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The MemberClicks Blog

The talent acquisition process all begins with writing an accurate job description. But the type of applicants you get depends heavily on how you craft that description.

You obviously want the best of the best, so to attract those folks, we recommend steering clear of these three common mistakes:

It’s no secret that younger generations (Millennials, Gen Z) spend a lot of time on social media. As those generations grow up, join your organization, and move into leadership roles in your industry, it’ll become even more important for your organization to have a strategy for using social media to engage them.

Part of that means trying new things! By monitoring a variety of accounts on each social platform, you can easily pick out new trends that are resonating with young professionals and explore how they fit into your organization’s current strategy.

To help get you started, we’ve outlined three different types of social media content that are great for engagement:

You already know the importance of collecting member feedback, but actually doing so is MUCH easier said than done. You can create and distribute surveys all day long, but if your members don’t complete them, well...you’re a bit stuck.

Enter micro-surveys. Micro-surveys are incredibly short surveys (think one to three questions) designed to capture quick feedback. And what’s great about them is not only are they easy for your members to fill out, but they’re also easy for you create.

Below are four outlets for experimenting with micro-surveys:

Of course you want to provide an exceptional experience for ALL of your conference attendees, but ensuring that happens for your first-time attendees is particularly important. Their decision to attend future events (and possibly even renew their membership) depends heavily on that first experience, so going the extra mile for those folks, in particular, is certainly worth it.

What does “going the extra mile” for your first-time attendees look like? Here are a few tactics worth trying:

Joining a new organization is intimidating for a lot of people - especially if they don’t know any current members. Flying solo can make it extremely difficult to find the motivation to go to events, attend meetings, and, in general, engage.

And even if they do know some folks, well, you still want to start their membership experience off on the right foot! That’s why it’s SO important that your association is very intentional with making new members feel welcome and see the benefits of joining right away. Doing so will go a long way toward increasing that retention rate!

Here are a few ideas for making your newest members feel a part of the group from the beginning:

You’ve heard the saying, “What you say is not as important as how you say it.” Well, what you say is certainly important, but when it comes to marketing - and particularly, marketing to young professionals - how you say things is key.  

To successfully communicate with both prospective young professional members and your existing young professional members, we highly recommend being mindful of the following:

Staff meetings are certainly important, but for those that occur on a regular basis, they can sometimes get, well...dull. And dull meetings typically mean unengaged (and/or uninspired) participants.

So how can you make your staff meetings a little more fun? Is that even possible? Yes! Check out these tactics to spark some energy into not only your meeting, but those attending as well:

Whitepapers, reports, webinars, videos, blogs: If your association is like most, you probably produce a lot of valuable industry content for your members. And, again, if your association is like most, you may feel overwhelmed by the idea of continually creating content to keep your members engaged. (Not to mention, keeping your prospective members interested.)

Well, what if I told you there was an easier way?

Repurposing your content - rather than always creating new resources from scratch - will make your content strategy more...well, strategic. Think about it:

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “AMC” before, short for association management company. But what is an AMC? Well, according to the AMC Institute, an AMC is “a for-profit business that manages associations to help them grow and prosper.”

Sounds great, you might be thinking. But how do I know if I really need an AMC? Couldn’t we all use help with management to a certain extent?

Yes, BUT...if any of the following sound a little too familiar, it may be time to seriously consider seeking the help of an AMC:

Member resources directly equate to member value. The more resources you can provide, the more valuable a membership with your association or chamber of commerce will be.

That said, what if we told you there was a way to offer your members MORE resources at no extra cost to you?

Well good news...there IS! Read on for a few specific ideas to consider: