Do you know which subject lines will entice your association members to open an email and which they will skip? Do you know which webinar topics will get hundreds to sign up, and which will flop? In short, do you know what your members really want?
If you are like many of the association professionals surveyed in the 2021 Association Communications Benchmarking Report, which surveyed nearly 500 leaders of North American trade associations, professional societies, and association management companies, you might feel unsure. Forty-one percent of respondents said they must do a better job of “understanding member needs, demographics and goals,” and 32 percent replied that they have to do a better job to understand why certain content “resonates with members.”
But what about those associations that do seem to have a finger on the pulse of their membership? Are they mind readers who know just the right webinar topic that will cause members to drop everything to attend? Can they predict the future? Not at all, says Diane Weber, executive director for the Society for Healthcare Strategy & Market Development at the American Hospital Association (AHA). It’s less about superpowers, she said, and more about the fact that her team has a skill that gets powerful results: They know how to listen.
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