Understanding Member Engagement

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PAPER Understanding

Member Engagement

Executive Summary

Member engagement directly impacts an association’s ability to survive and flourish. Associations that report higher rates of engaged members also report higher renewal rates. The industry lacks a standard definition or measurement method for member engagement, putting the burden on individual associations to develop their own internal definitions and scoring methods. Thankfully, this can be easier than first thought might indicate and is a worthwhile undertaking.

Every association can and should define member engagement internally and measure against that definition to understand its engagement status. Accurate measurement eliminates the guessing and allows associations to enact programs that bring member engagement results and scrap programs that siphon valuable resources without delivering value. By understanding where its members stand, an association can build up its levels of engaged members and move a larger percentage of them up the scale from “check-book” or “engaged” to “loyal advocate” and ultimately to “brand ambassador”.

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Defining, Measuring and Maximizing Member ActivityMember engagement is a big topic of discussion among association executives. When searching the phrase “member engagement” Google returns roughly 219,000,000 results. There are LinkedIn Groups, YouTube videos and entire blogs dedicated to the topic. With all this discussion, it should be clear what exactly member engagement means. But it’s not. The definition of member engagement is nebulous and the ways associations measure it—if they do at all—are numerous.

What is clear, however, is that member engagement directly impacts an association’s membership renewal rates—studies show that involved members are much more likely to renew than passive or “check-writing” members. It builds loyal members and brand ambassadors—those that renew automatically, see the value of membership, are involved in the association and carry the message to their colleagues on behalf of the association. Ultimately, member engagement impacts the association’s ability to work toward its mission.

Therefore, it’s safe to assume that associations should put priority on engaging their members in order to build or maintain high renewal rates. According to the MGI 2012 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report, associations that report an increase in overall membership growth are statistically more likely to report having higher levels of engagement. It goes on to note that associations who have higher proportions of members engaging in the following three activities are significantly more likely to report having a renewal rate of 80% or higher than those reporting a renewal rate of less than 80%:

• Purchasing or maintaining insurance through the organization

• Attending annual conference/trade show

• Upgrading membership1

How does the association know if its efforts are working? The key is to create a clear picture of member engagement among the association’s staff by establishing an internal definition that is measurable. This definition of member engagement will help the association engage its members on regular basis with programs they want and cultivate loyal members.

Attend at least one professional development course or meeting

23%

23%

22%

17%

17%

Attend the annual conference/trade show

Acquire or maintain a certi�cation with the association

Attend at least one webinar

Purchase a non-dues product

Top 5 Member Engaging Activities

SOURCE: MGI 2012 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report


The Member Engagement SpectrumEach association has an engagement scale on which its members sit—from potential member to brand ambassador. Once engagement has been defined and measurement plan implemented, the association can gauge the percentages of members it has in each area and work to move them toward the ultimate level of engagement, brand ambassador.

The Importance of Creating Brand Ambassadors

The highest two tiers of member engagement are key to an association’s long term health. At these levels, the most highly engaged members see the value the association delivers and share it with others. They become steadfast, loyal consumers of the association brand and increasing their numbers is important. The more engaged members are in an association, the more likely they are to attend the meetings and events, buy products, volunteer and renew their membership automatically. These characteristics simultaneously earn the association revenue and save the association operational expenses allowing it to spend on its true mission.

In its 2012 benchmarking report, MGI found that “associations with renewal rates of 80% or higher are significantly more likely to report that greater than 50% of their members have attended at least one professional development meeting and/or acquired or maintained a certification with their organization. This finding suggests that opportunities for professional development and the promise of an earned designation to possibly improve career options is a meaningful member offering to increase member engagement.”2

Types of Association Members

Potential Member

Check-book Member

Sporadic Member

Engaged Member

Loyal Advocate

Brand Ambassador

New to the industry, may lack resources or time, or not a “joiner”.

Needs to understand value of association membership.

Writes dues check, but doesn’t actively participate in association programs.

Renewal is not guaranteed.

Occasionally attends meetings or participates online.

Renewal is not guaranteed.

Gets involved in association programs on a regular basis.

