Turning Membership Engagement Data into Effective Marketing
Creating cohesive, concise, and intriguing campaigns can be a challenge. Getting your members to interact with this information can prove to be even more difficult, resulting in a daunting and time-consuming effort for your staff. However, this does not have to be the case Your AMS (Association Management Software) constantly captures valuable data points from your members, contributing to various engagement points. Utilizing this material can create powerful and personalized campaigns related to consumer interests. Knowing how to leverage these decisions based upon how your members interact within your association will always provide them with the best experience possible. There are typically four basic data points associations use from their members to personalize content. This includes age, title, gender, and zip code. Using these primary elements allows you to group individuals into segments, creating a more refined target audience of the material you want them to interact with. This is only the beginning of creating a successful marketing strategy that will result in increased engagement and a more in-depth representation of your users based on their own demands. Behavioral data is created from the observed actions of users, giving you genuine and accurate insights into how they are using your services. One way you can do this effectively is by creating tags within your system that will track users and the material they interact with. As members engage with specific content it will relay these interests over to their contact allowing you to match them to these tags. Using these basic elements allows you to group these individuals into segments, creating a more refined target audience of the material they have previously engaged with. With Dynamics 365 users can utilize configurable dashboards that show a plethora of information giving the ability to organize your members into personas based on the behaviors that they exhibit. Static or dynamic worksheets can be created and directly exported to Microsoft Excel, bringing immense ease of reporting, and saving your staff time – all while allowing you to better capture your members‘ interest and create content that will speak to them directly. Tracking these behaviors within your association creates a marketing strategy that results in an intelligent (and successful) way to retain higher interaction. Who has attended a specific online seminar? Who has taken a CAE course on your LMS? Who has registered for the annual conference? These specific data points can be defined inside Microsoft Dynamics to build digital personas. This personalized output puts your members first, actively sending them content based upon the wants and desires that cater to the specific individual. For example, while sending out the monthly newsletter, multiple arrangements can be constructed, each holding the same information, but arranged in a different order. The key points that are shown first are based upon earlier interactions they have had within their persona grouping. Learning how to navigate these critical tools in your system not only will bring your association greater success in engagement but creates a more individualized experience for your members. Altai creates a content community and commerce all in one. Depending on your campaign, our portals will create a side-by-side process to guide your users into a seamless path towards a specific goal. Once your members have been defined into segments and campaigns are created – you can quickly provide them with valuable information they need to advance their knowledge and career. Hyper personalized content based on specific patterns of other users with similar interests will increase your engagement resulting in more emails being opened. Altai Systems understands the challenges you may face with membership and marketing. Offering a completely customizable CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and AMS interface – all built within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Platform. Find out how Altai & Microsoft’s power can help your Association
Top 10 Ten Reasons Why Associations are Switching to Altai Systems
Since 2007, Altai Systems has been focused on association management software. Today we believe the historical AMS is too limiting and associations are best served using robust association-specific functionality built within the Microsoft 365 business platform. This means the tools you’ll use to manage your association allow you access to some of the best business tools available AND allow you the flexibility to incorporate technology you’re already using and love, directly into that platform. This provides your association not only what’s important and necessary, but it also goes beyond the traditional AMS to offer greater access to data, better reporting, enhanced member personalization, and access to the best collaboration technology available. With that in mind let’s dive into our TOP 10 REASONS ASSOCIATIONS ARE SWITCHING TO ALTAI SYSTEMS. The Business Platform that Meets Your Needs Today and Tomorrow Microsoft’s cloud is used by > 95% of Fortune 500 companies. Using Microsoft’s platform and infrastructure as our backbone allows us to leverage features ranging from infrastructure to accounting software (ERPs) to office software in addition to the association-specific features Altai has built that you would expect: dues, non-dues, events & meetings, marketing, full credentialing, donations, eCommerce, etc. And with automation, Business Intelligence, and artificial intelligence – the sky’s the limit! What makes the system especially enticing is the ability to tailor the system to meet your unique needs. Not through costly customizations, but through thoughtful configuration. By working with you, we have a process in place that will make your implementation turn-key and through low code/no code, the power of the system is in the hands of the passionate user as your needs evolve. A Member Portal That Fits Any CMS Altai’s Web Portal modules are more than a place for members to access personalized content. They are CMS-agnostic modules that empower two-way data anywhere you have access to your members or stakeholders. With or without a logged-in state, our modules grant responsively designed flexibility where content, commerce, and community come together. It’s the People That Get You There Obviously, we want to sell you the wonders