5 Tips to Enhance New Member Engagement
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Promoting a strong, dynamic member organization means continually striving to increase your member base. This entails engaging new members so the organization remains well-placed to serve future generations. However, engaging newer members and getting them fully involved within your organization requires an entirely different strategy than engaging with established members.
How to Maximize Member Engagement
New members have joined your organization, but what now?
The first step should be to learn more about the new members and their goals. What motivated them to join your organization? What do they hope to gain by being members, and what unique skills or expertise can they offer that no one else within the organization can?
Once you have gathered more specific information, you are better prepared to tailor your organization’s welcome to maximize new member engagement. The following tips for member engagement will help you navigate the rocky territory of engaging new members and ensuring the longevity of your organization.
1. Meet Them Where They Are
Whether you’re recruiting new members or need to communicate in person with existing members, there are several reasons why in-person events can result in a high number of no-shows. Reasons such as busy schedules, differing time prioritizations, perceived inconvenience, or a lack of incentive can derail even the best-laid event plans.
New members may lack the confidence to act boldly in the initial stages, so it’s up to you. Meet with them at community gathering points and offer clear and compelling reasons why their presence is important. If possible, reward them for attending to show them you value their time. This mindset is helpful when engaging with members throughout the organization.
2. Communicate With Them in Their Preferred Space
Some members may indicate they prefer traditional mail or phone communications, while younger members often choose technology-based communication platforms such as text, social media, and mobile-friendly web communications. Utilizing these platforms can help you receive broader exposure and feedback, which is useful when marketing to an expanding member base.
Social media platforms provide a powerful recruiting and welcoming platform that can be harnessed to provide new members with a window into the organization and foster feelings of enthusiasm and pride. Consider including leader profiles and interesting clips or galleries of past exciting projects and organization achievements.
3. Create Opportunities for Participation
Younger generations can be quite active in their communities, but they expect their actions to make a difference. Add value by offering meaningful opportunities for them to volunteer on board committees or participate in your organization’s community outreach activities. This is an excellent strategy to encourage younger members to become more active and engaged throughout the organization.
4. Incentivize Engagement
The democratic process is important, but an overwhelming sense of duty is often not enough of an incentive for participation. When encouraging members to vote in elections or take other action on behalf of the organization, it helps to offer rewards, especially to younger members.
Free offers, membership discounts, and tempting competitions with donations to charity as prizes are great ways to catch members’ attention and motivate them to take action. Remember to communicate the value of your organization throughout all your engagement initiatives. After all, your mission is the reason members joined in the first place, so it’s important to keep that at the top of their minds.
5. Consult With the Professionals
Running an organization requires leaders to wear many hats. Collecting accurate survey information from large groups is challenging, but it’s essential for leaders who want to remain responsive to their members’ needs. Survey & Ballot Systems (SBS) supports organizations with systems to quickly and accurately gather information and feedback to enhance member satisfaction.
Ready to Start Recruiting and Engaging New Members?
Whether you need help recruiting new members or require assistance making inroads with the members you already have, SBS can help. We have been supporting member-based organizations since 1990, and our full-service customer support team offers turnkey survey and voting services. Contact us today!
Since joining SBS in 2011, Tony has led company communications, branding, and product launches, maintaining SBS as the go-to for governance solutions. He regularly hosts educational webinars and speaks at national trade association events across the United States. Tony’s expertise has earned him media recognition, with features in outlets like Rural Electric Magazine, The Association Adviser podcast, Associations Now, and NBC’s King 5 Mornings in Seattle.