Being Member-Centric: What Does It Mean in 2024?

Imagine your generic working routine. As always, you are bombarded with emails, phone calls, and other notifications from a dozen members. As soon as the clock strikes 6 pm, you sigh with relief, close every tab on your laptop, and call it a night. All those unanswered chats remain waiting till the sun comes up. Is this the right member-centric approach? I doubt so.

What IS then? This is what we are going to talk about today. In this blog article, I explain a member-centric definition, what hides behind it, and what steps an organization should follow not to stunt its growth.

What Does Member-Centric Truly Mean?

Member-centric means that an association prioritizes its members’ wishes and experiences. It provides them with everything they need and can anticipate their demands. Thus, everything from a flexible pricing policy to donations, a friendly community, and personalized communication at every touch point counts.

Off the top of my head, Amazon Prime or Netflix are perfect examples of solid membership structures. If you are a member of the Amazon Prime program, you get free shipping, discounts, subscription auto-renewals, and early-bird access to exclusive content. With Netflix, it’s all about personalization. Once you sign up and specify your preferences, you can enjoy the shows that align with your attitude and liking.

In the Salesforce landscape, membership organizations work the same. However, you should be well aware of specific tactics. So, keep reading.

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Membership engagement is what organizations in Salesforce put a premium on. How to boost it? We spill the beans in this article.

5 Challenges to Becoming Member-Centric

I know it sounds hard. You can think of them not as challenges but as steps to follow while taking a member-centric approach. Here are five common challenges to battle and shape a meaningful member experience.

1. Grow a Helpful Online Community

What’s the first thing that jumps to mind when you think of a membership organization? I bet it’s a community. Not for a reason! A powerful sense of community can engage members, encourage them to share expertise and knowledge, and even make them renew their memberships or recommend your association to their families.

You can use Salesforce for membership management, though it may require customization and third-party solutions for greater results. Advanced Communities and its AC MemberSmart app is the safest bet.

With AC MemberSmart, you can deal with anything community members (and you as a business!) might need:

• Advanced member directory where member data is stored in one place and can be used efficiently. For instance, members can run through the directory to seek a subject-matter expert and guidance. Take a look at a member library powered by AC MemberSmart:

• A job board where your volunteers, donors, and other members can post openings, fill in their applications, and connect peer-to-peer for other opportunities. As AC MemberSmart job boards come with a filter logic, you can set up such criteria as type, industry, location, and others.

• Simplified payment and donation management, where you can collect a membership fee right through a member portal, track your revenue, and see fundraising sources.
• Robust event management with the ability to create multiple events to meet varied members’ needs, intuitive Event Creation Wizard to ease the lives of both members and your team.
• Auto-renewal option to make both members’ and your team’s lives much easier. By the way, members management software powered by Advanced Communities offers such a functionality.

2. Develop a Member-Based Culture

And perpetuate it! As soon as you start reasoning out a membership system, you should think about things you would like to be known and appreciated for.

Is it something connected to membership plans? Should it be strongly about your membership team, such as customer success or project managers? Or is it solely about an exceptional customer service you deliver to members?

While these elements matter, you should make sure customer support and other front-line employees translate your customer-centric culture into their day-to-day communication.

Building a Salesforce association culture might seem obvious. “You just bear your members in mind all the time, that’s it!”. However, this is a false statement. You should factor in everything from how you create a membership cycle, their onboarding to deboarding and follow-up messages. Here is a cheat sheet many member-based organizations follow:

• Make it easy for new members to join your association: once they land on your website, put a clear CTA in front of them, with straightforward copy. This is the first thing they will notice and the most important one. Plus, your membership structure should consist of a clutter-free form. As an example, here is how a membership flow is built with the AC MemberSmart solution – a Salesforce native app:

• Put a premium on a member-centric onboarding: do not forget to thank newcomers for coming on board. Send them a thank you letter, provide them with a quick list of expectations they get with your association, and guide them through membership benefits. This is the perfect chance to invite members to your online community or any other themed forum.
• Encourage members to submit their honest ideas: members’ feedback can tell you a lot. Your audience is the source for improvement so make it count. Constantly solicit and act on the feedback they provide you with – this will help you shape a culture of continuous feedback. If you have trouble collecting and managing member feedback, consider AC Ideas Ultimate as a great tool for that. Our LEX-native solution helps you gather, manage, and prioritize ideas flooding your organization.

