As your small association begins to grow and evolve, there’s a better way to manage your data. Moving to all-in-one association management software (AMS) like YourMembership offers multiple benefits. Many of those benefits come from housing all of your association’s data in one place.

Read our blog to discover how and why your small association should keep your member data in one location.

5 benefits of keeping your association’s data in one central location

Managing member data across several systems might feel like a necessary evil, but it often creates more problems than it solves. From outdated records to inefficient workflows, scattered data can limit your association’s ability to serve members effectively and make informed decisions.

Centralizing your data in one place, especially with an all-in-one system like YourMembership, can transform your small staff operations. Here are five key benefits of keeping your association’s data in a single, unified system:

A complete view

When your data is in multiple places, it can be difficult to get a complete view of your members. The data is in too many different places to understand how individuals interact with your organization through your email communications, text messages, events, online community, and more.

By moving to an all-in-one system like YourMembership AMS, you can collect and manage your member data in one location, giving you a full picture of how your members, prospective members, sponsors, and others engage with your association.

Accuracy

It can be nearly impossible to keep your association’s data clean when it’s scattered across your organization. Consolidating your data in one system, like YourMembership AMS, makes it much easier to keep your data updated, deduplicated, and generally more accurate.

With more accurate data, you can be more confident that when you send personalized communications, those communications include relevant information for everyone. Plus, more accurate data means more accurate dashboards, reports, and data analytics, which are critically important to making data-driven decisions.

Efficiency

Nothing stops efficiency in its tracks faster than needing to jump around multiple systems just to find data, run a report, or complete a process. It’s also inefficient to have to administer multiple systems and spreadsheets.

Putting your member data in one system reduces the need to administer multiple systems. It also allows your staff to manage all membership data (and related activities) in one convenient place, making it easier to find data and manage every aspect of your organization – because the data is right there at your staff’s fingertips.

Security

What’s not secure? Housing your member data in multiple locations and sending it back and forth via spreadsheets and emails.

Moving your data into an all-in-one AMS like YourMembership AMS keeps all your member data in one, secure place.

Cost savings

When you choose to house your data in one system, it reduces the need to pay for multiple systems – effectively lowering your overall technology costs. With this approach, there’s no need to pay for a system to manage memberships, another for events, another to set up an online community, and on and on.

Another benefit of housing your data in one place is that you have greater insight into trends that can save you money. For example, you can track metrics that give you insights into member engagement levels, helping you identify when you need to take action to get members more involved so that you don’t lose them when it comes time to renew.

9 ways YourMembership’s all-in-one AMS helps your small association get more done

Learn more about the benefits of centralized data

Centralizing your association’s data is a strategic move that empowers your team to work smarter, not harder. As your organization grows, having all your data in one secure, accessible location helps ensure your operations scale smoothly, while delivering a better member experience.

"Accurate financial accounting and reporting is an essential piece of association management. But it’s often a common pain point for many associations. There are invoices, payment processing, reporting, batches, and more. Accounting and finance can be a headache, but it doesn’t have to be. Financial operations are an essential piece of your association management software (AMS) and your AMS should take the headache out of managing your association’s finances.

How can association management software optimize your association’s financial operations? Here are a few ways that your AMS can make accounting and payment processing a breeze."

While Facebook and LinkedIn could be used for building your brand, promoting your events, posting your job openings and attracting new members, are they any good for your online social community? You may say, “sure, of course.” But, you may want to stop and really think about what you’re giving up.

You’re giving up four of the most valuable things that you actually need to run a successful association, and doing so without a fight. You’re relinquishing the keys to your kingdom when it comes to:

• Your members’ attention.
• Your non-dues revenue opportunities.
• Your members’ data and analytics.
• And, most importantly, your members’ futures.

You’re giving up your members’ attention.

There are these things—these little bits of time—called micro-moments. These are the moments when your members check their mobile devices in the line at the grocery store, between meetings or waiting in the pick-up line at their children’s school. You need to own these moments.

Unfortunately, when you place so much content and group collaboration on a public social media site, that’s where your members’ attention goes. Yes, they may comment on one of your group’s messages; but “oh, look a squirrel!” Suddenly, instead of communicating with other like-minded association professionals, their ex-boyfriend comes up in the “People You May Know” section. Their attention isn’t focused on your organization’s relevant information; it’s actually light years away.

Your organization needs to better understand what a micro-moment is and how you can claim your members’ attention once again.

You’re giving up your non-dues revenue opportunities.

Associations have various ways to drive revenue with member dues and events, as well as various non-dues revenue programs. A significant money maker for a lot of organizations is the placement of online recruitment advertising. You have everything that makes a company excited, a great web presence and members! These professionals and individuals are your real money makers, because businesses, vendors and sponsors all want to get in front of your current and potential members to advertise their goods and services.

