Silverbear Membership Blog

What should you tweet about? Planning your tweets can be a daunting task. It’s vital that you come across as useful, engaging and interesting. Twitter accounts that constantly promote their own agenda do not do well on Twitter. The goal is to share information, provide advice and help to others, and to become a trusted platform for those in your industry.

So what kind of things should you tweet about?  Association announcements: Such as new events, new members, new features/benefits etc. Updates: Any changes to your association that members should be aware of Answer Questions: People might ask questions about your association – the membership types available, the benefits members can expect, cost etc. Ask Questions: Ask your network of followers questions that can help improve your membership offering – what do they want to achieve from their membership, what events are they looking forward to, what do they think can be improved? Retweet: This is where you retweet (RT) another...

Part 2 of our Social Media & Membership Series So now we understand a little more about Twitter, the real question is how can Twitter be used to communicate with your members effectively?

You need to consider what kind of Twitter account to open, if you are a large membership organisation you should consider opening an account that is dedicated to each membership segment. However if you are a smaller membership organisation then a general corporate account might suit your needs better.

Once the Twitter account(s) has been opened you are able to brand in line with your association, a familiar logo or icon should be used as your profile image and a branded background should be created and ensure your biography is succinct.

Now you need to delegate an individual or a team to monitor and have ownership of the account. Select carefully as it is vital that any communication from or to the account is managed and monitored by someone who understands the medium. Social media can be very effective,...

Engaging with your members is a vital part of managing a successful association. Communicating effectively with your members is not easy, it can be complicated, time consuming and prone to errors. As a membership organisation, whether you are a charity or other membership group requires membership managers to communicate constantly: To prospect members – promoting the association, highlighting offers & benefits, engaging with prospect members in general To current members  -  Showing the member value of their membership and ensuring they are aware of everything the association is doing and offering When holding events - Promoting events, selling sponsorship, providing the costs, timings, and location and agenda items. Answering member questions and directing them to the right places, promoting member engagement and interaction during the event. Then getting feedback from members and exhibitors, promoting the event to those who didn’t attend, thanking speakers and guests for their input etc....

Accurate Data! Clean Data! Up to date Data! For any customer focused organisation and probably most especially for membership organisations, data is an essential ingredient to delivering a top class service to your members or customers. Being able to keep your data clean and de-duped can be a very difficult and not to mention time consuming task unless it is planned for and built into the day to day management of membership information.

Membership data comes from several sources: Business cards collected at events Website form submissions Completed membership forms Details provided via telephone or email Faxes received And many other conduits Can I hear everyone shouting “a centralised repository”? This is a key requirement for core membership organisations to manage their data. There really is nothing more damaging and unprofessional to a members view of an organisations perception of them, than being mistakenly communicated to by two areas of the same organisation who...

Silverbear Membership are excited to be exhibiting at the Association Congress 2011.

Now in its fifth year, the Association Congress is a firm fixture for all those serious about the the growth of their associations, events and publishing. The London based exhibition is growing in size, support and esteem and is essential attendance for all association and membership organisations in the UK.

There will be 3 tracks over 2 days enabling the multi job titles and industry sectors attending to find their niche.

Delegates attending the Conference & Event Management Stream will learn how to:

Build a successful conference model Maximise revenues by attracting more delegates and exhibitors/sponsors Learn how to use social media as a marketing tool  Add value to existing events and improve...

As consumers all of us form purchasing decisions dependent on a number of criteria

Do we need this item? Can we afford what we want? Are we comfortable about buying it from this outlet or person? Several of the standards are empiric i.e. Do we possess the cash available, but the majority of the criteria are, usually, emotional:

Do we “like” what we are buying? Do we “feel” comfortable about purchasing it Do we “feel” valued by the person offering it to us, and so on We may buy an item one day because we “feel” good about it, but not buy the identical thing on an alternative day because our feelings are different and we don’t feel so good about it. In the majority of cases, our “feeling good about it” position has nothing at all to do with the artefact or service itself but more to do with our overall emotional condition.

This emotional side of things plays a vital part in becoming and remaining a member of a membership association. In 1943 Abraham Maslow...

Following on from last week’s blog post about the features of membership software, this week we’ll discuss what the core benefits are and what the important integration points are.

The key benefits of membership management software can be summed up into main points:

Increase membership acquisition and retention Increase financial control over membership subscriptions and activities Engage with members in a more appropriate way Communicate in a more efficient way Manage events more efficiently Provide more value to members Improve membership loyalty Cut costs Increase control and visibility Gather membership intelligence Many of these benefits are reliant on the ability to integrate the membership software with back end office systems and the corporate website.

Linking the corporate website with the membership software improves the level of service to both the organisation and to members. It means that members can interact with the member...

Membership organisations that rely on the acquisition and retention of members are now turning to technology to help manage their members and provide a higher quality service. Membership software can provide huge cost and time savings, but it is vital that it can be integrated into back end systems such as the finance system, CRM and the corporate website. These blog posts discuss the benefits of membership software and the specific benefits provided when it is integrated into key back end office applications.

Part One – The Key Features of Membership Software Many membership organisations are taking advantage of the benefits of technology by employing the use of membership software. Membership software enables member managers to organise, oversee and control their membership base with improved levels of efficiency and visibility. It can help to boost member enrolments and help reduce the number of members that fail to renew their subscription.  More often than not it pays for itself through the increase...

With Microsoft’s launch of Dynamics CRM Online earlier this week, Silverbear have already made this available within Silverbear’s CRM and Membership Management software solutions. This reflects our alignment with Microsoft and the highest level of competence and expertise with Microsoft technologies.

Our leading edge customer experience management platform now includes:

- Increased visibility of data through new real time dashboarding and advanced visual reporting capabilities - Enhanced customisation to provide individual views tailored to specific roles or teams - Enhanced work flows to provide more control over business processes - Additional onscreen workflow through guided dialog sessions for key business processes

This enhanced Silverbear solution brings together effective CRM, membership and customer database management to efficiently run an organisation in a familiar, intelligent and connected environment.

The on-premises and partner-hosted versions of Microsoft Dynamics...

Are you a membership organisation? Then you understand that maintaining and growing your membership base as well as understanding your existing members is crucial. Why do members join and why do they leave? Trying to capture and then report on this information can be done by utilising a membership management software solution allowing you and your membership team to create and run sophisticated reports helping you to understand your members and strategise plans for future growth.

This blog post will out like how you can improve your membership reporting to identify trends and track KPIs.

If you are like most membership organisations then you probably manage your membership base through a series of spreadsheets and databases. Although this can do the job, it can be inefficient and makes it difficult to track key performance indicators (KPIs). Many membership managers complain of not being able to drill down into membership data – making it difficult to analyse trends and predict future subscription...