As association professionals with heaps of valuable information to share digitally with our members, we’ve all found ourselves asking “what’s missing? Why am I sending emails and not getting the response I need?” Whether event or education registration, membership renewals and everything in between, we all wish engagement was higher.
The short answer is that most communications today are done via what we call broadcasts. We have a lot of information about us—announcements, articles, events, courses—that we want to share with our members. Without a better method of mass communication, we send it all in a broadcast. Maybe it is via a newsletter that lists everything that is going on this week, or maybe it is via targeted emails to people who we think might be interested in hearing about a specific topic.
Ultimately, this style of conversation is one-way. You are telling people about your organization, but the only thing they can tell you about themselves is whether they are clicking on the links.
Sure, an individual recipient could reply to the email, but you aren't asking them to reply. And imagine if all of them actually did. You would be overwhelmed at the prospect of having a one-on-one conversation with 1,000 people, with no systems or automation to help facilitate it.
There is a place for broadcasts, of course; they are useful for keeping people informed. But if you are only sending broadcasts, you are not engaging your members as effectively as you could be. The missing element is the different between one-way and two-way communications.
You can read this excerpt as well as other Association Marketing practices that focus on two-way, individualized digital communications in the Conversational Engagement eBook. Download it here.
Dave Will
While working for SAP, a multi-billion dollar software company, nearly 20 years ago, Dave Will was advised to "Walk faster and smile less, because perception is reality." Dave took this feedback to heart and started a business based on the antithesis of this advice. Fourteen years later, Dave successfully sold Peach New Media, a Learning Management System for associations, which is now part of Community Brands.
Since then, Dave and his leadership team from Peach built an engagement platform called PropFuel, the first Conversational Engagement platform designed specifically for member based organizations to improve member engagement using the Ask, Capture, Act methodology.
Dave lives on the South Shore of Massachusetts with his 3 boys, 3 boy dogs and his formidable wife, Nicole. He's an endurance runner and pretends to work from his boat in Buzzards Bay, MA as much as possible all summer long.