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Your association is growing, and with growth comes the enormous and never-ending task of managing your members and engaging them with your benefits. Data, registrations, payments, downloads, inquiries, ongoing communications and keeping your member benefits fresh and interesting on top of it all – it’s a lot to manage!
The problem: Your CRM and website aren’t meeting your needs
Your data management is getting out of hand and the number of routine tasks that need automation is growing. The CRM you are using is extremely helpful, but there are gaps between what your association wants to achieve and the limitations of your current website and CRM capabilities. Even though you have a system that can do a lot, your team is still buried under a never-ending to-do list to fill in the gaps that can’t be automated.
Your website may not be providing the ideal user journeys for your various stakeholders. Your website also may not be equipped to capture leads and help your association grow. The best way to meet the needs of your stakeholders is to divide your members from your non-members with a member portal that is separate from your website. To understand more about the differences between these two entities, you can download the Website vs Member Portal Guide that clearly outlines the different goals and content on each platform.
The solution: Complexities require customization
When you have a large membership, the complexities of your member benefits and the sophisticated ways you want to engage members can only be effectively executed with a customized member portal.
It makes sense to shuffle the budget to move away from admin swamped with routine tasks towards elevating your efficiency and impact by making the smart investment to create a custom member portal.
When do I know it’s the right time to go custom?
Not sure if you are at the right stage to make the investment in a custom member portal? Here are the top five reasons to make the switch. We are confident that these five reasons will apply to your association, and a custom member portal will revolutionize your reach.
Let’s understand how a member portal will make your association stronger and your members happier.
1. Creates a hub for members to access all member benefits
Of the many ways we try to connect with our members, a custom branded member portal trumps them all. That personal login to your portal sends the message that your members belong and have access to special information, support and content curated for them. The member portal creates interactive experiences and greater connection between your association and your members, and your members to each other, creating that sense of community your members want.
All your member benefits will be centralized on the portal: registration for events, watching webinar recordings, discussion forums, continuing education opportunities and volunteer opportunities. Seeing your member benefits all together is impressive and will help with member retention.
2. Offers a self-serve avenue to members to perform routine tasks
Freedom! Independence! That’s what people want; to be able to do things when they want, how they like it. The back-and-forth of calls and emails to your staff are time consuming and create delays that impede motivation and enthusiasm. When members can browse and engage on the portal, they are empowered by their membership access. They can connect with what they are looking for when they are in the mood.
Members can independently update their accounts, make changes to public profiles, register for events, renew their membership, watch videos, read information or connect with other members.
3. Streamlines communication
Having a member portal is the best way to communicate up-to-date news with your members. An email or newsletter can quickly become obsolete, but your members can log into your member portal to see the latest and most accurate information. Your members will know what is happening now and what’s coming up that they can look forward to.
Your custom member portal can be set up to alert you when members engage on the member portal (be it to make changes to their accounts, register for events, post on a forum, or any other activity). You can set up additional email automations to follow up with their movements on the portal, as needed.
Your member portal can also easily be integrated with your social media channels, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. This allows your members to easily use their preferred channels to connect with your organization and other members.
4. Saves time and money by automating routine
If your admin team is performing the same routine tasks repeatedly, it’s time to automate. With a custom member portal, automation is easy. There are always tasks that are specific to your association that the one-size-fits-all template software cannot perform. With a custom member portal, your staff’s time will be redirected towards effective ways to grow your association, rather than spin their wheels on their usual hamster wheel to-do lists.
Not sure how much time your admin is spending with routine tasks? As the decision-maker at your association, work with your staff to identify frequently performed tasks that can be automated.
Creating automation of routine tasks will save your association money in reducing the hours of manpower required to do these tasks. As a bonus, this will eliminate the human error that is unavoidable.
5. Powerful member engagement reports make for meaningful marketing
Powerful and useful reports are only possible with healthy, detailed data. We recommend using CiviCRM to manage your data because it is the most powerful member management tool available. With a custom member portal integrated with CiviCRM, you can collect all the customized data that is relevant to your association and your members and see trends in the data.
You will save yourself the inherent roadblocks and limitations that other template member portals and CRMs have with regards to data management, reporting correlatives and viewing patterns in behaviour, donations and identifying any hiccups before they become a problem. You can tag, group and categorize your data into hierarchies and track histories for easy and effective segmentation. This means you can reach the people you want to speak to and they can hear the information that is relevant to them. Putting your finger on what attracts and motivates your members will be key to effective marketing.
Almost perfect
No system is perfect. As much as a custom member portal will revolutionize your association, know that no tool or system is perfect. There will be actions you want to do that a custom member portal cannot do. The portal, for instance, isn’t integrated with all your other tools and can’t communicate updates to them. Given that, not every task can be automated and human touch is needed to make decisions when it comes to the exceptions to the rules.
A wise investment for growth
That being said, you will not be disappointed with what a custom member portal can do to take your association to new heights. Your members will be able to clearly see the value you offer, the benefits available to them and be able to connect to your community as a proud member. You will save time and money, and be able to invest those resources into effective marketing and additional member benefits. Your association has a bright future with a custom member portal!
Get the ball rolling. This article comes with a handy chart and worksheet to help you organize your ideas about the audience, goals and content for your website and member portal. Get your copy of the Website vs Member Portal Guide.
Looking for more help to improve the user journeys on your website and portal? Learn about our Member Portal Strategy Workshops and start your association on a clear path to growth!
Farhad is a technology entrepreneur and digital strategist with over 12 years of experience helping associations build engaging member portals and websites that are designers for the user journeys of membership-based organizations. Check out his hands-on strategy workshops that are geared to help associations grow.
