Association management has never been easy.

Sure, your data is a whole lot easier to manage, and your website gives members a place to easily access the info they need outside of normal business hours. But that doesn’t mean all challenges cease to exist.

With that in mind, we worked with Associations Now to serve up a collection of free advice on this very topic.

Here’s a snippet from each of the nine articles we published. We hope the information from these articles can help you to elevate your association management skills even further in 2019.

Association Management Tips for 2019 

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

“Don’t feel pressure to be a motivational speaker, life coach or spiritual guru. Just be you: You don’t have to climb onto your Aeron chair and try to sound like Tony Robbins to get that message across, unless it comes naturally to you. What will help is setting clear objectives and tracking the team’s progress. When everyone sees things moving forward, you’ll have less selling to do.” Read More

Make an Uncomfortable Case for Change

“Offer to slice and dice the data further. After you’ve provided your CEO with the data and you’ve whet his appetite, it’ll be easier to convince him that giving the data-driven approach another chance is the only way to go. The more your CEO sees the data as a tool that helps him win—and crush the competition—the easier your job will be.” Read More

Don’t Get Left Behind

“Budget time. Set aside one hour a week to sharpen your skills. For many people, choosing the slowest day of the week is a good way to ensure they stick with it. One hour may not seem like a lot, but by the end of a year, you’ll have logged a good 50 hours of training, assuming you take a two-week vacation.” Read More

Your Event Registration is Harder Than it Has to Be

“ ‘At Protech, we’re simplifying the setup so associations don’t have to monitor in the back office anymore,’ says Protech Associates’ resident events expert Robin Wilkinson. ‘The system takes care of it for them.’ The more pricing levels you have, the more setup there will be in advance. But don’t let that deter you from taking the time to sign up. In fact, this up-front set up can save hours of time in the coming months, as these solutions can help you streamline and track registrations.” Read More

Stay Relevant with Your Members

“In the association world, keeping up with the Joneses means that you have to really understand your membership base. And you can’t do that with just a one-and-done member survey. ‘Just like any business, an association needs to pivot and adapt in order to stay relevant to their members,’ says Will Slade, senior consultant at Protech Associates. ‘Having a database of members is a good start, but everyone has a database of members.’ ” Read More

Improve Member Outreach

“You’ll need to commit to regular upkeep to ensure that your email database is squeaky clean, but the right tools and proper attention make it possible. Maximize opportunities for stronger outreach with easily integrated AMS tools featuring spam checkers and other reports. Thanks to the insights gained from data analytics tools, associations ‘are able to effectively reach their members through insights into deliverability issues—including bounced emails,’ says Stephen Mangiulli, Protech Associates’ Customer Growth Expert.” Read More

Give Members the VIP Treatment

“The American Association of Nurse Assessment Coordination (AANAC) took it one step further with their personalized approach. ‘We have a new member welcome series triggered out of our Protech UX system,’ said Shannon Johnson, AANAC’s Director of Membership Marketing. ‘Emails are triggered every month for the first 12 months following joining. This year, we decided to segment this series with a vulnerable group we identified.’ Why? This group of members had limited engagement and weren’t organically searching for the association, finding AANAC resources or recognizing their vast array of benefits.” Read More

Boost Face-to-Face Member Engagement

“Events such as your association’s annual meeting are perfect for facilitating face-to-face engagement. Innovative organizations such as Protech Associates, Results Direct and ClickDimensions have begun utilizing this tactic, giving customers a chance to connect directly with product developers. This can easily be applied to associations as well, facilitating deeper connections between members and staff.” Read More

Make Your Association’s Website Great

“You can safely assume that many, if not most of your members, will be accessing the association website from a mobile device. So if your website is only attractive and navigable to people looking at it on a desktop, you’re alienating a good chunk of visitors. Ensure that your website is well adapted to a mobile interface, with easy scrolling capabilities, plenty of white space and larger text. It’s not so much shrinking content to fit a smaller screen as it is creating an entirely different user experience.” Read More

Conclusion: Become an Association Management Software Superstar in 2019

Reading these articles is a great start, sure, but we also strongly recommend you attend as many association management-related events in 2019 as possible.

The amount of knowledge transfer at events like the ASAE Annual Meeting or AMS Fest is tremendous, and you really won’t believe what you’ve been missing if you haven’t had a chance to attend.

Looking for more association events in 2019? Check out Protech’s webinar, “An Insider’s Perspective: 5 Can’t-Miss Association Events of 2019.”