they're just not reading your emails.
I love that one of my colleagues mentioned
something calledit emotionally unsubscribing,
and I absolutely love that termbecause they haven't unsubscribe.
(31:24):
They're still getting emails,but emotionally, no, they've checked that
you've sent themtoo many things that don't matter.
I got a question for Brad.
What is the one
piece of data that you see every daythat has the most impact on your work?
Across marketing and community is datadriven.
Decisions are so important these days.
What data do you like to look at most?
Okay.
So from the e-newsletter,
(31:45):
am I basically look at the open ratesand the click rates,
and that's how I see how effective
the news the communications is.
Our communications are.
So and in terms of community,I'll look at the number of post views
out of metrics like no post views,the number of new posts,
(32:06):
post replies post likes.
It's a little bit like not like Facebook,
like social media,but just different in a way.
It's quite in-depthwhat the data that I can see
and how these two sets of information,
how to correlate with each other.
(32:27):
For example,I do a lot of traffic redirection
from the newsletterto the online community.
So and this this really helps
the state data really helps meto see a trend or or how effective
a one particular action has beendone has achieved actually.
(32:48):
So for example, I posted I publicized
a discussion on the newslettere-newsletter that went out.
And I think initially priorto this promotion
of that discussion on the online threatwhen I first posted that
when that influenza postwas first published, I think
(33:12):
online reaction was pretty lukewarm.
I think that there were some repliesthat there was some light.
But when I actually boostedthe publicity of that post
through the newsletter,it actually helped at the conversation.
Really,the online conversation really took off.
So I think that the data that I look at,mainly it's open rate
(33:34):
and the rates for the at usand for the online communities.
Mainly the new post post repliespost views
post like I have to say thatusing newsletters and things like that.
If you've got both,if you've got a community
I know like for example,we have community forums
and we started putting the RSS feed
(33:56):
just like a few posts from the community,the RSS feed from it into the newsletter.
And like the first week we got 81 peopleto click through the newsletter
to go to the community to specific posts.
And it's just I think it's a veryunderused capability just in general,
the ability to put RSS feeds in regardlessof the technology, RSS feeds.
Most people know my feelings on this, butRSS feeds are definitely an underutilized
(34:19):
piece of technologywhen it comes to community in particular.
But just in creating newslettersand curating feeds and things like that.
I love
seeing people use email in these lettersto actually drive people and communities.
It's awesome.
Ashley, what is it about your emailsthat you think that have gotten people
to engage with them?
I know you talked about the campaignbeing really successful.
(34:39):
What do you think has gotten peopleto engage with it?
With them?
I think some of it has to do with the
the different targeted what we're talkingabout street level marketing.
I think that's that'sdefinitely a component
and get the right contentin front of the right people.
But it also it comes back to the commentslike it comes back to the like the words
you've written on the page and how thoseare translating across to the
(35:04):
people have a short attention span, right?
You've got to get them early.
You've got to get them inand they don't have a lot of time
and they don't want to huntaround the page to figure out what it is
that you're trying to say to them.
So I think for for us in particular,it's been that the message is very clear
and the message is shortand sweet in particular
(35:26):
for people to interact with itand engage with it.
But also, like I was mentioning, earlier,
I have been playing withsome different things.
Like I'm I'm an incredibly visual person.
I have a original backgroundin art history before I ever became
an association employeefor the last two years of my career.
And so, you know, trying differentthings like video
(35:48):
clips and images and clicks,you know, different things
to spark engagement toand not being afraid to trial something.
And if it doesn't work great, you can moveon from it and and not use it again.
But I think it's truly a matterof what you've actually written
and how engaging the words are.
And then also that diversity of different
(36:11):
different ways of engaging people,especially especially video content.
I think that's kind ofI wouldn't say that's new.
Everyone's been doing that
over the last couple of years,but you've got them for maybe a minute.
If they've clicked itand they've opened up before,
they're moving on to the next thing.
So if you can't get them to engagewith your email and read it from there,
then they like you said,people are going to check out.
(36:32):
And and so for us, that's
that's kind of been a big a big componentand just trying to
to keep thingsfresh and creative and interesting as well
with whatyou're with what you're sending out.
And and I would say one other thingtoo, for us in trying to get engagement
is not to fear for us in particularis not to send too too many emails
(36:53):
because we're an associationfor other associations.
Right.
We're not everyone's primary focuswe add to what people are doing
and we provide educational opportunitiesand we provide
services, the member benefitsthat are fantastic for I'm as users,
but those actual ideasusers are doing about 20 million
(37:13):
other things and trying to manage thingson top of their job.
So keeping the short suite regular enough,but not, not so much
so that people are going to unsubscribeor stop separating them all.
Really good advice.
I actually do want to turn that questionto Amanda.
For one thing in particular,
you had mentioned that your fellowsapplications before.
(37:34):
You were lucky to get one a quarterand you got like 160 some.
Did you say we got 165 requestsand we upgraded 25 fellows.
So what do you think it was about
this time around that got so many requestswhen you hadn't previously?
I think we actually, for the first timedid a whole
(37:54):
marketing campaign,whereas before we literally just
kind of done a little bit here
and there, we never had the timeand we didn't have the back, the back
and operating systemto be able to do it all.
So we sent out this email in and forms
which told the story and had personalthe personal touch.
Like We knowthat you've been here for ten years.
(38:16):
We know that you've seen a business changefrom this name to this name.
We know that you've seen this.
And it took them on a journey of,Oh my God,
I have been with them for that long.This is amazing.
I have seen that.
I really feel likeI need to stay with this organization.
We also got Charles developed and we didthe whole social media campaign.
We put it into communities we shouldn't.
(38:39):
That's terrible.
We targeted them from every anglethat we could,
and we tried to tell a storyin every angle
rather than trying to change it upto make them feel special.
Rather than just being like,Hey, look at us, we're brilliant.
We're now doing the you ask,we answer kind of campaigns.
Like, Did you know that you've beenwith us for this long?
And did you know that you've seen this
and you're an amazing personand we love you and stay with us.
(39:01):
So we're trying to be a little bitmore personal,
and I think that's the way to gothese days.
Like Ashley, what you've done is amazingwith those videos, that's mind blowing.
But that kind of I think that kind ofapproach is working, particularly with
associates ones
now with COVID and peoplenot making money and not working.
They need to feel part of the community.
(39:23):
And I think the fellows upgradethe people that have been with us
for over five yearsactually now feel really valued.
And that's that's the important thing.
Yeah.
I mean, just making sure that they feelvalued and known is so important
and I mean, what I lovedabout both of those and about you
talking about looking at the metricsand changing things so that it matched
(39:43):
the needs of the members,is that the best technology
without a good story,without thought put into the timing?
And what's important to the membersis not enough.
You need that extra sat,you need that story, you need that
empathy, that abilityto understand people.
And both from a talking to them standpointand from looking at the data
(40:06):
because both things can telltwo very different stories.
People will say one thing to you,but then they'll do something else.
And so being able to combine all of thatand put it into a plan
that's been successfulit's just it's, it's amazing.