3. Segment Members Properly

As the saying goes, you can’t make everyone happy. With proper customer segmentation, you sure can! To provide meaningful member experience and satisfaction, you should clearly understand which message you communicate to which group of users. Your audience may have completely opposite interests, hobbies, occupations, and behavior. So how could you shape a personalized member journey for each of them?

Member segments are the answer. They help you see if you produce relevant content and communication for them. With different member segments, you can sort customer data according to versatile factors:

• How many new members are there? Are they long-term?
• What are their demographics?
• When did they join your association?
• What products or services do they prefer in your organization?
• What types of content do they enjoy the most (newsletters, blog posts, webinars, etc.)?
• Are there any milestones you could celebrate?
• When is their subscription due?

To give you a head start to fetch data and segment members, here are four main member segment that could make this activity more targeted:

• New members – send them a welcome email to show them the ropes of your organization. Choose a personalized path to wow them.
• Prospective members – you can invite them to any event (online, offline, hybrid) your association is organizing. Thus, they can mingle with the crowd, dive deeper into your company’s specifics, and understand what they might be missing out on.
• Long-term members – member engagement shouldn’t be limited only to new customers in your association. Brand advocates want to feel valued, too! Recognize their contribution, add their testimonials to your homepage, enable members to have a say via surveys and polls. This is what I call a strong member perspective!
• Churned members – it’s hard but sooner or later, you’ll have people who decided to part ways with your business. It’s OK! The most important thing now is to win them back. Send them regular newsletter with updates, offer them to rejoin your membership program, and rethink communication with them.

5 Challenges Faced by Member Organizations And How AC MemberSmart Can Help

In addition to an effective membership engagement strategy, every membership organization requires a robust system to manage its members and deliver the desired experience. In this article, we will explore five common challenges faced by member organizations and introduce a solution that effectively addresses them all.

4. Build Your Membership Structure

Alright, so you segmented members but do they know about your membership structure and levels?

The rule of thumb is that trade associations, nonprofit organizations, and other businesses alike have the following membership levels:

• Free
• Paid
• Free with donations
• Paid with donations
• Group/bundle

Feel free to come up with your own structure! Because only you know what your association aims and what would be beneficial. However, remember some basic elements to add to those membership levels: specify membership benefits for each of them, communicate clear membership dues, and create separate plans for renewals.

5. Sacrifice Sales for the Sake of Your Members

As ugly as it may sound, you shouldn’t think of sales first. Once you got distracted, are snowed under with meetings, and review a quarter sales plan yet again, your member’s success is melting away. You may even find it hard to prioritise people over the constant urge to conquer every possible opportunity.

What you should do instead?

As a CEO, an association executive, or a manager, you need to think about a loyal customer base. Members expect the best possible experience from you, not your profit margins. Just try to shift focus from sales pitches and meetings to exceptional service or a new event program you’ve always wanted to present to your staff and association members. It’s these things people will talk about later on.

Bonus: Self-Test for Member Centricity

Now that we talked the talk, it’s time for a self-check. Grab a sheet of paper or tick off your fingers if you:

• Have member-centricity weaved into your association’s culture;
• Track and measure the success of your members throughout their journey in your organization;
• Know your members like the palm of your hand;
• Use a decent technology stack to meet your members’ needs to the fullest.

Final Thoughts

How many fingers have you ticked off? Hopefully, all of them! To recap, being member-centric in 2024 means you should REALLY know your audience. For that, segmentation is key. Try to shape your member personas and build effective member communications for a more member-centric approach.

If you would like to boost your organizational growth with some accelerators, reach out to Advanced Communities. We can not only help you put your members in the frontline but also improve user experience a hundredfold.

Q&A

1. What are member-centric goals?

Member-centric goals are focused on delivering the best experiences to members at every step of their journey. However, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. It hinges on who your audience is and business objectives. For instance, if you’re an organization that usually helps members troubleshoot issues with onboarding, payments, donations, etc, you might want to put emphasis on customer service.

2. What is a member-driven organization?

A member-driven organization puts its members’ needs first. An organization must clearly understand its member profile and adopt all the tools needed to measure member satisfaction and behavior. Besides, a truly member-centric association personalizes its communication, from new members onboarding to follow-ups and even taking care of churned members.

3. What is an example of a membership organization?

Great examples of a membership organization that considers themselves member-centric are Amazon Prime, Costco, American Heart Association, American Red Cross, and UNICEF. All of them have something in common, namely