By nature, association professionals wear many hats, making it important to lean on tools that provide efficiency and a high-quality member experience. Marketing automation for associations unlocks the potential to streamline, enhance, and zero in on member engagement and retention. This can enable your association to reap rewarding outcomes in these areas with an efficient platform set up correctly.
Let’s dive into this world of automation and find out how it can be done!
The Importance of Marketing Automation for Associations
Many associations are taking advantage of the benefits provided by marketing automation solutions for associations. These tools have achieved streamlined communication, improved member engagement, and better utilization of resources for their promotional efforts. By leveraging automated software packages tailored to meet this need, associations can easily reach out to members and streamline marketing activities more efficiently and quickly than ever.
However, many associations still rely on a batch and blast marketing method. While this may have some efficacy, there are many issues with relying solely on this method. Aside from using significant amounts of time and labor, things associations often run short on, and the ability to personalize the member journey is significantly complicated and limited by the batch and blast approach. These issues are remedied by implementing the appropriate marketing automation solutions.
According to a 2023 benchmark report by Startup Bonsai, 43% of marketers found improving customer experience to be the greatest benefit, while 38% found optimizing staff time to be key. Organizations using marketing automation solutions are finding significant benefits where associations need help.
No doubt incorporating technologies like an all-encompassing service provider, like Salesforce Pardot, into association operations will bring immense advantages. One example is enhancing membership engagement via smooth communications while optimizing key digital tactics related to advertising objectives. The right tools will enable associations to maximize their time and labor to meet objectives best.
Selecting the Right Marketing Automation Software For Associations
It’s crucial to pick the proper marketing automation platform for your association’s success. Key elements such as synchronization with current software, the convenience of use, and scalability to meet an organization’s needs must be considered when making this decision. With a wide selection of tools, like Salesforce Pardot, HubSpot Marketing Hub, SharpSpring, or Mailchimp available, many solutions can match up well with what associations need to reach their goals.
For maximum effectiveness in using these platforms, three primary factors should be considered: compatibility with Association Management Software (AMS), user-friendliness, and training opportunities. Adaptability and flexibility are also key components to consider when implementing, as associations’ tech stacks may vary from other business entities.
By scrutinizing these points while picking out a system, you will ensure a successful setup and take advantage of all possible advantages offered by marketing automation technology for your association’s development.
Integration with Association Management Software
Marketing automation and your AMS are powerful tools that help associations operate more effectively. AMS features like membership management, event planning, and communication enable marketing teams to automate processes like member renewals, event registrations, or other communications campaigns more efficiently.
The optimal way of using these tools is by connecting the two systems together so that data can be exchanged quickly. To ensure successful integration between the AMS platform and a marketing automation system, you should first identify what type of information needs transferring. Next, you’ll set up secure connections to map those specific data points from one environment into another before testing its efficiency.
Once everything has been integrated, it’s important that staff monitor them regularly for both platforms to remain optimally running at all times.
You’ll likely need to select an implementation partner to help integrate your AMS with your marketing automation systems. An organization like Aplusify can be a crucial cog in this step to help you make your integration seamless and account for everything that makes your organization unique.
Ease of Use and Training
For successful adoption and usage of marketing automation tools, ease of use and training are necessary. An understandable interface and simple navigation can facilitate users quickly familiarizing themselves with the platform’s features to ensure they reach their goals efficiently.
Equipping your team with pertinent information through webinars, tutorials, or any other support connected to automating technologies helps ensure your association fully utilizes the tool.
Continuous instruction on new aspects and how-to’s keeps everyone up-to-date to harness the maximum potential of these automated solutions. This is a key factor in guaranteeing a seamless transition into using the system successfully across all teams at an association level.
Scalability and Flexibility
When choosing a marketing automation platform, it is important to consider scalability and flexibility. Scalability provides the capacity to support increased data and tasks as your organization grows without compromising performance or user experience.
On the other hand, flexibility enables you to customize existing workflows to fit specific objectives for different marketing tactics.