I know. I keep using that word. Sorry.
Oh, so I'll try to stop using that wordsometime soon.
Well, we all crave human touchand we will crave authentic city.
(40:27):
And I think it comes through.
Yeah.
If you get your communications wrongand you're authentic, then you're not real
and people want to stay with you.
And people can tellthere is this whole thing that I've been,
this whole idea that I've been playingwith and trying to really
tell its own story about with digital bodylanguage.
People can read your body languageto an extent in an email.
(40:50):
They may not even realizethey're doing it,
but they're going to glance at the emailand they're going to get an opinion.
That would be
the same would be, you either be like,hey, you know, really want help?
You're, Oh, we're amazing.
You should come join us.And you think about it.
The emails come off very much that way.
You could see that digital body language.
And on the flip side of that,if you look at what somebody is doing,
(41:11):
like between the web tracking
and if you've got a community,what they're doing
and the data, what they're opening,what they're looking at,
what they're clicking on, you get a phonelike a picture of their digital body
language,whether or not they're checked out,
if you think about it, exhibit those,whether or not
they're standing there and engagingor if they've got one foot out the door.
You can see that in both way.
And it's a really when you start digginginto it, thinking about it, it's
(41:34):
just such a cool concept.
That we've basically created
like the human the whole human experiencein this email exchange
that has largely no aspect of someonetalking to another person directly.
It's like it's just it fascinates me.
So I will start talking about that.
Now, I have another question.
I think this is a great question.
(41:56):
And possibly one to end on,because I think that there
could be a lot of really good thoughtsand information here.
We're just about to build our associationsmember renewal campaign
for the first time and then forums
and just wondering
if any of the panel membershave tips for making this successful.
Ask Beth for help
and just for the record, for
(42:16):
anyone who's listening,I do actually do Australian office hours.
So if anybody does need help or assistNZ, I'm happy to just shoot me an email.
I have an Australian, Carolyn Leigh,I can shoot you,
she back to youand we can get together and chat.
I will say from my experience,
the first big campaignwe did like member campaign, we did it
(42:38):
within forums was a renewal campaignand the things I learned
were keep your emails short and simple.
I love the KISS concept,keep it short and simple
and to focus on the benefitsand ours was four months long
and I feel like that wasn'tactually long enough
because I feel like reallyfrom six months out.
(42:59):
So basically I feel like thiswhen somebody joins
for the first six months,
you should be onboarding themfor like the first two or three and then
checking in with them from three to sixand then from six to nine.
You want to make sure that they're startlooking at the data
and seeing what automated things you needto make sure that they're engaging.
And then from by the timeyou hit the renewal campaign at nine,
(43:21):
they should have had a year
of just frequent enough,but not all the time touchpoints
where they're aware of their benefitsand they're using them.
And so when you get to nine, youyou can say, you know, your renewals
coming up in a few months, here'sthe information you can go pay.
Before we used a campaign, actually,
(43:41):
we did just individual emails to peoplewe set up.
Basically, our main renewal campaignwas we mailed invoices
at 90 days, 60 daysand 30 days to airports,
which were some of themwere the size of a small city.
You know,
basically it's like running a small cityyou have all of your,
(44:03):
all of the different thingsyou have in the city snow removal,
trash removal,everything that you would have in a city
you pretty much have at an airport.
And we were just mailing them invoicesat once
every 30 days and occasionallysending an email if they hadn't renewed.
And then we actually extendedthe membership
a whole month beyond thatbecause it took that long to pay.
(44:23):
When we set up an automated systemand we focused like that on the membership
and on the benefits,which we we sent an email in 90 days
and we didn't send another oneuntil 45 days.
And whereasbefore the majority of them were paying
in that monthafter their membership ended, people
60 some percent consistently paid betweenthe 90 day email and the 45 day email.
(44:45):
So it's a huge difference.
And I think the two pieces that really,
really helped with that were the quickreminder of the member benefits.
But then also just a short email reminderthat your membership
is coming due and we linked directlyto where they could go pay it online
we made sure that the invoiceswere up and running because in the times
you have to have an invoice therebefore they could pay against it.
(45:07):
But yeah, I think thatthat is one of the things that made it so
successful one of the other things we didwas we put a notification stuff in there.
I think it was about three weeks outbefore renewal date to send
all of the email addresses for everybodywho had yet to renew to membership team.
And they did a couple of the thingsthey've texted.
(45:28):
They're just in texting onthe actually is Google Voice.
They could do it online.
So they weren't like burning their fingersup on their phones and then they did
and they switched from that nowto voicemail dumps
where you can basically drop a message,you can record a message and just drop it.
And sure, how popular that is in Australiaor how well uses Australia.
But up hereit's it's becoming more of a thing
(45:50):
but you basically record one message
and then it drops it in the voicemail oflike almost everyone
that you have on your list,just say, hey, sorry I missed you.
Just wanted to check in and make sure,you know, everything was good.
You know, your renewals coming up.Let me know if I can do anything to help.
That's it.
And we just dropped itinto a bunch of voicemail boxes and
that's been really successful for them.
(46:12):
But it's that human touch.
The membership was a little too bigfor them to call everybody individually,
although I will say that our membershipcoordinator called everything new member.
She made it a point to callevery single new member.
So she was she was very diligent aboutshe loved talking to the membership.
That's kind of my story.
I mean, I may not I know
you guys are getting ready to launchwhile you're getting ready to work on one.
(46:34):
What are you thinking about so far?
We've got six different membership types,and so we're Australia
and I tell you about New Zealand as well.
So messaging slightly different.
I think I'm going to start now even then.
We're not doing it to next yeartill next April
because I think the journey that I thinkit's going to take a while for me
(46:56):
to get my head around
because each different membershiphas different fees
and all that sort of stuffand different messaging.
So I might just start with a membershiplevel, set that up and then see
if it works and then join the campaigntogether at the end I don't know.
I'm going to take your adviceon that first, but I'll go to it first
and then go from that when everybody hasa little bit of a different way working.
(47:17):
Looking at it, I worked with some peopletoday on a renewal campaign actually.
I actually know theirs was a yearlong campaign.
It literally was onboardingall the way to renewal, and
I worked on that and with themand it was just mostly making sure
that they had those technique itselfright.
They had a really nice spreadsheetwhere they had graphed out
exactly what they were going to sendwhen they were going to send it.
(47:38):
And it wasthey really thought about the process.
I always like to put mine in boththat and templates.
If I'm really thinking through one,I'll use PowerPoint
to figure out like what I need to do.
Aware before I dove into eitherthe email or the campaign
or the template, especiallyfor like a newsletter or something.
I think we're almost a time, so just
(47:59):
go for it.
Sorry. Sorry to interrupt.
Yeah, I think building on what I meant,a shit like before we knew was camping,
I think I think if covered
all the technical or I should say the,
the strategy on, on renewal messaginglikely be short, things like that.
But I think it will be usefulor helpful to
(48:20):
especially in renewals,it'll be helpful to remind
members on what they'regetting out of the membership yeah.
I think it would be helpful
to mention the benefits,what they would get out of the membership.