of an association system built within Microsoft Dynamics. But a recent study by Third Coast Consulting shows the type of software implemented has less of an impact on the success of implementation than the people you’re working with. We’re confident in our software – and confident in our process. Our process, our ease at integrating within the Microsoft 365 universe, and our ability to look ahead for you are what we’re bringing to the table to make sure you succeed. Security (Data, Physical, Backups, GDPR, etc.) Stop worrying about the above and let experts do it. Microsoft has thousands of experts working 24/7 to make sure you are not exposed. (Exposed to mistakes, oversights, foreign governments, hackers, etc.) Microsoft spends $1 billion on security each year. They monitor 7 trillion cyber events a day. If you are thinking about backups, GDPR, data integrity, etc., you can now stop. With Microsoft, you can know your data is safe. Microsoft has a team of thousands of developers continually working to make Dynamics 365 and its ecosystem better. This amounts to more development, enhancement, and innovation than all the traditional AMS vendors and platforms combined. Dynamics 365 has a proven track record of protecting its clients’ investment in CRM by delivering innovative new technology and functionality while preserving upgradeability. Since the Altai product is built within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform, our solution upgrades when they upgrade. Depth of Support Want to be an expert in Microsoft Dynamics 365, or just want to find answers when you need them? With easy online access to training documentation, videos, courses, and direct support from Altai, the choice is yours. Microsoft Dynamics 365 also has more than 3 million users of CRM around the world and there are hundreds of self-maintained user communities, blogs, and forums. Business Process Automation Business Process Automation (BPA) sounds complicated, but really it’s all about making your job easier. One of the primary areas of value that Altai brings to your organization is using the various tools within Microsoft Dynamics 365 to streamline your operations, so staff can do more member-facing and revenue-generating tasks. For example, your membership and the credentialing system can be designed for specific job and security roles. Process-driven forms can guide staff through data entry, form-based business rules can drive actions to happen automatically, and workflows can run processes for you either on-demand or automatically. Using this functionality requires no programming and can be used by your organization with little to no additional reliance on Altai. AMS Implementations take too long. A small implementation of a true CRM can take 6 months. . Altai has reduced that to a couple of months using survey automation and the Azure Platform to automate the setup and data conversion. The benefit of this automation is less cost, time, stress, and risk! We converted ANSI’s membership from iMIS to CMR in 45 days. We converted FCA’s entire AMS system and brought them live in 13 weeks. Artificial Intelligence Capabilities Artificial intelligence. AI exists throughout the platform. Whether it is a reminder to call a member back because you have not heard from them in a while or asking the AI engine to tell you why community activity is down or leveraging the AI engine to tell you what leads to focus on, it is all there at your fingertips. Click here for an AI for sales demonstration. Microsoft is the leader in AI for business. The AI team has a separate R&D budget of $5 billion/year. Microsoft recently took the #1 spot on some of the most prominent AI leader boards. In fact, one of those leader boards is hosted by Salesforce. Mobile Accessibility Work from anywhere on almost any mobile device including iPad/iPhone, Android, and other platforms. Because Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM has native mobile functionality, Altai can help you make even custom forms mobile compatible. Altai also enables you to get closer to your members and make commerce easy for your members via mobile devices. We’re long past the days of mobile responsiveness being optional. We ensure your website interactions are too. Better Marketing Tools Associations today face more competition and have even more pressure to show value to their members. Altai, built within Microsoft Dynamics 365, is designed to capture knowledge about a member to better market to and service them. We allow your organization to: Personalize messaging based on both member demographics and interests Understand who your most engaged members are Learn which products are generating the most revenue Know which services are considered the most valuable View
Platform v Product and Selecting the Last AMS You’ll Ever Need
Your First Step What to do when you’re considering cutting your losses and selecting a new AMS? The first step should be to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your current solution based on the requirements you have today. Has your AMS been able to bridge the gap between previous and current requirements? If not, there’s a decision to be made in terms of your next solution. There are essentially three approaches to association management solutions: 1) Product, 2) Build v Buy, 3) Platform-based solutions. 1) and 2) are very similar; they’re both a set of tools from one company that comes in a single package, let’s call them a suite, which means each application is designed by the same company. The components in the suite are designed to work together but can never provide the interconnectivity to software applications outside their closed environments. Suites start out with good intentions: lower risk, cost, and the time associated with enabling major functions of an association’s technology. And they’ve developed and commercialized to be everything to everyone; a veritable one-stop shop for multiple, complex, and important components. Inevitably, associations realize that the suites they’ve chosen will never evolve to reach a level of adaptivity that can be extended and scaled. Associations are now at a crossroads: they must start the RFP process all over again, or worse, live with an application suite that is increasingly inflexible. How to Break Out of the Vicious RFP Circle and Love Your AMS On the surface, platform-based solutions may appear similar to suites. They both offer a wide range of features out of the box to