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...

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...

Managing your members can be problematic and demanding, so some organisations look to simplify it by utilising a comprehensive membership management software solution. Implementing these systems can help you build, examine, inform and communication with your members more effectively.

Choosing the right membership solution that fits with your business requirements is important, so when selecting it is key to understand what you should look for when selecting a membership management solution. There are a number of solutions on the market place, some are more wide-ranging and technically sophisticated than other, but the key is making sure that the investment you make is future proof. This means the software you select must be able to develop and adapt as your organisation grows, your members evolve and technology develops.

I will cover this topic in three sections covering:

Part one: Internal communication methods Part Two: Membership web portals Part Three: Reporting & Analysis...

Most membership organisation’s vision is to host and provide information which their members can easily and simply access, being able to provide a platform where membership organisations and members can share knowledge, information and network through the integration of their membership system with the membership database and their website. More and more organisations want to keep members informed and are starting to create specialist-interest online communities which offer services such as forums, blogs, wikis, expert content and file libraries.

The key to a successful online community is really dependent on your internal systems and how you can utilise them efficiently, through the implementation of an online membership management solution you can seamlessly integrate with your website and develop an online network model reflective of your requirements.

So what should your online community offer?

Fresh, dynamic, collaborative, creative and engaging content An intuitive and straight...

In part 1 we covered why social networking is important for membership organisations and examined how effective LinkedIn could be. This post will look at Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook A Facebook page is a customisable presence for an organisation, product or public personality to join the conversation with Facebook users. The page focuses on the flow of content posted by the page administrators.

By influencing the real connections between friends on Facebook, a page lets fans become brand campaigners. Posts by the page will start to appear in News Feeds, giving pages a stronger voice to reach their fans.

Using Facebook as an effective...

As a membership organisation you consistently find yourself surrounded by issues such as retention of existing members and attracting and capturing new members. More conventional methods of marketing such as; direct mail and events are becoming increasingly expensive and therefore more organisations (not just membership ones) are turning to social media and online networking as a platform and channel to communicate with new members and as a means to add and show value to existing members.

Social networking is becoming more important to membership organisations because:

It facilitates engagement with specific targets It can help to amplify knowledge and awareness around various membership campaigns It can encourage...

As a membership organisation you are totally member-led. The key is to keep not only your current members happy but to find ways to grow your membership base. Utilising a web-based and comprehensive membership management software solution can help you maintain and attain your current membership base (increase renewals and subscriptions). I have put together my top ten reason why a membership organisation should invest and implement a membership solution. Clear Communication – Membership software will ensure you collate up to date, clean and accurate data on your members. The communication tool delivers relevant content to relevant members by allowing you to segment and target the appropriate members. Social Media – Communicating with your members is simple. Your membership software interacts with third party social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StubmleUpon etc. The mechanisms can be deployed within existing web sites where required or can dwell within the membership portal allowing...

Implementing a membership CRM software into your organisation can help improve your operational efficiency through standardising and streamlining your business processes. Ensuring the software has an adaptive and flexible work flow engine which will enable a business to automate business processes in a user friendly way will ensure you attain, retain & maintain your membership base.

Through the automation of time consuming and repetitive tasks you are able to relieve your employees of the mundane but vital work that needs to be carried out on a daily basis, thereby increasing employee efficiency.

The right membership software can be customised to work the way your business works, ensuring you give the right information to the right members. In this market it has never been more important to ensure your members are always kept fully informed and updated on any new business services or upcoming special offers so make it even easier and automate the following marketing tasks:

Building member...

Are you a membership club? Government agency? Charity? Association? Society? Trade Union? Or any organisation that has members? Then this blog post is relevant to you.

In this modern and transforming membership-led society, membership organisations need to adopt mechanisms to measure their members engagement requirements and address them efficiently and effectively. Implementing a membership solution will ensure you address the following key issues of membership management:

Keeping good clean and accurate data on your existing and prospective members Communicating effectively with your members Understanding your members concerns and requirements Managing and recording membership contact data and information Utilising membership data information efficiently and resourcefully Reporting and analysing membership data and turning this into useful information Segmenting membership demographics simply Keeping control and managing your members throughout the entire...

As a membership organisation understanding your members expectations through what you currently offer is crucial. However being able to improve on the service you deliver will not only help you grow your membership base but retain it.

To do this you need to utilise the myriad of information you collect on your members effectively & efficiently. Defining a clear analysis path to identify current & future membership strategies will give you a clear visualisation of your membership base and allow you to utilise these results effectively.

Therefore choosing & implementing the right Membership Management Solution is vital.

The “right” membership solution will recognise and address your membership management needs by providing you with;

Good, clean & up to date information on existing members Good, clean & up to date information on prospective members Good, clean & up to date information on members activities & requirements A clear & distinct outline of a member’s...