Like it gives them a refresherof what's the value they could get off.
And I think
to Ashleigh's point about video,I would love to see a renewal campaign
(48:42):
that tries at least one or two videos,
one or two of them,or just like a video email.
I was just talking to Helen Taylorthe other day and I'm like, I'm
blanking on her association.
But their onboarding campaign is 13 weeksand all 13 emails are videos
talking about the benefits,talking about specific things.
And she said that their engagementhas gone way up since then.
Yeah,actually we just did an episode podcast
(49:04):
that's going to probably come out soonthat she'll talk more about that
if you want to hear more, the memberengagement, your podcast will be on there.
But yeah, so I mean,
I think that at least one video,especially early on, just hey, you know,
hey, just want to make sure you're awareof what your member benefits are
and yeah, this is something you'reprobably gonna have to rerecord every now
and then because you're always addingbenefits.
Things change
the more that you can just update it,you know, when you get the chance.
(49:26):
But it's a lot easier to sit downand record a video and update it
than it is to sit downand try and write it out and very,
you know, okay, what am I going to hear?
You know, just sit down and talkI think that's such a great idea.
I might take that and run with thatfor our renewal.
Right? They go over free.
Yeah, yeah.
Michelle seriously,
if you do want to help reviewand talk through anything, let me know.
(49:48):
And we are certainly out of time.
Thank you guys so much for free timeand for all of the cool
things that you've been doing
and everything you've donefor your members and for your association
and their members.
Just thank you.
And I'm assuming all of youpeople can connect with you on LinkedIn.
Yeah. Cool.
Thanks, everybody.
(50:08):
Have a great day.Thank you, everyone. Thank you.
Thanks for joining us.
Don't forget to subscribe to the memberengagement show through Apple, Google,
Amazon, Spotify,or wherever you listen to podcasts.
And be sure to subscribe to my newsletterAssociation Marketing Pros.
Or you can grab the link from the episodenotes.
See you next week.
Welcome to the member engagementshow with Higher Logic,
the podcast for association professionalslooking to boost retention,
gain new membersand deepen member involvement.
Each episode I'll bring on some experts.
We'll talk shop about engagement
and you'll walk away with strategiesproven to transform your organization.
I'm Beth Arritt, an association evangelist with over 25 years experience
(00:26):
in marketing and member engagementAnd I'm so happy you're here.
Now let's start the show
Welcome back to the member engagementshow.
On today's episode,
we're going to hear from our Australianmarketing movers and shakers for 2022.
This unique groupmade for a fantastic panel
and had so much to offer upfor both inspiration and practical tactics
(00:47):
that I couldn't wait to share.
Hope you enjoy. We have.
I'm just going to say the names and thenlet them introduce themselves, actually.
So first we have Amanda Dollman. Hi.
Before I start,
just like to acknowledgethe get a goal of the ... nation
with the traditional custodians
of this land and pay my respectsto the elders, both past and present.
(01:08):
And thank you for this nomination.
And congratulations to everyone who'snominated Especially to Brad and Ashley.
I'm really looking forwardto being part of this panel with you guys.
Next, we have Ashley Baker
from the NiUG Asia Pacific.
Hi, everyone. And thank you, Beth.
And congratulations to everyone elseon this panel, to Amanda and Brad.
(01:31):
It's really great to be here.
And I am really looking forwardto having this opportunity
to talk about some exciting thingsthat everyone is accomplishing.
And then we have Brad Honfrom Australia College of Nursing.
Hi, everyone.
Thank you for having me on this panel.
So I'm very excited to be
(01:51):
be joining
everyone this morning to be talking about
what we do and to be listening
to what everyone else is doing as well.
We're actually going to startwith Amanda again.
And so the way this is going to workis I'm just going to ask them
a couple questionsabout the things that they've been doing,
what they were nominated for,
and then we'll go intosort of a roundtable, just discussion.
(02:13):
We've got some questions we'll talk about.
So, Amanda,
I'm just going to read a little bit
about from your nominationin less than a year,
Amanda has led her amazing team atResolution Institute to take your in forms
from not having even a working template,let alone having sent a single email
to these multiple beautifully brandedtemplates for newsletters.
They've got story level targeting.
(02:34):
And now that working with automationand she's also building
a growing web tracking datasetto work with She's averaging, last
I checked, over 750 users on user visits
in a week for this year with more than
1250 in
the last seven days and also showinga great increase week over week.
(02:57):
So I know you're truly really movingthings along and you're shaking things up
and I am excited that I actuallyget to work with you every now and then.
So it's fun.
So what I wanted to know is with for you,can you just talk a little bit
about the process,how you got from there to here
and then the ups and downs and sort ofmaybe some of the challenges,
how to work through them.
(03:19):
So one of our strategic objectsin technology and operational excellence,
which involves embracing efficient, modernand automated ways of working
supposedly reducing manualand inefficient processes.
So but our current system is very limitedand only enabled us to
make minimal changes to design and oftenhave minimal reporting functions.
(03:42):
So we couldn't achieve what we wantedand what we'd set out to achieve
in our strategic objectiveto increase organizational
effectiveness and assistin making Evidence-Based Decisions.
And we all know that data is key.
We couldn't target and segment
our audiences and we didn't have creativefreedom to design what we needed.
We needed automationand we needed it fast.
(04:03):
So we looked into the various platformsand decided to go with improvements
specifically for its reporting messagetargeting and personalization
possibilities.
A major issue for us, though, was thatit did not integrate with our AMS.
So at the same time,we're exploring our AMS options
We knew that we had to move forwardsuccessfully.
In order to move forward successfully,we needed to have a more responsive
(04:25):
operating system.
So Phil and I, the I.T.
analyst, researchedthe best ways to do this
and whether we could actually workwithout integration.
We finally convinced ourselvesthat we could do this.
And I'm not talking a couple of days.
I'm talking months of researchand going back backward and forward
with hard logicto see how it would work to set a goal.
(04:47):
An entrepreneur,marketing guru, once said,
if it scares you,it might be a good thing to try.
It certainly scared us, and we didgive it a try, and we're still trying it.
We set about redesigning our templatesand all mouths.
We go to a graphic designerand board to assist with redesigning them,
and we said Nothing informs.
We spent the next monthdoing the training videos
(05:08):
and trying to work outhow to send an actual email.
Set up the unsubscribe linksand add call to action buttons
because we did not have these in the past.
All of this while we were doing our dailymarketing job.
But the one big niggling questionin our heads, apart from getting it wrong,
was how do we maintain one source of truthas we couldn't integrate
(05:28):
our data would be stored inboth our arms and informs what do we do?
So we decided we'd export the data onceor twice a week and upload it into forms,
and then manually removeall unsubscribes and.
All right.
It's time consuming, although that with itstill not fully prepared, though,
we set a date and decidedto send out our first email on July
the 27th 2021 at precisely 8:55 a.m..
(05:52):
It was quite a simple mailerwhich advertised an arbitration course
and we were excitedly able to call themput in our first call to Action button.