But, again, if you take your members to a public social media site, guess who will get your ad clicks? You got it, not you! You’re serving up ad dollars on a platter to platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. And, now that LinkedIn is filtering your content and choosing where it’s displayed versus you controlling your own content and even job postings, this limits the evolution of your business model. Instead of LinkedIn or Facebook, you need adaptable tools that you own and that are flexible, progressing as your association does.

It’s time to take back your ad dollars and not give away another way to monetize your membership.

You’re giving up your members’ data + analytics.

Don’t be fooled by their for-profit disguises. Facebook and LinkedIn have something that associations have, and they want it: Your member’s data and analytics!

What your members do, post, take action on, are interested in, who they are connected with, it’s all analyzed by these two big brothers to further their own agenda. If you learn more about your members and personalize their experience, you will continue to grow and prosper better serving your industry with data to back it up.

You’re giving up your members’ futures.

Is it possible you hold your members’ futures in your hand like a tiny bird? Yes, you do! Associations have specific roles within a professional’s life, and two of these are vital to the future of your members. I’m talking about their careers and continuing professional educations.

For a long time, associations have owned this space. And LinkedIn specifically wants a piece of this lucrative pie. Just last year, LinkedIn purchased an online learning management company called Lynda. You ask: Why would they do this? Because there’s a lot of money in continuing education, estimated to be a $5-billion business. Not only is LinkedIn interested in the learning game, but they also want your job board business, which is estimated to be a $9-billion business.

That’s a lot of zeros that LinkedIn is trying to get from associations. Don’t make it easy for them to take your membership.

Your solution is a private social media platform.

It’s time to fight back. Take back your membership from these for-profit giants and keep your members where they need to be—on your association’s website.

You need to establish a private online social community within your own site to keep your members close and their attention on you. You also need to own your own job board so hiring companies have access to the most valuable potential employees—the passive job seeker. And, you need an online continuing education center that’s available 24/7 and accommodates the active professional.

Essentially, so you can become the go-to source and grow your association, you need only one community where your members can network and collaborate, and where you can monitor your members’ interactions and record the data behind it.

Associations advocate for their industry. They provide members with the information, education, career development, and networking opportunities they need to thrive in their chosen field. And they connect employers in the industry with highly qualified talent.   

Here at YourMembership  and our parent company, Community Brands, we appreciate the value of associations, too. We see how critical associations are to the success of the industries they serve. Personally, I’ve worked with association solutions teams at Community Brands for 14 years, and I’ve seen firsthand the powerful work our association clients do for their individual industries.  

Read More here!

As a previous association membership manager, one of my biggest challenges was dealing with member retention. As you can imagine, it was always a hard pill to swallow when we lost a member. Here’s how to best overcome that lump in your throat when it happens to you.

It was first thing Monday morning. From the subject line, I knew it was going to be a tough day. So I turned up Adele in my headphones and read the rest of the email.

We lost another member.

Breaking up is hard to do, and it came out of nowhere. Why did they decide to leave? They didn’t even give us a chance to prove to them how important they are to us. Do they appreciate we provide them with a job board just for their industry? Why didn’t they attend our last event? It was our best event yet!

I instantly ran through all the stages of grief.

So now I’ve moved on to the steps of improvement.

Step 1: Admit what went wrong

Bravely, I do one of the most difficult things done after a break up. I call our ex-member and ask why. Why did you leave us? What could we do better? Critical feedback is the breakfast of champions.

During the call, I swallow my pride and disappointment, and I listen to the response that will likely prove out my fears. We didn’t provide the value that our members seek. We don’t engage them the way they need to be engaged.

Step 2: Figure out how to fix it

I know we can do better. I know we can change the way we engage our members. Based on the feedback I got, I learned that personalization and interaction are key to improve renewal rates.

If we reach our members with relevant content—while they stand in line at Starbucks or the grocery store, we can delight them during those micro-moments. If we connect them to their fellow professionals—on their time, we’re unstoppable.

We need technology to deliver data that leads us to make smarter engagement decisions. We need our information in front of our members, no matter when, where or how they access it.

Step 3: Always remember with loss, comes gain

Failure is always the best way to learn. I just retrace my steps until I realize where we went wrong.

Strong member data and analytics allow me to quickly view the last time members engaged with us or we engaged them. Through the member data, I was able to determine that 90% of members who didn’t engage with our organization within the first two years of membership did not renew. It’s a continuous theme that members who don’t engage within the first 90 days of joining will most likely not renew.

Now that I understand this key information, I must take action on the solution. In the membership application, we ask members “Why are you joining?” Based on their response, we segment our welcome series emails to deliver tailored content that drives them to our website to begin engaging with their colleagues. We also evaluated a social community technology like SocialLink to help deliver instant value to members.

Have no fear, my wounds will heal. And my organization will be better for it!