Many of you might be wondering what the heck we mean by membership engagement.  Hey, completely understandable... but sorry to say that there isn’t a clear cut answer.  Membership Engagement isn’t just the newest buzzword that people like to sling around - it’s a real thing, but it will mean something different to each association. 

Those of you who know me well know that in a prior life I worked for a private equity company that focused on acquiring mid-size manufacturing companies.  I then became a small business owner/operator investing and running a specialized construction company.  I can tell you that it has not always been easy to make the long-term investment over the short-term instant results when it comes to marketing. Do you feel the same way?

Seeing my logo on a web banner, my name on a billboard, or hearing my voice on a radio ad made me feel like I was doing something to promote my business. So many eyeballs, and so many ears! It’s gotta be working, right?

So, to start off… what the hell is membership engagement? I know a lot of you might have been thinking that.  Well, that’s ok because there isn’t a clear cut answer.  Membership Engagement isn’t just the newest buzzword that people like to sling around - it’s a real thing, but it will mean something different to each association. 

We have all been through presentations with lousy speakers where we have sat patiently checking our phones, feeling like time was standing still, wondering what’s for dinner and then left feeling cheated of our time.  I don’t know about you, but I have been through enough of them where, if the time spent was combined, I could have probably hiked to Colorado and back (and enjoyed it significantly more; granted, I do like hiking).

Without members, associations would disappear; but it is important for the integrity of your association that your members are qualified and meet set standards.  So, setting up a way to measure the qualification of your potential association members is important. 

We have all sat through a boring presentation.  Maybe it’s a topic that we are already familiar with, maybe the topic is too far over our heads, or maybe the person giving the presentation just has your sleep number dialed in and is slowly lulling you into a coma.

Membership recruitment and retention is nothing more than building and retaining successful relationships.  So, how do you successfully create these long-lasting relationships and continue to make more of them - and grow the number of your contractor association members? 

Maintaining a steady pipeline of qualified, interested business loan prospects has always been a bit haphazard. There is a better way. 

Establishing buyer personas, one of the foundation concepts of inbound marketing, makes a world of sense - especially in the context of growing a more consistent pipeline of qualified business loan leads. 

Highly unlikely.

 In fact, decades ago, the eminent scientist Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

So here’s the issue: if all of us have heard this before, which we have, why do we continue to do it?