Renewal is likely.

Gets involved in association programs, volunteers for committees, appreciates the value of membership.

Renewal is highly likely.

Champions the association’s mission.

Renewal is automatic.


Defining Member Engagement Across the Industry

While there is no industry-wide standard definition, industry veterans have put forth their definitions. C. David Gammel, CAE, executive director of the Entomological Society of America defines member engagement on his blog, High Context, this way: “Member engagement is the result of a member investing time and/or money with the association in exchange for value. The more of these precious resources they invest, the more engaged they are.”3

Anna Caraveli PhD., Managing Partner, Connection Strategist, Co-founder, The Demand Perspective describes another approach on her blog, “One way membership organizations define it is by numbers: the number of events attended and benefits utilized by a member; the amount of time volunteered and degree of interest in the association’s causes and initiatives.”4

Defining Member Engagement Internally

Expert definitions are a useful guide, but the reason there is not one accepted definition is that the concept of member engagement is specific to an individual association. Therefore, it falls to each association to develop its own internal definition.

The definition must be measurable so that the association knows if the activities and benefits it is offering are perceived as valuable to the members and thus having a positive impact on renewal rates and member loyalty.

Developing a definition starts with picturing the end result first. Based on what the association knows about its membership and its own mission and goals, it should paint a picture of the ideal member. Then establish criteria that describe how the association views successful member engagement. Criteria for the illustrating an engaged member could include identifying the following:

• What we want members to do – does the association value one or some of its benefits over the others?

• Where we want members to engage – does the association value in-person over online engagement or vice versa and why?

• When we want members to engage – how much activity over what period of time? Is it enough for a member to attend one conference per year, or does a member need interaction with the association more often to be considered engaged?

Based on the answers to this criteria an association can then define what member engagement means. For example, one association might determine that attending a webinar is a behavior it values more highly than reading its blog, whereas another association would rather see daily interaction on its social media.


Measuring Member Engagement

Once the definition of member engagement is clear, the challenge is to measure it. There is no standard formula within the association industry in which to measure engagement. Recently, however, MeetingsNet.com interviewed Aptify chairman and chief executive officer, Amith Nagarajin, about his formula for engagement scoring. He outlines it in five steps:

• Step 1: Identify Key Performance IndicatorsKey performance indicators (KPI) are activities that members engage in that are most aligned with the strategic objectives of the association such as the number of meetings and events attended over a given time period, total revenue generated from the member or years as a member. [It could also include how active members are on the association’s knowledge sharing tools like email lists, intranet topic rooms and even social media activities.] It’s critical to pick the three to five most important KPIs so the focus is not diluted. The KPIs should be selected by looking at the strategic objectives of the association and choosing the activities that most support those goals. They differ from association to association [and industry to industry].

• Step 2: Weight the KPIsThe KPIs are then weighted for importance and assigned a point total so that all add up to 100. If there are five KPIs and all are equal in importance, then each would be assigned 20 points. If they are not equal, then event attendance might be assigned 40 points, while advocacy is 20, years as a member is 15, revenue generated for the association is 15, and volunteering is 10.

• Step 3: Assign Points for ActivitiesNext, points are assigned for activities within each KPI. So, for event attendance, points would be assigned based on how many meetings a member attended within a given time period. If the member attended one association meeting in the past three years, he might earn 10 points within that 40 allocated to the KPI. If he attended two to three meetings in the last three years, he might receive 20 points. If he went to more than four and volunteered or sat on a panel, then he might get all 40 points.

• Step 4: Tally Up the ScoresAfter point totals for each of the KPIs are added together, the member will have a Composite Engagement Score that quantifies his level of engagement.

• Step 5: Use the Data to EngageAn association can aggregate the data to arrive at an average engagement score, which provides the organization with a benchmark on which to improve. It can also drill down into each of the KPIs to identify strengths and weaknesses. For example, if the average engagement score for meeting attendance is lower than the others, then leadership knows that steps must be taken to get more people to the meetings.5


Nicole Rawski, analytics manager at Digitaria shared four tips for measuring engagement in a blog post on imediaconnection.com. While she is measuring engagement on websites, her tips (excerpted here) can easily be applied to interactions with association members:

• Goals and objectives In order to translate analytics into engagement, it’s important to interpret them in light of the purpose of the site [association]: Who are you serving and what do they need or want? At the end of the day, your engagement analytics should help you make informed decisions on what and how to improve your site [association].