provide greater access to your biggest asset: your data. But if you drill down just a bit, you’ll see the difference lies in the inherent openness of the platform. The open nature of a platform will give you the ability to add functionality and capabilities you don’t even know you need yet. Platforms broaden your association’s ecosystem by evolving as your business changes. There are so many good reasons to select a platform-based solution, but one of the primary purposes is to lay the foundation of a technology framework that can be easily extended to add new members, new products, new events – the sky’s the limit – without risk or disruption to the business. Think about the e-commerce framework Amazon built to sell books. Over time and without any disruption to their business, they’ve been able to scale and expand their operations to the degree that you can now find everything from soup to nuts on their site. How many times has Amazon been “down”? The Altai Systems’ AMS is built within the Dynamics 365 platform (the Altai Business Platform), so each module, from Membership to Events, to Finance to eCommerce & Credentialing, and everything in between, taps into all of the cutting technology Microsoft spends billions of dollars developing every year. Would you like to know whether someone with 100+ followers tweets about your association? That’s easy! Create a workflow! As your association grows and requirements arise that have been previously unconsidered, the suite that worked for you once is very likely not working now. And what is it costing you to upgrade and update, to support and maintain, to customize? How long are you waiting for an enhancement because you have a requirement the solution can’t meet? If the goal of your association is stability within a diverse and ever-changing technology and competitive landscape, then either an AMS suite or platform will help you achieve that goal. But if the AMS you’re running today isn’t helping you achieve your strategic vision you need the Altai Business Platform. You’ll restore confidence in your data and free up your staff to create new, exciting revenue streams. Imagine if the very solution critical to running your association were within reach! Imagine that your association platform solution was so comprehensive, easy to run, and future-proofed that you’d never have to change again. The Altai Business Platform is the last AMS your association will ever need.
Enhance Your Members’ User Experience (UX)
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]No matter the mission, size, or benefits, Membership associations all have one thing in common: their members are their customers. Delivering top customer service is paramount to recruiting and retaining those members. Typical examples of customer service delivery outlets include face-to-face meetings and telephone calls, but one place that can get overlooked is your website. Your User experience (UX) design impacts how your association showcases its products and services. Is your association doing enough through your UX to provide the customer service you aspire your members to have?[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] What is UX? The Interaction Design Foundation states that UX design “is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users [including] ….integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability and function.” Chances are likely that your website is the first-place members and prospects go for information pertaining to advocacy, products, events, research, etc. but how easy is it for them to get their needs met quickly and easily?[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text] Assessing Your Current Membership UX A simple way to assess your current UX is to take a step back and ask someone outside your team (preferably outside your organization) to pretend to be a member and track their journey from first visit to last click on the site. Give them specific tasks to do on your site. After completion of this exercise, ask them questions related to the tasks they completed such as: How easy was it to find the information for which you were searching? How easy was it to sign up and/or renew your membership? Did you have to go through multiple sites or pages to get to the event you for which you were trying to register? Could you register multiple people for the event? How easy was it to purchase a book/report/survey? Could you easily make a donation? Today’s members, particularly those considered a part of Generation Z, want products and solutions that they can access in the quickest most direct ways. They often lack the patience to continually scroll down a screen or wait for a form to load. They want their technology to serve their core needs quickly and easily. Does your current UI do that?[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text] The Solution In our quest to improve our clients’ overall web capabilities, we have devised a way to give them the tools to maximize their members’ UX. Our Web Portal is a powerful member management tool that can be dropped into any CMS. We use visual plugins that allow website administrators to quickly add, remove, or update any association management module with simple clicks from a drop-down menu. You can set up any event, choose from a variety of user interfaces (UIs), and manage it all through the portal. Our web portal allows for members to self-serve a variety of functions including sign ups and renewals. It also allows chapter members to manage themselves thereby streamlining chapter management. For users of WordPress, we have integrated with its out-of-the-box Gutenberg Editor. We offer you a native WordPress plugin that allows our web portal to be the most user friendly on the market. This means that you can visually move the web parts around on a specific page to ensure that your content is next the commerce that compliments it.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Optimal UX We make it easy for your members access all their needs in one place. Your organization provides the branding and parameters for the overall design, and we bring that together with usability and function. If that doesn’t define the epitome of achieving and optimal member UX, then I don’t know what does. If you are interested in learning more about Altai’s Web Portal and how you can maximize your members’ UX, contact us at sales@altaisystems.com. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
