Member Communication: Have It Their Way
Didn’t they see our email?
How can I say this in 140 characters?
Do we have enough cell numbers for a text?
Member communication is getting crazy. Just when you thought email was the way to go, now we hear young people don’t use it. Do you give up on email? What about print? And must you add social media to the mix?
Before you make decisions about what you’re not going to do, ask your members how they like to receive information. Find out their preferences once a year because members will change their reading habits as they try out and adopt (or discard) tools. Because your members use a variety of tools, you’ll need to ask them via email, mail, social media, and maybe even text.
When resources are limited, it’s too easy to impose the association’s preferences for communication on members, instead of doing what works for them. The most effective way to keep your members’ attention is to offer a menu of options.
Going mobile
A Nielsen study found the share of online computer time spent on email dropped 28% from 11.5% in June 2009 to 8.3% in June 2010. Email is still one of the top ways we spend our time online, but social networks (22.7% of our time, a 43% increase) and online games are more popular. Another Nielsen finding explains why we spend so little of our computer time on email: we access emails on our cell phones. Mobile users spend 41.6% of their mobile time reading emails, more than any other activity.
What does this mean for associations? Your emails must be mobile-friendly and easy to read. If you link back to your blog and website, make them mobile-ready too.
Avoid the Delete button
When’s the last time you heard someone complain about an empty inbox? Never. But I did hear complaints about an association that not only sends too many emails but doesn’t segment their list by member interests. Don’t be that association. A quick way to earn your members’ email apathy is to treat them all the same. If you have demographic information in your database, use it to segment your lists.
The other path to the Delete button is to email too frequently. I once did an email audit for a few chapters. Although they had tiny staffs, the Executive Directors had no idea they emailed so many announcements and updates. Better departmental coordination and content packaging can prevent that.
Editorial calendars, not just for magazines
An editorial calendar has traditionally been used for magazines but now it’s also used to coordinate the publication of website updates, blog posts, videos, podcasts, Facebook updates, tweets and other content, like emails and e-newsletters. Repurpose your content to deliver it via multiple platforms by adjusting the voice and format.
Don’t rely on one platform. Tom Morrison, CEO of the Metal Treating Institute says,
“You won’t get a high percentage with any one method. Use a mix of social media, print, email and video. The goal is to reach 100% of your members, not to have one method reach the majority.”
Let’s face it, our attention is diffused and random. I deleted your email without reading it because I’m trying to clean up my inbox, but I’ll read your blog post later in my Google Reader. I didn’t see your tweet because I wasn’t on Twitter when you sent it, but I saw your Facebook update last night. I like reading magazines on weekends, but I haven’t had a fax machine in years. Many of your members are like me, and many are just the opposite. You’ll only know when you ask.
Photo by Tom Langston (Flickr)
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