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IBMS: achieving a 25% response rate for their members’ survey

April 18th, 2012 | Posted by Abby in Customer feedback | Membership - (0 Comments)

BiomedicalScientistRecently, I helped my client The Institute of Biomedical Science carry out a members’ survey. We were really pleased with the 25% response rate, and they are now looking at the feedback and preparing work plans.

I thought it would be useful to share a few of the things we did, which I think helped to secure the good response rate:

 

  • Gain Council/Board/Trustee buy-in – we were lucky that the Council were supportive of the project. In addition to approving the survey, they were also great ambassadors for the project when they were out and about talking to members.
  • Choose the right supplier – if you are going to use a research company, carry out a tender to find the right supplier for you. It is amazing what different approaches and methods they will suggest. I also asked my contacts for recommendations. We ended up working with Research by Design, due to their  professional body experience.
  • Use the right research methods – with Research by Design’s guidance we decided on a multistage approach, which included a qualitative first step. I believe that this preparation work resulted in a well structured survey, which helped with completion rates. If you are carrying out your own survey, you could ask a few members you know to test the survey to check it flows well.
  • Update your data – with 20,000 members we opted for an online survey as a postal survey would have been prohibitively expensive. We carried out a project beforehand to update as many email addresses as we could, to ensure our emailed survey      link reached as many members as possible.
  • Tell your members – we communicated with the members before and during the project, and we are  now starting to feedback the survey findings to them. We also use a variety of methods (online, offline and social media) to reach them. It was important to us that all members saw the message about the survey and were encouraged to take part.

The key to any survey is to ask the right questions and then importantly to use the results to improve services for members. It is great to see staff and the Council at the IBMS so enthused about the results.

 

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Ways to encourage your members to come forward for election onto the Board

April 18th, 2012 | Posted by Abby in Governance | Membership - (0 Comments)

Board meetingMost membership organisations have a Board of Trustees which is comprised of members, and there is generally an election process to decide who sits on that Board.

Encouraging members to step forward as contenders for the Board is often a struggle. Having been involved in increasing interest in Board elections with various membership organisations, I wanted to share a few things I have learnt:

Be clear about the process
You need to explain to your members the process of the Board elections, why they matter and how they can get involved. Make sure the nomination form is really clear and they are guided through how to complete it.

Don’t assume that because you do this every year, all your members will understand or remember from last year.

Be clear about the level of commitment being on the Board involves
Outline what is involved and how much time your Trustees typically give.

Use friendly language
The notice of the AGM usually requires formal language. However, you should try to explain the Board election and vacancy process in lay terms. Nothing scares members off like lots of formal language!

I think it is worth contrasting this nomination form from Mencap to your own. Theirs is purposefully clear because of some of their audience, but I think it shows that you can write about a formal process in an easy to follow way.

Use your existing Board members
For some members, the Board could be a distant concept that they don’t really understand. Use your current Board members to bring a human element to your communications. They can give a statement outlining why they stood for election, what they do on the board and what they get out of it. This can help demystify the process for other members. It doesn’t have to be a written statement, you could video them.

Remove barriers
If your governance structure requires that members standing for election are supported by another member, then consider offering to facilitate a connection.

Offer contact with your CEO/Chair
If members who are considering standing have questions, then you should encourage them to contact the relevant senior person. Typically, this is the CEO, or it could be the Chair.

Conclusion
Members are more willing to put themselves forward if you communicate to them in a way that appeals to them. The approach to elections can be something that organisations do in the same way each year, try something different and you’ll be surprised at the result.

 

How to live tweet at your organisation’s events

April 18th, 2012 | Posted by Abby in Events | Marketing | Membership | Social media - (3 Comments)

Live tweeting at conferenceLots of membership bodies have a Twitter account, but not all of them tweet live from their account during their own events. Tweeting during your event can help stimulate Twitter discussion not only from delegates but from others interested in the event. Those who are unable to attend may well be following and searching tweets about it on Twitter. And this Twitter action can in turn help you raise your profile in front of new contacts on Twitter as the content is shared.

As I have been the “live tweeter” on behalf of both the Trade Association Forum and MemberWise at their previous events, I thought I’d share my thoughts on how to approach live tweeting at your organisation’s events:

  1. Decide which of your events you will tweet at. Small events, or those where people are expecting to talk in confidence, won’t necessarily work. Larger conferences lend themselves well to live tweeting.
  2. Select an event hashtag prior to the event and publicise on your marketing material including the event instructions.  For example, “#ABCconf”. Hashtags aren’t case sensitive and try to keep them fairly short.
  3. Agree who is going to do the tweeting on the day. With a small team it can be all hands on deck at events, so you could consider using somebody else. Perhaps a social media savvy member, or a trustee/volunteer or use a freelancer/consultant.
  4. If you are using a third party to tweet, have a discussion before the event about tweet content; tone, what is off limits and what to do if there is a really negative tweet from somebody about the event. Perhaps share some suggested tweets so the individual responsible is clear.
  5. Set up your Twitter account on either a laptop, tablet or somebody’s phone on the day. Make sure there is internet access!
  6. Consider sharing tweets via a screen/monitor so that all delegates can see, this should encourage them to get involved. You could use a free tool like Twitterfall which collects together tweets using a hashtag and they ‘fall’ down the screen.
  7. Start tweeting! Typical tweets from an event:
    1. “The room is starting to fill up, a warm welcome to all our delegates. #abcconf”
    2. “John Smith is speaking next about the new legislation, should be an informative session. #abcconf”
    3. “J Smith says that 80% of the public agree with this legislation. It will save over £1million across 3 years. Do you agree with it? #abcconf”
  8. Retweet (RT) other people’s tweets about the event.
  9. Use the opportunity to highlight your sponsors, by tweeting their twitter handle (e.g. @companya) along with your thanks to them and a little about them.
  10. At the end of the event thank those that got involved in the conversation. It can also be a good time to remind your followers and your new followers about other events and also membership.

For great examples of how to tweet live during an event,  follow @CharityComms and @Media_Trust on twitter.

If you missed it before, you can download my free guide to Twitter for membership bodies.

5 good things about the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s member welcome pack

April 18th, 2012 | Posted by Abby in Membership - (0 Comments)

CIM Folder ImageI recently rejoined The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). They sent through a really engaging welcome pack, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on what makes it appealing:

1.   “You” language – the front cover of the user guide says “How can I make my membership work for me?”, they are conveying that membership is about benefits that the member can access rather than merely services that the CIM are delivering.

2.   Concise – whilst the ‘Your user guide’ is a booklet, it contains a concise overview of a number of topics, which have clear headings and are organised in a logical fashion.

3.   Visually appealing – the pack uses colour and images to make it more appealing. I thought they got the balance right between being attractive enough but not appearing too glossy and potentially being seen as a waste of membership fees.

4.   Offers website links – after each section there is a link to the related section on the CIM website. This has enabled them to keep the text in the welcome pack to a minimum whilst highlighting their website and encouraging members to visit it.

5. Member testimonials – included throughout are attributed powerful member testimonials, which highlight the services mentioned on that page.

You can see an abridged version of their ‘User guide’ here.

Also included in the pack was a membership card and a useful A4 folder to keep the documents in.

Conclusion
When your members first join, they are potentially at their most engaged so it is a great time to reiterate the benefits you offer. It is also the best time to encourage them to engage with your organisation. How does your membership welcome pack compare?