• User experience Always think about your users [members]. Understanding your users’ goals will help you deliver a better user experience in addition to understanding which actions are most valuable to measuring engagement.

• Segment appropriatelyCreating KPIs and custom measurements is a good first step to understanding engagement, but in order to get to the core of what your users [members] are doing, make sure you group those users accordingly. Which users are you targeting? Who do you want to know more about? Some metrics have built in segments, but sub-segments and geo-segments may provide more insight into your overall goals.

• Get social Social sharing by your users broadcast to their massive social networks is incredibly important for word-of-mouth marketing. But even more important than that, integrating social sharing provides key engagement insights. Which content motivated your users to share and how did they reach that content? Understanding this about your users could be potentially more significant than the social networks they reach.6

Another option is to automate the measurement. Many association management software firms now integrate engagement measurement tools into their software. The association can also conduct surveys to learn which activities and benefits are driving engagement and where changes need to be made to increase participation.

To determine where your membership stands on the scale, is to work backwards and gauge how many renew without any effort from association. Those are the loyal members. Use word of mouth statistics to begin to measure to measure the percentage of brand ambassadors within the association. On the other hand, those members that must be reminder five, six, or seven times to renew are less engaged with the association. One the “check-book” or “engaged” members are identified, focus on other categories of engagement the association has identified as important, such as conference attendance, and build a subset of that group to determine the “low hanging fruit.” This subset has the most potential to move up the ladder and will require more analysis and attention to deliver the programs they value.


Gammel offers a tool in his book, Maximum Engagement: Moving Members, Donors, and Customers to Ever-Increasing Levels of Participation, which helps an association plot its activities on a continuum engagement value where more people are involved in lower value activities and less people are involved in higher value activities. This chart helps the association identify gaps in engagement. He points out, “Perhaps you engage a lot of people with your content and social media, but it costs $3,000 for people to attend your conference. That’s going to stop a lot of people from engaging further.”7

Increasing Engagement through Measurement

Defining member engagement, understanding where it stands within the association and learning what members need to increase their engagement is powerful. It allows the association to segment its membership, take a portion of the less committed and shift them a little bit forward to the more highly engaged group. The top performing and active members (brand ambassadors and loyal members) will always attend and support—it is the 15 to 25 percent right behind them that need more communication. They are engaged, but not yet “automatic” in their loyalty. Getting a portion of the second group to become more active and loyal will drive positive financial and advocacy results and overall mission fulfillment.

Measuring engagement will yield concrete data from which to work and limit the number of assumptions staff must make when creating programs. Accurate measurement will also give the association the power to dump programs that are not being utilized and are merely taking its resources to produce. The focus can then shift to identifying reasons why other programs are successful and capitalize on those features to produce a higher level of membership value.

The association can explore adding a new benefit, like a loyalty program, for example, that is designed to entice the second group (the engaged) to interact more often with the association. Loyalty programs are a new concept for associations. They change the concept of member engagement from always asking members to do something or give something to rewarding them for their participation. They give the association an outlet for connecting with member on a regular basis and a creative way to incentivize them to participate in other association programs.


Moving from Analysis to Action

With a clearer understanding of what member engagement means and how to measure it in a particular association, it’s time to move from analysis to action. The following four steps are a path toward activating your membership and driving more member engagement.

First, define success. Determine how the association will define engagement for itself. What things are most important to the association, to the financial and business success and especially to the members? Each association is different and hence what is important to one will be different from what is important to another, hence the definition of engagement will be different for each association. Determine how success will be measured. Will one of the methods previously described work or should the association develop its own formula?

Second, ask and communicate. Listen to members, via surveys, focus groups or informal feedback. Conduct a member benefit audit to see which ones are really delivering value. Create continuous feedback loop. Understand how the association’s members want to be communicated with both with the association and between each other (e.g. social media, emails, forums, or face-to-face).