We we're amazed at how quicklyit was sent, as previously our EMS
could take up to a couple of hoursto fully send out one email alone.
And the other exciting aspectwas that we could immediately
use the published mailing tab and see
(06:14):
who was clicking where we were in heaven.
Since then,we have sent out over 200 miles emails
with an average openminded over 30%.
We've trainedmost of our staff on the platform
and all our members now have a consistentand professional look and feel.
We send out weekly floorsMonday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
We try and find a freeand we also send out a very detailed
(06:37):
monthly newsletter.
Our first campaign,which was a Fellows upgrade,
started on 25th January and will rununtil the end of the financial year.
30th of June, designed to increaseour fellowship member membership numbers.
We haven't been able to do thisin the past.
We wanted to take our members on a journey
and let them know thatwe knew how long they've been with us
and what changes they have witnessedduring my time as a member.
(07:00):
So what I really love about Informes wasthat we could have personalization groups.
We can personalization groupswhenever we want.
So we added the year, a number of yearsthey've been with us and it showed them
how many years
that they had actually been with us, whichwe never been able to do in the past.
The story level targetingthen took them on a journey
(07:20):
and we were able to segment our audienceand we could send out particular emails
aimed at how many years of servicethey had been with us.
Since that campaign started.
We had over 165 requestsfor the fellow application forms.
25 of them were saved and approved.
Prior to this, we would have been luckyto have one request per quarter.
Unfortunately,
(07:41):
this is as automated as we canget at the moment without integration.
And whilst this is still whilstthe still manual process
involved, it's much quicker and efficientusing phones.
I do currently have a short test campaignsitting in phones
because I like to play around with itand I can safely say it's
looking like a dream and going upwhen I see it's a simple campaign
that has a stop, a stop,a wait and a notification button in it.
(08:05):
But it's good practice of how to set upand think about how campaigns work.
It has been a very rocky ride for usand a massive learning curve.
And without the support of my team of manyand I take a risk.
So we'd still be exploring all optionsand procrastinating.
Many redesigns our newsletterevery month and for manages the data
on next big project and quite a scaryone will be a membership renewal,
(08:28):
which we'll start working on shortlyonce we are fully integrated
with on us, which hopefully will beby the end of this year.
And we're also redesigning a website.
But of course
there is no way we would be where we arenow without one source of truth.
But just I've been privilegedto watch you guys go through it
and you and Phil McQueen are just amazingand to see you guys.
(08:51):
So you guys just keep pushing forward
with a smilewhere so many people have just gone.
I'm sending emails.
That's all I'm doing has just been a joy.
It's so much fun to work with you guys.
The journey that you've taken insuch a short time is amazing.
And the way you're doing your email,the way you're doing
your searches and stuff,just by uploading the data and stuff.
(09:13):
I've actually told several other peopleabout that,
that it's possiblethat you don't have to be limited.
You can find ways around itthat aren't that bad.
I mean,
I know when Phil was first doing it,it was like upload, upload,
upload every night,
but we got it to that point where it'slike once or twice a week and that's it.
And that's way better and you're ableto do all that dynamic stuff
(09:34):
and we're going to start targeting.It's, it's amazing.
We are very tonight with him.
Yes. I would love tojust put my head in the sand and run away.
But that's not who you are, though.
Yeah.
It's such a great example of how much
a small teamcan accomplish in such a short time.
(09:56):
If you just put your mind to itbecause it's been just just done.
It's just been just under a year, I guess,since you and I first talked about that.
Yeah.
I've seen people using softwarefor way longer than that,
and they're still just sending emailsand nothing else, so well done.
Let's move on to Ashley.
(10:18):
I know you've done amazing work with NikeAsia-Pacific.
You've been growing the membershipthrough outreach, email, phone
calls, Tremendous amount of contentthat you put out for a team of one.
So youwant to talk a little bit about that?
I'd be happy to tell youa little bit about that.
I think so you're familiar Nayak is a
is a user group for China's users.
(10:42):
It's a community based organization.
And a lot of the workthat I have been working on
over the last couple of monthsand over the last year, quite
frankly, has been that personal outreachand that community building.
But in particular, I guess our our journey
with within forms was really
it was really a critical central piece
(11:04):
in the success of our virtual conferencefrom last year.
So we had perfect timing in the sensethat the integration
between Informsand I was DMS perfectly aligned with
our marketing campaign,and we were able to use it to really
do some specific targetingfor different audiences
(11:27):
within the IMAs communityand just get some extra outreach
and some extra comes out to to people.
And with that specific opportunityto have the recording, the feedback
and you know, it'sjust such a powerful tool
that it really gave us a comprehendslook at what was really happening
(11:47):
within our communication so that we couldthen take that into consideration
and adjust and change thingsfor our marketing
in particularfor the lead up to our conference.
So we held a two day virtual conferencelast November
and had over 150
attendees, which I thinkis quite a big amount for us.
(12:09):
We're not a large organizationand the community is not incredibly huge
in Asia Pacific, but it's still fantastic
and so for us it's just really givensuch a great opportunity to
to be able to have the ease and access toit comes out.
I'm a solo employee,
so a team of one who does our marketingand our membership and our events
(12:32):
and all the things that happenin your typical association
and the ease of in formsjust makes my job so much easier.
So often I think I've said to Beth, like,I would be getting emails out
I wouldn't be getting reporting backor anything happening
for us as an organizationwithout our ability to use in forms.
(12:54):
It's just given me so much more free time,
if anything, to to be able to quicklyand easily communicate with our community.
And that also includes our newsletters.
So I'm quite impressed with Amanda's andthese letters that they're getting out.
We only do quarterly newsletters,but it's been fantastic
(13:14):
to be able to work on those optionsfor us as well.
And we are only just now kind of dipping
our toes into the campaign space.
I'm really excited to kind of unpackthat a little bit
more in the year aheadwith some targeted campaigns and
plans
for everythingfrom our new member onboarding,
(13:37):
which is done manually at the momentto our different campaigns
for the lead up for eventsthe majority of the work we do is
educational, so it's webinar conferenceand event based.
So I'm really excited
about the opportunityfor us to move forward with that.
I think we've I'd say fullywe've only been really up and running
(14:00):
with everything since the third quarteror the fourth quarter of last year.
So it's kind of aa new and exciting journey for us.
We have been in this in forums userspreviously, but it's been
it's just been a dream for usin terms of the new integrations
and it really allows meas an individual employee to accomplish
(14:22):
so much more than I would beif I didn't have in forums.
It's not just about the software.
I mean, I obviously I love the software.
I used it for years.
It really and I loved it so much.
I came to work here,
but it's the fact that you guysare all been
just so you've embraced technologyand you've embraced
what it can do and the marketingand what our marketing automation can do,
(14:45):
and you've shown it.And that's what I love about it.
I mean, actually youthat virtual conference that you ran,
I know that there are a lot of technicalchallenges and you just tackle them
because you wantedto put on a really good conference
for its users and Asia-Pacific,and it was phenomenal.
I've been on both sidesof those conferences, more time
(15:07):
online conferences like that, more timesthan I care to even think about.
And it was just it was so smooth.
