Streamlining Association Management: How Impexium’s AMS Re-Engages Disengaged Members

Nothing’s worse than when someone suddenly stops communicating with you. Sadly, however, this is such a common occurrence that we have a term for it: ghosting.

Whether we’re talking about a friend, a family member, or a romantic partner, no one wants to be ghosted by the people in their lives. 

The same can be said of an association’s relationship with its members. Sometimes members ghost, and we don’t know why.

One common reason for members seemingly ghosting is that they’re disengaged.

Common factors that lead to low member engagement:

  • Your association’s content, communications, and offerings feel too generic. Because they’re not personalized  to members’ interests and needs, members stop participating.
  • Your approach demonstrates a lack of consistent strategies for engaging members at different stages of their membership lifecycle.
  • Your association lacks access to sufficient data on what members truly value, preventing you from effectively connecting members to targeted resources and services.
  • A failure to utilize modern technology to facilitate easy interactions (i.e., mobile access, personalized dashboards, or automated reminders) leads to a natural decline in member engagement.

The good news is that Impexium’s AMS software is the solution to these problems and more. Our system allows you to leverage data to re-engage members and build strong member interaction—every time.

Understanding the Major Consequences of Member Disengagement 

Disengaged members are  not simply a challenge you have the freedom to overlook. The consequences are far too dire.

Consequence 1: Decreased Renewals and Participation

Adding new members will do little to further your association if you’re hemorrhaging members at the same time. So while new member acquisition is the key to growth, membership retention is the key to long-term sustainability. 

According to one recent study, the median membership renewal rate for associations is 85%. If your association’s numbers are slipping below that benchmark, you’ll have to act fast to turn things around. 

Of course, one way to ensure your members don’t bail is to create easy, engaging, and sustainable pathways to active participation in your association’s systems, structures, and programs.

This happens not only when you add value but also when you ensure the right members are connected to the right opportunities at the right time.

This is truly where Impexium’s AMS shines. 

Consequence 2: Lower Attendance at Events

The benefits of annual in-person association events are numerous. Not only do current members become more connected and engaged with your association and its program, but new members are also pulled into your orbit, entering your association’s sales flywheel with all the energy of an event motivating their initial interactions.

However, if your event has low attendance or energy, it will have exponentially less impact. Therefore, it’s vital that your association communicates with members about in-person events early and often.

To boost attendance at your association’s events, you must 

  • Communicate early and often about the upcoming event
  • Clearly detail what the event has to offer
  • Offer bonuses and discounts for early-bird registrations
  • Send regular, automated reminders
  • Continually build excitement
  • Follow up with attendees after the event

Fortunately, a premium AMS system like Impexium’s makes planning (and largely automating!) the systems around events easier than ever.

Consequence 3: Reduced Community Involvement

Both in personal relationships and in association memberships, people are at their most disengaged when they feel that what’s being said doesn’t apply to them. 

Therefore, understanding your members’ individual needs and preferences is the key to reversing disengagement by targeting communications to meet them where they are at various points in their member lifecycle.

Initial steps to increasing community involvement would involve:

  • Gathering relevant member data
  • Sharing and analyzing data among your leadership team
  • Making an actionable engagement plan based on clear data  

Association Software That Will Help Your Association Thrive & Grow.

Impexium’s association management software (AMS) empowers associations to focus on what matters most—your constituents. We help you streamline operations, reduce development costs, and improve business outcomes.

  • Executives find it indispensable for strategic decisions.
  • Staff love the lack of redundant tasks. 
  • IT appreciates how easy it is to implement and manage.

Key Features of Impexium’s AMS for Engagement

Driving member engagement may feel like a steep hill to climb, but with Impexium’s powerful AMS features working on your behalf, you can quickly and easily leverage our systems to drive engagement to increase engagement, turning ambivalent members into full participants. 

Feature 1: Data-Driven Insights

Your membership data is the most powerful resource at your disposal. However, if you don’t have an easy way to access and parse the data, you’re not able to maximize your opportunities.

That is why Impexium’s AMS gathers and analyzes member data to reveal trends, allowing you to make strategic decisions based on your members’ actual behaviors, interests, and preferences.

For example, investigating specific aspects of your members’ behavioral data can help you create more personalized content and offerings. By doing simple things like tracking which emails members are opening and which links they’re clicking, you can learn what topics are currently most interesting to them. Armed with these insights, you can create resources that focus on these matters.

With the right AMS system, this process is straightforward and uncomplicated. 

Impexium’s centralized data management system collects all your data in one place, granting you and your staff access to interactive reports, charts, graphs, and other visualization methods that make your data easy to access, decipher, and digest. 

With these data-driven insights in hand, you can plan an informed and relevant engagement strategy to keep members engaged.

Feature 2: Enhanced Member Portal

For your members, smooth access to your online portal from any device is an absolute must. Providing your users with a seamless and intuitive experience is absolutely non-negotiable. 

Important functions your your member portal include:

    1. Event registrations. Providing easy and intuitive online registration is one of the best steps you can take to ensure higher rates of event participation. 
    2. Information updates. Members should find it simple to access your association’s latest updates, whether that be the schedules of upcoming events, your database, courses, certifications, new products, or in-house community discussions.
    3. Product purchases. Whether your association offers courses, webinars, or merch, providing clear pathways for your members to peruse, purchase, and access your products is an absolute must. 
  •  

The more features your association adds, the higher the value over time. However, if you don’t have a centralized, easy-to-use platform to keep everything organized, intuitive, and accessible, your members will still struggle to access the content they need, and engagement could still drop. 

That’s why Impexium’s AMS is designed to help you streamline and centralize your members’ association experiences, granting you the ability to offer your members a wide array of services and experiences while giving your member portal the one-stop-shop feel members love.

For example, Impexium’s unified shopping cart feature lowers barriers to purchases and facilitates higher levels of opt-ins by centralizing all payment processing for dues, fees, registrations, and product purchases. 

Integrating Impexium’s AMS with Existing Processes

Impexium isn’t here to help you reinvent the wheel. It’s here to ensure you’re getting maximum spin on each rotation. In other words, Impexium can help you do what you’re already doing—only better and with less manual effort. 

Impexium’s AMS is designed to integrate seamlessly with your current association management practices, including:

  • Aligning AMS features with your ongoing organizational goals. Whatever your next steps to grow, thrive, and scale, our premium AMS features will help you reach your next benchmarks faster and with less manual effort. 
  • Ensuring that your staff is trained on the new system. We offer personalized, in-person training to ensure you and your team are getting the most out of your management software.

By leveraging Impexium’s AMS features—ones specifically designed to help associations like yours grow and thrive—you can keep members engaged, maximizing their satisfaction and ensuring higher rates of long-term retention.

Conclusion

Low rates of membership renewals, poorly attended events, and little-to-no participation are major red flags that all is not well. Your association’s future could be in jeopardy.  

To turn things around and get your association back on track, schedule a demo or consultation with us ASAP to explore how Impexium can help you turn disengaged members into fully engaged ones.

About Impexium

Impexium provides powerful solutions that help our clients improve the world. Our association management software (AMS) empowers associations to focus on what matters most—their constituents. 

With Impexium, you can 

  • Streamline operations
  • Reduce development costs
  • Improve business outcomes

Let Us Show You What's Possible With Impexium

Trade associations, professional societies, and non-profits of all sizes have transformed their businesses and exceeded member expectations with Impexium’s membership management software. Request a personalized demo today.

Leave a Reply