Look for tools with deployment options that offer customization. As your business needs change, you’ll need a flexible tool to adapt to those changes.
Considering both scalability and flexibility when selecting a marketing automation platform ensures maximum potential benefits from its implementation within your organization moving forward.
3 Essential Marketing Automation Features for Associations
Some key elements must be in place to fully leverage the benefits of marketing automation for your association. These include email and segmentation strategies, lead generation activities focusing on nurturing potential members, and accurate analytics reporting.
With these laid out, your platform’s features features provide your organization with the ability to communicate more personally with your community while giving insights into data-driven decision-making processes that improve your member journey.
By diving deeper into these essential components, we can identify how they are used by associations to foster relationships between the associations, it’s prospects, and all of the other stakeholders marketing efforts touch! Let’s take a closer look at each aspect of how appropriate marketing automation for associations can foster a better experience.
1. Email Marketing and Segmentation
By leveraging marketing automation, associations can create highly personalized and targeted communication to members through email campaigns, direct mail, and SMS marketing. Ultimately, this can help your organization meet its goals to recruit, engage, and retain members.
Need proof? According to Oracle, over 3/4 of organizations using marketing automation have seen a rise in conversions since implementing it.
With segmentation based on the preferences of individual consumers, the association is more likely to generate a higher engagement rate from its current or potential member base by providing them with relevant content that resonates best with each one.
Email remains an efficient tool for starting and strengthening relationships between your organization and its constituents, reinforcing their connection and commitment towards it over time!
2. Lead Generation and Nurturing
Marketing automation can support associations in generating and sustaining interest through personalized communication. It streamlines marketing activities, tracks leads’ behavior, and offers improved opportunities for lead scoring based on digital data collected about them.
Associations have plenty of ways to use marketing automation to attract new members and engage existing ones, from boosting the effectiveness of their lead-generation initiatives to personalizing communications and fostering meaningful engagement with prospects.
3. Analytics and Reporting
Marketing automation is a key tool for associations to use for analytics and reporting. These insights provide valuable data that allows associations to make educated decisions.
Through tracking website visits, lead generation activity, email open rates, conversion rate statistics, and customer behavior, it becomes easier to enhance marketing strategies with the assistance of experienced teams.
For this reason, goal setting is essential when utilizing these tools to manipulate circumstances for maximum effect. By assessing current progress through reporting, an association can gain more control over outcomes, leading to better-personalized member experiences on behalf of the company.
Marketing Automation Best Practices for Associations
Successfully leveraging marketing automation to benefit your association requires implementing certain practices. These include setting definitive targets, crafting personalized member engagements, and optimizing campaigns through testing. Adhering to these best practices will help make the most of a given platform’s capabilities for associations to realize their desired results from using marketing automation technology.
To show how employing such tactics can lead to success with this software, we’ll investigate each practice individually in greater depth.
1. Establish Clear Goals and Objectives
Having clear objectives and goals is critical for guiding your marketing automation campaigns and measuring performance. Examples of targets are increasing membership numbers, developing engagement levels, enhancing donations, and boosting event attendance.
When setting up those objectives, it is important to contemplate what resources can be accessed alongside the timeline for reaching them with expected results included in the equation. Metrics like web page visits and email open rates. Click-throughs and conversion rates should be tracked frequently to measure success or failure so that adjustments can occur when necessary for the aims to remain achievable along every step an association takes using their automated marketing operations methods wisely.
Outlining each goal ahead of time and then implementing a plan of action focused on getting desired outcomes will ensure the proper use of effective techniques like marketing automation skills within any given organization.
2. Create Personalized Member Experiences
To create strong relationships and drive engagement, associations can benefit from leveraging customer data and automation tools to deliver individualized experiences to their members.
A recent article by ASAE intimated the importance of personalization across a multi-channel strategy. In one example, ASAE noted open rates up to 7 times higher than traditional emails while using personalization techniques.
By focusing on personalized member interactions, your association will achieve more desired results, and you’ll be able to create member experiences that delight your contituents.