And you did it like just it was you,but you were the one who push it forward.
You were the engine behind it,which is just it's amazing.
And you move things alongand you sure things up and you show
your arms users
(15:28):
on a consistent basis.
What's possible with I.A.,which I also make no secret that I love.
And you show peoplewhat's possible within forums
and what's possible with reaching outeven by like Zoom
or telephone are like communication wisebecause I know that you
how much you care about the Amoscommunity, whether they're members or not,
really comes throughwhen I talk to you about it.
(15:49):
And I'm sure that that helps get membersbecause your dedication
definitely doesn't go unnoticed,
but you serve a very large areaand you're one person.
So I mean, how do you keep it personalwith all these members and prospects
that you talk to? Thanks, Beth.
You know, it's definitely it's a lotit's a lot of outreach.
And it's that conferencewas was a huge, huge success despite some
(16:11):
technical difficulties
and, you know, I thinkI think the other thing that I just say
really quickly, too, is, you know, it isthe fact that we have embraced technology.
But it's it for me in particular,as as an Amos user and someone who
who runs a user group for other ideasusers, it's it's about ideas,
but it's also about the waysyou can integrate with an Amos.
(16:35):
I think that's when you combineall the right technologies,
you really can be incredibly successful.
And especially for me as a solo employee,that's that's an important thing.
And I guess one of one of those things is
Zoom is one of those key technologiesthat I use on a regular basis.
And and for me in terms of membershipoutreach and and growth on that front,
(16:59):
I do a lot of personalone on one virtual coffee chat
I think it's really importantfor an association
to get to know their members and alsoget to know nonmembers in the community.
I mean, really the way I look at theI miss world is we are all one
ecosystem of immense users.
(17:20):
There's solution providers, there's ACIand everybody plays a part
within the community.
And the more we can connect withone another, the more we can collaborate
with one another and share,the more we can all learn from each other
and the betterwe can all support each other.
And I think that's kind of really the coreof the work that I'm doing at NYAg
(17:41):
and in particular has beenyou know, such a like
it's been
it's funny, this week I had two differentvirtual coffee chats with our members,
and it's just it'sone of my favorite things that I do
as part of this job is just to sit downand get to know I'm as users
get to know each other, not for profitsand associations learn about the work
that they're doing to help themcelebrate their own successes,
(18:05):
encourage themto share their stories with the community,
but then also find out what their needsare as well.
And and then make sure that we as nyagare able to incorporate
that into our learningand development programing for the year.
So I think for us that's kind of bit ofa big component, and that's even a factor
(18:26):
that played into a lot of the marketingthat led to our virtual conference.
I took the time to actually makepersonalized videos for different target
marketing groups and send those videosso that
because I don't want to be another email,I don't want to be another
social media per se.
I actually genuinely want to get to knowpeople and I want people to feel like not
(18:49):
I guess an approachable associationand so I.
For me, in my marketing approach,it's really all about looking for ways
to kind of break down those barriersand really personalize
and you make it an authentic experience.
I think that's probably the key,the key component of it all,
the fact that you are the headof Association of Associations I think
(19:12):
has a lot of impact too, and just showinghow you can push through the stuff.
And that's one of the things I loveabout the work
that you do, is so many associationscan be impacted by it,
which means that all their membersare impacted by it.
And it's just it's exciting.
And last but absolutely not least.
Only by alphabetical order,AM is Brad Hunn
(19:32):
from the Australian College of Nursing.
And so, Brad,I know when you and I talk to you
when you first got to ASEAN, I rememberyou saying that there were a lot of people
using it forms in different departmentsand a lot of different emails going out.
And I know you did a lot of workto really reduce optimizing email
(19:53):
and take all that communicationsgenius letters.
So can you talk a little bit about that,how it how it went?
Yes, definitely.
So when I first joinedthe organization, so
had I had a talk with my my managerand we looked at a situation,
think there was about about nine over
nine email us weekly to two members.
(20:14):
We have a database of about over
11,000 around 11,000 people members.
So we have over nine emailsgoing out weekly, organizational wide.
And just in my department itself,there are about three emails
going out weekly and giventhat is quite a big organization then.
(20:34):
So there are different divisionswho have the different messaging
to our stakeholders.
So that explains, explain actuallywhy everyone is different departments
who are trying to send out communicate,communicate it to the stakeholders.
So I mean they are important messages.
So my manager and I, we talked about itand we thought that
(20:57):
it would be a great wayto streamline the communications.
So that's why it was Inform.
As we revamped, we did a bit of revampfor our communications.
So we started within our department first.
What we did was to streamlinethose the average of three emails
a week to just one.
(21:17):
So it was more like a consolidation ofof what my department
wanted to send to members every weekand just consolidate them into one email
we said we said a daythat we would send out email.
So we did a bit of testingin terms of the different days that we
(21:37):
that we will send out emails, seeeven time slots as well.
We would test them out, see which dates,which days of the week
which time slot to achieve thethe best open rate and click rates.
So a lot of preparation work went into it.
I I had the privilege of having colleagues
(22:01):
or team members who who are nurses,so people that I had the privilege
of getting some insightsinto the psyche of nurses
into this shift, timing of nurses.
So what time you start work?
So what time are they likely tolook at their phones or check their emails
So yeah, a lot of work was done into it,into the setup off
(22:22):
of what the how to email, how that one
email should or what time it should go outand how it should look.
We've got the advicefrom our and assistants
from a marketing department as well.
So after a streamlined communicationsthink
we we were able to make it work
(22:45):
I'm happy to say that I think
we were able to reduce email fatigue.
And I think we managed to bring downI think early on
I mentioned that there were overnine emails sent out every week
by the organization itselfas a as one organization.
So after we did the streamliningI think we managed to bring it down
(23:07):
to about four and a half average of fourand a half emails a week.
So that was we have that number.
And so that was good.
We were able to also boost the engagement.
So quick rates wentup as well, but very proud of
having achieving this.
Yeah, I think you mentioned to methat your open rates had gone up to 30
(23:29):
to 35% and your clicks,I think like nine went from 9% to 12%.
I think the clickbait was 3%,
around 3% to 9%.
So I thought, wow, even though that's.
Yeah, that's huge.
Well, I think that a lot I think thatthat's attributable in a large part
(23:50):
to all of that work that you putinto finding the right timing.
I think that's an incredibly underrated,well-spent amount of time.
Just in general,when people go into actually looking at
when people are opening and figuring outwhat the best time is to spend.
I think that it's work with, let's faceit, it's work, but it's good work.
(24:11):
I mean, when you get rates like that
and you're bringing informationto people that need it, that's amazing.
And that's that's
one of the inspiring things aboutit is all the work that you put into
just figuring out, okay,this is what it needs to go out.
Bringing people togetherbringing, you know, across departments
and stuff and say, hey, you know,there's a better way to do this.
Getting them to buy into that,because that can be difficult
when you come into an association,especially brand new.
(24:32):
We're really happy about achievingthose statistics and figures
because I think these figures,they don't come by accident.
