Testing is great. Member data is better.

Tony Rossell recently wrote a great post about unleashing the Power of Testing in Your Membership Recruitment.

Tony is a huge believer in database driven marketing for associations (as am I).  However, the issues that I’ve seen where associations have a hard time stepping up to this marketing model are two fold…..

First, they don’t have a proper membership database.

Many smaller associations are trying to compete against much larger orgs, yet they are still managing their members with an excel file or access database.  Some larger associations are on outdated systems that function as no more than a glorified mailing list.

The result is that because there is no integrated member database they don’t have demographics, can’t segment based on purchase history, etc. 

The common excuse is that there isn’t enough time, money or resources to move to proper association management software. 

But what these organizations fail to realize is the potential they are missing out on by not integrating their association technology with their efforts.


Second, too few people own the database.

Quick.  Who manages your membership database and owns it in your org.  How many people said “The Membership Department”. 

Wrong.  Everyone owns the database. 

This plays out in the fact that member data becomes outdated, incomplete, not detailed enough etc. and can’t be used for advanced member marketing efforts.

Once you have enough data to work with, you can open it up to your departments so they can do some of the advanced testing that Tony talks about.  Let the meeting and events group do some testing based on the membership type, let your learning group market test pricing on courses, etc. 

Now that everyone has ownership, everyone can test and the organization can succeed.

The bottom line?

I realize as an association management software vendor it’s self serving to say “hey you need better membership databases”.  But the truth is when the data is better and being tracked properly, you can target and market even more efficiently.