Member scoring is a crucial topic for organizations because providing superior member experience drives all associations. Unfortunately, the topic of member engagement strategy can also be overwhelming. Your association might just be getting started with member scoring. Or perhaps you’re looking for tips to create a unique member engagement formula.
Member scoring is a journey. Wherever your association is in the process, you can always improve your member engagement strategy. Keep reading to learn more about this key concept:
How to assign values for your member engagement formula
Before you start planning your member engagement workshop, you’ll want to begin determining your formula. Any guidelines for determining member values will differ from organization to organization because membership needs are unique in each association. Unfortunately, there is not a “one size fits all” when it comes to member engagement. However, you can take steps to create an engagement formula that is specific to your membership needs.
Before assigning values to create your formula, it’s important to narrow down and choose which activities you want to score. Do so by asking yourself these important questions:
- What activities matter the most to your members?
- What activities are important to prospective members?
- What activities are vital to your association’s brand?
- How are these lists different? Where is there overlap?
Next, you’ll want to focus on the metrics side of your formula, ensuring your values are measurable. Consider the frequency of the member activities, how many dollars you spend, or the rates compared to peers to get measurable data before start assigning values.
Finally, you’ll need a minimum of five metric groups to create a member engagement formula.
“If you have too few groups, you won’t get to the place you need to be,” says Tirrah Switzer, Director of Product Marketing. “However, you don’t need to measure everything. Focus on measuring what matters for your organization.”
How to plan your engagement scoring workshop
After building out the foundation of your member engagement formula and arriving at a place of understanding with your leadership team, you’ll be ready to bring the rest of your association staff on board. Planning and hosting a member engagement scoring workshop is the perfect way to accomplish this goal. Get started in six easy steps:
1. Build consensus across the organization. The perfect way to get your entire staff on board is to plan an engagement workshop at your association. Task your leadership team with explaining your new member engagement formula, breaking down the activities that influence your values, and how you measure your metrics. Transparency will help employees understand the member engagement process, ultimately increasing buy-in.
Set a goal to have all staff onboard with your member engagement formula by a specific date. If you need to have repeat workshop sessions to ensure all your employees understand your engagement strategy, put additional meetings on the calendar. Making member engagement an organizational priority will help all staff feel responsible for your formula and become more data driven.
2. Measure what matters. As you workshop your member engagement formula with all staff, form breakout groups and consider asking the following questions to guide your process:
- What member values connect to your strategic plan?
- What metrics will help your association move forward?
- How can our entire staff support member engagement processes?
3. Group similar activities. Your association’s free events should have a different score than your paid events because there’s a different level of commitment within the member activities. Try grouping your free events (for example, free webinars and free networking events) to assign value to your engagement formula. Have your staff work together to link similar activities together and decide on value.
4. Seek a simple sum. When you’re workshopping with staff, try to ensure the sum of all your member activities is easy to understand. For simple data measurements, an ideal total is 100. Having a simple sum like 100 will help your membership metrics appear clear and comprehensible on graphs and reports that you share across your organization.
5. Determine maximum scores for activities. In your scoring formula, each group of member activities should have a maximum score. During your workshop, task staff with determining how to top off scores for each activity. For example, should a member get 1,000 points for opening 1,000 emails? Likely not, as email engagement doesn’t translate to as high of a member commitment as attending a webinar or participating as a board member.
For example, consider assigning a value of 10 points to a member who participates on the board, 5 points to a member who attends a webinar, and 1 point to a member who opens an email. However, remember that each association will need to determine spevLimit small activities. Does your association have several small member activities, totaling less than 5% of your data? You might want to consider limiting them from your engagement scoring formula. Including small member activities will likely not make much impact on your formula, nor will it show well in your data.
If you still have questions on which activities to include, have your staff make a list of any small member activities. Prioritize or eliminate by size, member reach, ROI, and other important metrics. cific values based on their unique member needs.
6. Limit small activities. Does your association have several small member activities, totaling less than 5% of your data? You might want to consider limiting them from your engagement scoring formula. Including small member activities will likely not make much impact on your formula, nor will it show well in your data.
If you still have questions on which activities to include, have your staff make a list of any small member activities. Prioritize or eliminate by size, member reach, ROI, and other important metrics.