So yeah, a lot of work goes into
like the preparation and then and yeah,I want that on a T-shirt now.
The metrics don't come by accident.
Exactly.
So I know and you and I talked,
(24:53):
you also mentionedthat you had some big plans for this year.
Can you tell us a little bit about whatyou're planning to do besides managing the
weekly E-Newsletter Communicationsto two members of the stakeholder silos
to manage the online communityon our platform.
On in our organization,we call it nursing engagement online
platform, all in shot Neo. So
(25:15):
we have been using
the weekly newsletterto direct traffic to our online community.
So it has really increasea lot of online traffic to the call
to Neo with the online only community,which are very happy about. So.
However, we have identified the gaps
in terms of the platform that we use to.
(25:36):
So so I think a lot of people
look at post, they do go to the website,
they do go to the platformHowever, they're not taking part.
We would like them to take partmore in the online discussions
and actually postmore and more things, more content.
So I've come up with thislike influencer program.
(25:57):
So it involves thought leaders
in different specialties,nursing specialties, to come and
get the ball rolling, get the conversationstarted with with interesting topics.
Yeah. And then
just to spur members of stakeholdersto actually join in the conversation.
So, I mean, and when Iwhen I say metrics don't come by accident.
(26:18):
So I did some preparation work again.
So when it cameto these topics of interest,
we structured and designed these topicsbased on a survey
that we did with with memberslike a couple of years ago.
So I think based on these feedback,we, we, we customize
(26:40):
so that the topics that members want totalk, want to hear and want to talk about.
So yeah, hopefully this is verythis is a very exciting project.
So we just kickstarted it early this month.
So I'm hoping to see how it affects
and improves the engagement of our onlinecommunity.
I am so excited to see how that works out,
(27:03):
because I know that you will be driving it
and pushing it and looking at the metricsand making it better.
And I'm
I definitely want to talk to you againwhen you've got
a little bit further into it and see howit's working, because I'm so excited.
I know it's going to be amazing.
I know everything.
All three of youhere is going to be amazing.
I'm fangirling out over here a little bit,but you guys have just you've dug in
and you've shown
(27:23):
what I have loved for decadesnow of work about working in associations
and that people who work in associationsand state associations
and gravitate towardsworking them are so dedicated and so keen
to make sure that the experience improvesfor the people who join.
And I just I love that, you know,I mean, we're all in marketing.
(27:45):
We could all go work.
We could go market Cigarets.
I wish we could go market gambling.
Gambling'sa big marketing thing here right now.
We could go market anything, you know,and the fact that we choose to work in
association and
try andmake things better for members, people
who are doing things all over the world,that alone is just inspiring to me.
(28:07):
But then to see what you guys havedone is just amazing.
So thank you all.
Appreciate you being hereand sharing your stories very much.
We're getting the questions.
Do you actually have a couple?
So first of all, as for Amanda, I'm
she's great.
So would you say thatthe courage to decide
to go with higher logic products, becauseI think you have community as well.
(28:30):
Yeah. Yes, we do.
So would you say that particularlyhow logic informs,
was that really driven more by a marketingcommunications need
for the productivity and efficiencyor was it from the technical perspective?
I know that it matches with community.
I know it didn't match with Arrow, but.
And so would you say it was thatwhat would you say was the really driving
factor why you chose to go with Informes?
(28:53):
I think it was a combinationof everything, like how current IO
our current system,our AMS was really limited
so that it was technologically driven,but it was also driven by
the need to be able to segmentand target our audience
because we couldn'treally do much with our system if we did.
Every time we wanted to dosomething different, we had to upgrade it.
(29:16):
Whereas with Informes, we're nowhere nearthe limit of what influence can do.
Like we are reallyat the beginning of the journey,
but what we can do without too muchtraining
is unbelievable and we can really targetand really segment.
And really the data that we get
is probably so important to us.
(29:36):
We've never been able to get it,but we've never been able to.
You click on well, and we can now actually
look and say, Okay,that person's opening their emails a lot.
We don't need to worry about them,
but what about these peoplethat aren't opening their emails?
We can do a targeted campaign with that.
The only thing that's stopping usnow is time and energy.
Exhaustive.
(29:57):
Yeah, I think it's one of both.
It's a combination of both.
That's what drove us and being ableto understand our audience better and
helping our members morewith getting targeted information to them
rather than just chucking everything upand going, Okay, you're not an arbitrator.
You can have this. Who cares?
Yeah,I think that's an important piece, too.
(30:17):
Is just talking about the storylevel targeting dynamic content
and the ability to put out one emailthat has information that might look
five different waysto five different people because it's all
about what they are interestedin, what they need, what they
know, what what actually matters to them.
And that's just the importance of thatcannot be oversold.
(30:40):
Well,I did actually forget to say that I work
for a membershiporganization of dispute resolvers.
So we have a variety of dispute resolutionpractitioners,
including mediators, arbitrators, expertdeterminants, restorative justice, etc.
based as well as Australia based.
So our audience is really,really different
(31:01):
and one'sdeterminative, one's facilitated,
they don't want to receive each other'sinformation so it's a bit of everything
that's a quick trial.
People will quickly just unsubscribeor emotionally unsubscribe
where you don't knowthat they're just not reading your emails.
I love that one of my colleagues mentioned
something calledit emotionally unsubscribing,
and I absolutely love that termbecause they haven't unsubscribe.
(31:24):
They're still getting emails,but emotionally, no, they've checked that
you've sent themtoo many things that don't matter.
I got a question for Brad.
What is the one
piece of data that you see every daythat has the most impact on your work?
Across marketing and community is datadriven.
Decisions are so important these days.
What data do you like to look at most?
Okay.
So from the e-newsletter,
(31:45):
am I basically look at the open ratesand the click rates,
and that's how I see how effective
the news the communications is.
Our communications are.
So and in terms of community,I'll look at the number of post views
out of metrics like no post views,the number of new posts,
(32:06):
post replies post likes.
It's a little bit like not like Facebook,
like social media,but just different in a way.
It's quite in-depthwhat the data that I can see
and how these two sets of information,
how to correlate with each other.
(32:27):
For example,I do a lot of traffic redirection
from the newsletterto the online community.
So and this this really helps
the state data really helps meto see a trend or or how effective
a one particular action has beendone has achieved actually.
(32:48):
So for example, I posted I publicized
a discussion on the newslettere-newsletter that went out.
And I think initially priorto this promotion
of that discussion on the online threatwhen I first posted that
when that influenza postwas first published, I think
(33:12):
online reaction was pretty lukewarm.
I think that there were some repliesthat there was some light.
But when I actually boostedthe publicity of that post
through the newsletter,it actually helped at the conversation.
Really,the online conversation really took off.
So I think that the data that I look at,mainly it's open rate
(33:34):
and the rates for the at usand for the online communities.
Mainly the new post post repliespost views
post like I have to say thatusing newsletters and things like that.
If you've got both,if you've got a community
I know like for example,we have community forums
and we started putting the RSS feed
(33:56):
just like a few posts from the community,the RSS feed from it into the newsletter.
And like the first week we got 81 peopleto click through the newsletter
to go to the community to specific posts.