3. Test, Analyze, and Optimize
Testing, analyzing, and optimizing marketing automation campaigns is essential for reaching peak performance. Evaluating diverse iterations helps recognize which version performs the best while tracking results to confirm that these campaigns work as anticipated.
By reviewing test outcomes carefully, you can find possibilities to develop and adapt content, style, or targeting – including adjustment on landing pages – ensuring optimal levels from a marketing standpoint for an organization’s activities.
Sustained evaluation, analysis, and optimization assure ongoing advancement plus maximum impact on the association’s use of automation processes within its marketing efforts.
8 Practical Examples of Marketing Automation Success in Associations
Marketing automation offers associations a significant opportunity to increase member engagement, retention, and growth. Let’s look at how associations utilize marketing automation solutions to deliver a great member experience, from prospecting to lifetime engagement.
1. Member Onboarding
The member onboarding process is crucial to integrate new members seamlessly. Marketing automation can significantly enhance this phase by triggering personalized communication sequences upon sign-up. Tailored email marketing based on members’ preferences, such as interests in networking events, ensure members receive relevant information, introducing them swiftly to the association’s offerings.
Additionally, an automated approach does more than just welcome—it educates. New members are oriented about the association’s history, mission, and key events through scheduled communications. Testimonials or resources can be highlighted, fostering immediate engagement and familiarizing members with the organization’s ethos.
Integrated feedback mechanisms like surveys also play a pivotal role, allowing associations to refine the onboarding experience based on real-time member feedback continuously. More on feedback later on.
While the benefits of marketing automation are crucial for the member onboarding experience, it serves as a way to add value to members throughout their entire membership experience. Onboarding is just the start.
2. Event Promotion
Professional associations often hinge on events for revenue, member engagement, and networking. In this way, marketing automation emerges as an invaluable tool, streamlining and enhancing event promotions.
Associations can deliver tailored promotional content by segmenting the audience based on various criteria, ensuring relevance and resonance. Past interest in a webinar topic can be used to target members for a similar upcoming event, with automated reminders and countdowns maintaining engagement and anticipation.
Post-event automation proves crucial in feedback collection, with scheduled surveys gauging attendee experiences and informing future event refinements.
Moreover, integrating automation with social media platforms allows for scheduled event promotions, broadening reach and generating excitement.
Associations can ensure optimal attendance and member satisfaction by marrying technology with strategic event promotion.
3. Membership Renewal Reminders
Membership renewals form the backbone of associations, ensuring a steady revenue stream and consistent member engagement. In optimizing this crucial process, marketing automation emerges as a pivotal tool.
Associations can craft personalized renewal reminders by segmenting the member base on parameters like engagement levels and renewal dates. An active member might be approached differently than a less involved one, instilling a sense of recognition and value.
The power of timeliness, facilitated by automation, ensures members receive a series of reminders, transitioning from gentle prompts to urgent nudges as the renewal deadline nears.
Associations can seamlessly integrate incentives or discounts for early renewals to sweeten the deal. Additionally, post-renewal feedback surveys can be automated, offering insights into members’ renewal experiences and potential areas for improvement.
With the analytics and reporting capabilities inherent in automation tools, associations streamline the renewal process and gain valuable data to refine future campaigns.
4. Content Distribution
Content remains a cornerstone for associations, fostering member engagement and education and reinforcing the association’s value. For content distribution, marketing automation is a key enabler for personalized and efficient content delivery.
Associations can tailor the content they distribute by segmenting members based on various parameters, from interests to professional roles, ensuring resonance and relevance. An analytics-focused member might be drawn to data-driven reports, while a policy enthusiast gravitates toward legislative updates.
Automating content scheduling ensures consistent member touchpoints without content saturation, balancing engagement and overload. Moreover, with the analytics offered by automation tools, associations can gauge content performance, refining strategies based on tangible metrics.
By leveraging multi-channel distribution capabilities, content reaches members across diverse platforms, from emails to social media, catering to varied member preferences and enhancing accessibility. Associations transform content distribution through marketing automation into a strategic, responsive, and member-centric endeavor.
