Are you feeling stuck with trying to grow your association? Are you ready for a strategic investment to help grow your membership? Transitioning to digital content is a great investment for your association. Digital content may refer to your websites, member portal, social media channels and digital ads.
The decision to move to digital is an easy one to make because the investment is obvious, but this decision is made thoughtfully using informed insights that can then be tailored to meet the specific needs of your association and your audience. Your digital strategy will be based around the different parameters of your audience that will ultimately provide the greatest return on investment for your business.
Creating a website and member portal is a significant undertaking that takes time and focus. You might be wondering what tools are required and the time needed to craft digital content. Will you need to hire someone who has expertise in this area? How much training will my team need?
In this blog, we will talk about things to consider when planning your digital strategy, as well as helpful steps for how to get started. But in case you aren’t yet convinced that this is the right move for your NPS, here is a quick list of reasons to move to digital content.
5 Reasons to move to Digital Content
Represent Modernity
The world is moving increasingly online and a growing number of people of all ages are looking to the internet for their information and networking. Moving to digital content represents progress and modernity. Send the message to your members and prospective members that your association is at the forefront of what is new and positioned to help them connect with the latest tools and resources.
Static versus Dynamic
Digital content is easily edited and updated. If a date changes, if something is new or cancelled, the new reality can be reflected instantly with the dynamic nature of digital content. With traditional print content, on the other hand, it is static and unchanging. The information cannot be updated. It can be costly to have to update members of changes or new resources.
Permanence
Even when we create beautiful, informative traditional print materials, a lot of mailings, unfortunately, don’t get read. Your members may not have the time to open and read your print content when they receive it, so they may put it away for a later time… and not get to them. They may end up, I’m sorry to say, in the wastebin – a sad end to your hard work! With digital content, nothing ends up in the garbage and it is there as a permanent resource for your audience to tap into when they are ready to engage with it.
The Right Message at the Right Time
One of the important principles of successful sales and marketing is to connect with your prospects at the right time, i.e. when they are ready and receptive to what you are offering. Having your information available digitally online means that your prospects can connect with you when they are curious about you and ready to engage. Putting print material in someone’s hand when they aren’t ready for it isn’t the best investment of time and money.
Go Green
There is a big push to move away from print materials for environmental reasons. People of all ages are more sensitive to the use of trees and plastics. Going digital moves you along the environmentally-friendly path abd will reflect well on your brand.
I’m Convinced! How Do I Transition to Digital Content?
Strategic Planning
One of our guiding principles for successful digital design – or any design – is to begin with the end in mind. We need to ask ourselves what are our goals in developing our website or member portal? What will we use it for? What sort of reports do we need? What tasks will it simplify for us? How will we save time? How will our members use the platform? What would benefit them the most? These are just some of the questions we need to ask ourselves. Here are some things to keep in mind during this exploratory phase.
- Reflect on how digital content benefits your current audience
The wants and needs of your audience should always be top of mind. To make informed decisions, you must first begin with how they will benefit. Your new platform should contain any relevant information they need and clearly present your benefits. The website needs to be intuitive to use and easy to navigate. If your members are confused on your platform or can’t find information easily, they will either not engage with you (i.e. drop their membership) or call you for support. It takes 10 times the effort to attract a new member than to hold on to your existing ones so keeping them happy is key. If they are confused and reach out to you for more help, that is time and money spent on member support that can be avoided with a well-mapped-out website.
- Your current audience is your focus group
Involve your members in this process. These are your members and they want to feel they have a voice and an influence in the decision-making. Ask them for their feedback; ask what they want to see. Use surveys that ask for short-answer replies rather than multiple-choice. This way you receive the full-spectrum of nuanced feedback. Ask what they like the most, and frankly, what doesn’t interest them. Sometimes less is more and eliminating undesirable and unused resources will add to your value.
- Marketing your new Website
Determine which channels get the best traction; social media, ads, conferences, blogs – you want to be where your prospects are. Use UTM codes and Google Analytics to determine how your members find you to inform where to invest your time. Capitalize on platforms where your association gets the most traction to drive your audience to your website. Provide compelling visuals and structure the content to align with the channels. If you are new to this arena, don’t be shy to bring in some outside help. For instance, we offer workshops on how to plan your digital marketing.
- Interactive Platform = Engaged members
Your website will be mapped out with information that flows logically from one idea to the next relevant idea. You get to create the experience of your users. You get to choose what they see first and how they move through the information. You will set up links to articles, resources, educational opportunities and events. The digital environment empowers the user to feel engaged and encourages them to take action in real-time. Using various media formats and creating a structure that flows will draw the eyes of your audience to the calls to action you’re presenting.
Strategic Planning
First Plan, Act Second
Plan as much as you can before you get started. Setting up a strategy is integral to encapsulate all of the above points. Creating your digital map and strategizing how the website and member portal will be used will make all the difference in the success in the long run. Yes, it is true that changes and additions can be made along the way, but shifting gears will add to the time and cost of the project. The last thing you want is to create something that may be beautiful, but doesn’t solve your problems.
Build as You Go
Break up your ultimate vision into manageable chunks that you can implement step by step. This means rather than waiting months and months for a polished final product with every bell and whistle, break up the end vision into smaller projects that offer specific features that you and your members can benefit from. This way, as you progress and add features, you can still present usable features and benefits to your members, use the new website and member portal to attract new members, and making any tweaks to the new features will be easier if they are rolled out in stages.
Bringing in Help
You may be up for a new project and want to build this site from the ground up with the help of Youtube, but most people in your position decide to bring in some outside help. Hiring a software company that can help you build your website and client portal is the usual course of action. Find a company that understands your vision, has experience working with NPOs and the specific requirements of their memberships. You will meet with them regularly to review the updates on the project and help guide the decisions.
Follow Through
You may be at a point where you realize that doing digital is the right thing for your organization. Clarity is essential for motivation to work on a project, but a website and member portal development project take a lot of time. Make sure that when you start this project you have the time to devote to seeing it through. You’ll likely need several hours a week for meetings, providing information and testing.
Wishing you the best of luck on your successful transition to doing digital!