And it's just I think it's a veryunderused capability just in general,
the ability to put RSS feeds in regardlessof the technology, RSS feeds.
Most people know my feelings on this, butRSS feeds are definitely an underutilized
(34:19):
piece of technologywhen it comes to community in particular.
But just in creating newslettersand curating feeds and things like that.
I love
seeing people use email in these lettersto actually drive people and communities.
It's awesome.
Ashley, what is it about your emailsthat you think that have gotten people
to engage with them?
I know you talked about the campaignbeing really successful.
(34:39):
What do you think has gotten peopleto engage with it?
With them?
I think some of it has to do with the
the different targeted what we're talkingabout street level marketing.
I think that's that'sdefinitely a component
and get the right contentin front of the right people.
But it also it comes back to the commentslike it comes back to the like the words
you've written on the page and how thoseare translating across to the
(35:04):
people have a short attention span, right?
You've got to get them early.
You've got to get them inand they don't have a lot of time
and they don't want to huntaround the page to figure out what it is
that you're trying to say to them.
So I think for for us in particular,it's been that the message is very clear
and the message is shortand sweet in particular
(35:26):
for people to interact with itand engage with it.
But also, like I was mentioning, earlier,
I have been playing withsome different things.
Like I'm I'm an incredibly visual person.
I have a original backgroundin art history before I ever became
an association employeefor the last two years of my career.
And so, you know, trying differentthings like video
(35:48):
clips and images and clicks,you know, different things
to spark engagement toand not being afraid to trial something.
And if it doesn't work great, you can moveon from it and and not use it again.
But I think it's truly a matterof what you've actually written
and how engaging the words are.
And then also that diversity of different
(36:11):
different ways of engaging people,especially especially video content.
I think that's kind ofI wouldn't say that's new.
Everyone's been doing that
over the last couple of years,but you've got them for maybe a minute.
If they've clicked itand they've opened up before,
they're moving on to the next thing.
So if you can't get them to engagewith your email and read it from there,
then they like you said,people are going to check out.
(36:32):
And and so for us, that's
that's kind of been a big a big componentand just trying to
to keep thingsfresh and creative and interesting as well
with whatyou're with what you're sending out.
And and I would say one other thingtoo, for us in trying to get engagement
is not to fear for us in particularis not to send too too many emails
(36:53):
because we're an associationfor other associations.
Right.
We're not everyone's primary focuswe add to what people are doing
and we provide educational opportunitiesand we provide
services, the member benefitsthat are fantastic for I'm as users,
but those actual ideasusers are doing about 20 million
(37:13):
other things and trying to manage thingson top of their job.
So keeping the short suite regular enough,but not, not so much
so that people are going to unsubscribeor stop separating them all.
Really good advice.
I actually do want to turn that questionto Amanda.
For one thing in particular,
you had mentioned that your fellowsapplications before.
(37:34):
You were lucky to get one a quarterand you got like 160 some.
Did you say we got 165 requestsand we upgraded 25 fellows.
So what do you think it was about
this time around that got so many requestswhen you hadn't previously?
I think we actually, for the first timedid a whole
(37:54):
marketing campaign,whereas before we literally just
kind of done a little bit here
and there, we never had the timeand we didn't have the back, the back
and operating systemto be able to do it all.
So we sent out this email in and forms
which told the story and had personalthe personal touch.
Like We knowthat you've been here for ten years.
(38:16):
We know that you've seen a business changefrom this name to this name.
We know that you've seen this.
And it took them on a journey of,Oh my God,
I have been with them for that long.This is amazing.
I have seen that.
I really feel likeI need to stay with this organization.
We also got Charles developed and we didthe whole social media campaign.
We put it into communities we shouldn't.
(38:39):
That's terrible.
We targeted them from every anglethat we could,
and we tried to tell a storyin every angle
rather than trying to change it upto make them feel special.
Rather than just being like,Hey, look at us, we're brilliant.
We're now doing the you ask,we answer kind of campaigns.
Like, Did you know that you've beenwith us for this long?
And did you know that you've seen this
and you're an amazing personand we love you and stay with us.
(39:01):
So we're trying to be a little bitmore personal,
and I think that's the way to gothese days.
Like Ashley, what you've done is amazingwith those videos, that's mind blowing.
But that kind of I think that kind ofapproach is working, particularly with
associates ones
now with COVID and peoplenot making money and not working.
They need to feel part of the community.
(39:23):
And I think the fellows upgradethe people that have been with us
for over five yearsactually now feel really valued.
And that's that's the important thing.
Yeah.
I mean, just making sure that they feelvalued and known is so important
and I mean, what I lovedabout both of those and about you
talking about looking at the metricsand changing things so that it matched
(39:43):
the needs of the members,is that the best technology
without a good story,without thought put into the timing?
And what's important to the membersis not enough.
You need that extra sat,you need that story, you need that
empathy, that abilityto understand people.
And both from a talking to them standpointand from looking at the data
(40:06):
because both things can telltwo very different stories.
People will say one thing to you,but then they'll do something else.
And so being able to combine all of thatand put it into a plan
that's been successfulit's just it's, it's amazing.
I know. I keep using that word. Sorry.
Oh, so I'll try to stop using that wordsometime soon.
Well, we all crave human touchand we will crave authentic city.
(40:27):
And I think it comes through.
Yeah.
If you get your communications wrongand you're authentic, then you're not real
and people want to stay with you.
And people can tellthere is this whole thing that I've been,
this whole idea that I've been playingwith and trying to really
tell its own story about with digital bodylanguage.
People can read your body languageto an extent in an email.
(40:50):
They may not even realizethey're doing it,
but they're going to glance at the emailand they're going to get an opinion.
That would be
the same would be, you either be like,hey, you know, really want help?
You're, Oh, we're amazing.
You should come join us.And you think about it.
The emails come off very much that way.
You could see that digital body language.
And on the flip side of that,if you look at what somebody is doing,
(41:11):
like between the web tracking
and if you've got a community,what they're doing
and the data, what they're opening,what they're looking at,
what they're clicking on, you get a phonelike a picture of their digital body
language,whether or not they're checked out,
if you think about it, exhibit those,whether or not
they're standing there and engagingor if they've got one foot out the door.
You can see that in both way.
And it's a really when you start digginginto it, thinking about it, it's
(41:34):
just such a cool concept.
That we've basically created
like the human the whole human experiencein this email exchange
that has largely no aspect of someonetalking to another person directly.
It's like it's just it fascinates me.
So I will start talking about that.
Now, I have another question.
I think this is a great question.
(41:56):
And possibly one to end on,because I think that there
could be a lot of really good thoughtsand information here.
We're just about to build our associationsmember renewal campaign
for the first time and then forums
and just wondering
if any of the panel membershave tips for making this successful.
Ask Beth for help
and just for the record, for
(42:16):
anyone who's listening,I do actually do Australian office hours.
So if anybody does need help or assistNZ, I'm happy to just shoot me an email.
I have an Australian, Carolyn Leigh,I can shoot you,
she back to youand we can get together and chat.