5. Re-Engagement
An active and engaged member base is vital for associations. However, even the most involved members can drift to the sidelines over time. Marketing automation emerges as a powerful tool for associations to identify and re-engage these dormant members.
Associations can pinpoint members who may be slipping away by tracking various engagement metrics, from event participation to content interactions.
With this data in hand, targeted re-engagement strategies can be automated. A member who once reveled in webinars might be nudged with personalized invites to upcoming sessions, perhaps sweetened with exclusive incentives.
For some, a reminder of past benefits or stories of peers who’ve gained from active participation can reignite their involvement. Automated feedback mechanisms allow associations to glean insights from the less engaged, understanding their drift and adapting to their needs.
Marketing automation revitalizes membership engagement by marrying data with strategic outreach, ensuring the association’s continued vibrancy and relevance.
6. Feedback and Surveys
Feedback and surveys are pivotal tools, shedding light on member needs, service efficacy, and potential enhancements. Enter marketing automation transforms feedback collection from a sporadic activity into a strategic, data-rich endeavor. Tailoring surveys through segmentation ensures members receive relevant questions, enhancing engagement and response accuracy.
For instance, post-conference attendees might be promptly surveyed about their experiences, capturing real-time feedback.
The consistency brought by automation means that associations can have regular insights into their performance, with periodic satisfaction checks scheduled seamlessly. Beyond mere collection, the true value lies in automated analytics, parsing survey data to unveil trends, challenges, or standout successes.
Associations transition from reactive adaptations to proactive, insight-driven evolution by integrating automation into the feedback process.
7. Cross-sell/Upsell
Deepening member engagement and generating additional revenue are vital goals for professional associations, and cross-selling and upselling stand central to these objectives.
Marketing automation elevates these strategies by enabling precise targeting and timely promotions. Through segmentation, associations can deliver tailored offers, ensuring relevancy and appeal. A member engrossed in webinars might receive suggestions for related courses, while another nearing their membership’s end might be nudged towards a premium tier, accentuating its added benefits.
Timely, automated promotions ensure that members are introduced to complementary services or higher tiers when they’re most receptive. Feedback loops, automated post-purchase, further refine this process, ensuring that offers align with member needs and aspirations.
In utilizing marketing automation for cross-selling and upselling, associations boost their revenue and enhance member satisfaction and loyalty.
8. Lead Scoring, Member Segmentation, and Data Hygiene
Marketing automation is a multifaceted tool that enhances member engagement, acquisition, and communication. Lead scoring enables associations to gauge the engagement and potential of prospects, attributing values to actions such as event attendance or content interactions.
This provides a clear targeted outreach roadmap, ensuring efforts are channeled toward the most promising leads. In tandem with lead scoring, member segmentation can categorize the membership base, ensuring the delivery of tailored content and offers.
Whether it’s a member’s professional interest or engagement history, segmented outreach bolsters satisfaction by resonating with specific needs.
Amidst these strategies, data hygiene stands paramount. To maintain effective communication, marketing automation assists in regular database checks, prompting updates, and highlighting inconsistencies. This ensures that member profiles are accurate, communications remain error-free, and associations operate with a clean, precise dataset.
Together, these automated processes sculpt a streamlined, responsive, and data-driven approach to member engagement and acquisition.
Summary
As your association takes on the marketing automation journey, certain factors must be considered. Setting objectives and forming clear goals should be a top priority, while providing personalized experiences for members will help enhance engagement and maximize effectiveness with automated campaigns.
To ensure that associations can capitalize on this resource, choosing the right platform is key, along with adhering to best practices when utilizing various features available in these systems.
In summation, implementing marketing automation offers organizations effective solutions that optimize communication between them and their members and help cultivate better relationships through increased retention rates and promoting growth within those connections overall.
Through appropriate usage of these tools, both from an analytical perspective coupled with testing results gained from real-time data analysis over time, success can truly be achieved without much effort.
Interested in getting started? Contact Aplusify today, and we can walk you through the process, from selecting the right platform to integration and implementation.