Third, deliver extraordinary experiences. Develop activities that are both business and social. Don’t forego the networking/fun activities that may be of importance to members. Always think of new ways to bring value to members, to their businesses and their personal lives. It is not only about them paying membership dues, but it is truly about what the association gives them in return.

Fourth, reward members for their engagement. Saying thank you goes a long way in ensuring future renewals. ACI’s white paper, “The Neuroscience of Member Loyalty”, covers the impact positive emotions and positive memories have on member loyalty.8

Finally, focus on building community. People join associations primarily because they are wired to be social. Give members ways to connect with each other, share their advice, questions, or daily activities. Give them a variety of ways to interact with or become a part of your leadership. Their level of commitment will depend on their perceived value of the project or goal.

1 De�ne Success

2 Ask and Communicate

3 Deliver Extraordinary Experiences

4 Reward Loyalty

5 Build Community

5 Steps to Increasing Member Engagement


Positive Engagement Activities Generate Longer Term Value

While things like conferences, certification classes, or other standard member actives are key to building a well-rounded member engagement portfolio, it is important to also make sure fun, creative programs are part of the mix. Engagement activities should have some level of positive emotional value as well.

Recent examples of these types of activities include:

• Crab Boil – a 100% member focused, fun activity that allowed members to come and socialize while eating crab and drinking beer. No other goals and objectives beyond the three-hour window of down time and interaction. One construction-industry association has used a crab boil over the years and it has grown to a well-attended and supported activity.

• Wine Tasting – one financial-industry association did not realize that this yearly event was their best way to get existing members to invite one potential new member until they started thinking of it less as an event to be endured and instead as a key part of member engagement. Each year this social event is sold out within one week of offering.

• Industry Thank You Dinner – one organization holds a yearly thank you and rewards dinner to highlight those in the state and/or industry that have helped others beyond their jobs. This has ranged from individuals in one company that helped a competitor who felt ill, or a team of people who helped at great personal cost of time and money to help support a charity effort. The attendance in this group has grown from a handful a few years back to well over a thousand.

• Golf Tournament – one association in the educational industry uses a yearly golf event to drive support of the three non-profits they support.

Many associations have these types of social and fun activities. They are a key part of driving positive member engagement and should be embraced.

Open the Door for Loyal Members

Defining member engagement opens the door to establishing a higher level of member value, driving engagement and increasing the number of loyal members. Today, with thousands leaving the workforce and many more facing stiff budget constraints, every member counts. No association can afford not to improve their numbers of loyal members. It is only with the backing of a fiercely loyal membership base that an association can work toward achieving its mission.


References1. Erik Schonher et al. “2012 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Study,” Marketing General

Incorporated, Alexandria, 2012, p. 9.

2. Tony Rossel “Product and Service Engagement Drives Member Retention and Growth,” Membership Marketing Blog, http://membershipmarketing.blogspot.com/2012/04/product-and-service-engagement-drives.html

3. C. David Gammel, CAE “Definition of Member Engagement for Associations,” High Context, December 28, 2009 http://highcontext.com/2009/12/28/definition-of-member-engagement-for-associations/

4. Anna Caraveli “Myths about Member Engagement” Tactical Engagement or Counting the Numbers,” The Demand Perspective, November 8, 2011, http://demandperspective.com/2011/11/08/myths-about-member-engagement-1-tactical-engagement-or-counting-the-numbers/

5. Dave Kovaleski, “How to Measure Member Engagement,” MeetingsNet, October 3, 2012, http://meetingsnet.com/association-meetings-resources/how-score-association-member-engagement

6. Nicole Rawski “How to Really Measure Engagement,” iMedia Connection, June 15, 2012, http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=32065

7. C. David Gammel, CAE Maximum Engagement: Moving Members, Donors, and Customers to Ever-Increasing Levels of Participation, ASAE Press, Washington, 2011

8. “The Neuroscience of Member Loyalty,” Affinity Center International, Reston, 2011.

Understanding Member Engagement

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