I will say from my experience,
the first big campaignwe did like member campaign, we did it
(42:38):
within forums was a renewal campaignand the things I learned
were keep your emails short and simple.
I love the KISS concept,keep it short and simple
and to focus on the benefitsand ours was four months long
and I feel like that wasn'tactually long enough
because I feel like reallyfrom six months out.
(42:59):
So basically I feel like thiswhen somebody joins
for the first six months,
you should be onboarding themfor like the first two or three and then
checking in with them from three to sixand then from six to nine.
You want to make sure that they're startlooking at the data
and seeing what automated things you needto make sure that they're engaging.
And then from by the timeyou hit the renewal campaign at nine,
(43:21):
they should have had a year
of just frequent enough,but not all the time touchpoints
where they're aware of their benefitsand they're using them.
And so when you get to nine, youyou can say, you know, your renewals
coming up in a few months, here'sthe information you can go pay.
Before we used a campaign, actually,
(43:41):
we did just individual emails to peoplewe set up.
Basically, our main renewal campaignwas we mailed invoices
at 90 days, 60 daysand 30 days to airports,
which were some of themwere the size of a small city.
You know,
basically it's like running a small cityyou have all of your,
(44:03):
all of the different thingsyou have in the city snow removal,
trash removal,everything that you would have in a city
you pretty much have at an airport.
And we were just mailing them invoicesat once
every 30 days and occasionallysending an email if they hadn't renewed.
And then we actually extendedthe membership
a whole month beyond thatbecause it took that long to pay.
(44:23):
When we set up an automated systemand we focused like that on the membership
and on the benefits,which we we sent an email in 90 days
and we didn't send another oneuntil 45 days.
And whereasbefore the majority of them were paying
in that monthafter their membership ended, people
60 some percent consistently paid betweenthe 90 day email and the 45 day email.
(44:45):
So it's a huge difference.
And I think the two pieces that really,
really helped with that were the quickreminder of the member benefits.
But then also just a short email reminderthat your membership
is coming due and we linked directlyto where they could go pay it online
we made sure that the invoiceswere up and running because in the times
you have to have an invoice therebefore they could pay against it.
(45:07):
But yeah, I think thatthat is one of the things that made it so
successful one of the other things we didwas we put a notification stuff in there.
I think it was about three weeks outbefore renewal date to send
all of the email addresses for everybodywho had yet to renew to membership team.
And they did a couple of the thingsthey've texted.
(45:28):
They're just in texting onthe actually is Google Voice.
They could do it online.
So they weren't like burning their fingersup on their phones and then they did
and they switched from that nowto voicemail dumps
where you can basically drop a message,you can record a message and just drop it.
And sure, how popular that is in Australiaor how well uses Australia.
But up hereit's it's becoming more of a thing
(45:50):
but you basically record one message
and then it drops it in the voicemail oflike almost everyone
that you have on your list,just say, hey, sorry I missed you.
Just wanted to check in and make sure,you know, everything was good.
You know, your renewals coming up.Let me know if I can do anything to help.
That's it.
And we just dropped itinto a bunch of voicemail boxes and
that's been really successful for them.
(46:12):
But it's that human touch.
The membership was a little too bigfor them to call everybody individually,
although I will say that our membershipcoordinator called everything new member.
She made it a point to callevery single new member.
So she was she was very diligent aboutshe loved talking to the membership.
That's kind of my story.
I mean, I may not I know
you guys are getting ready to launchwhile you're getting ready to work on one.
(46:34):
What are you thinking about so far?
We've got six different membership types,and so we're Australia
and I tell you about New Zealand as well.
So messaging slightly different.
I think I'm going to start now even then.
We're not doing it to next yeartill next April
because I think the journey that I thinkit's going to take a while for me
(46:56):
to get my head around
because each different membershiphas different fees
and all that sort of stuffand different messaging.
So I might just start with a membershiplevel, set that up and then see
if it works and then join the campaigntogether at the end I don't know.
I'm going to take your adviceon that first, but I'll go to it first
and then go from that when everybody hasa little bit of a different way working.
(47:17):
Looking at it, I worked with some peopletoday on a renewal campaign actually.
I actually know theirs was a yearlong campaign.
It literally was onboardingall the way to renewal, and
I worked on that and with themand it was just mostly making sure
that they had those technique itselfright.
They had a really nice spreadsheetwhere they had graphed out
exactly what they were going to sendwhen they were going to send it.
(47:38):
And it wasthey really thought about the process.
I always like to put mine in boththat and templates.
If I'm really thinking through one,I'll use PowerPoint
to figure out like what I need to do.
Aware before I dove into eitherthe email or the campaign
or the template, especiallyfor like a newsletter or something.
I think we're almost a time, so just
(47:59):
go for it.
Sorry. Sorry to interrupt.
Yeah, I think building on what I meant,a shit like before we knew was camping,
I think I think if covered
all the technical or I should say the,
the strategy on, on renewal messaginglikely be short, things like that.
But I think it will be usefulor helpful to
(48:20):
especially in renewals,it'll be helpful to remind
members on what they'regetting out of the membership yeah.
I think it would be helpful
to mention the benefits,what they would get out of the membership.
Like it gives them a refresherof what's the value they could get off.
And I think
to Ashleigh's point about video,I would love to see a renewal campaign
(48:42):
that tries at least one or two videos,
one or two of them,or just like a video email.
I was just talking to Helen Taylorthe other day and I'm like, I'm
blanking on her association.
But their onboarding campaign is 13 weeksand all 13 emails are videos
talking about the benefits,talking about specific things.
And she said that their engagementhas gone way up since then.
Yeah,actually we just did an episode podcast
(49:04):
that's going to probably come out soonthat she'll talk more about that
if you want to hear more, the memberengagement, your podcast will be on there.
But yeah, so I mean,
I think that at least one video,especially early on, just hey, you know,
hey, just want to make sure you're awareof what your member benefits are
and yeah, this is something you'reprobably gonna have to rerecord every now
and then because you're always addingbenefits.
Things change
the more that you can just update it,you know, when you get the chance.
(49:26):
But it's a lot easier to sit downand record a video and update it
than it is to sit downand try and write it out and very,
you know, okay, what am I going to hear?
You know, just sit down and talkI think that's such a great idea.
I might take that and run with thatfor our renewal.
Right? They go over free.
Yeah, yeah.
Michelle seriously,
if you do want to help reviewand talk through anything, let me know.
(49:48):
And we are certainly out of time.
Thank you guys so much for free timeand for all of the cool
things that you've been doing
and everything you've donefor your members and for your association
and their members.
Just thank you.
And I'm assuming all of youpeople can connect with you on LinkedIn.
Yeah. Cool.
Thanks, everybody.
(50:08):
Have a great day.Thank you, everyone. Thank you.
Thanks for joining us.
Don't forget to subscribe to the memberengagement show through Apple, Google,
Amazon, Spotify,or wherever you listen to podcasts.
And be sure to subscribe to my newsletterAssociation Marketing Pros.
Or you can grab the link from the episodenotes.
See you next week.
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