As an association leader, how often do you put yourself in your members’ shoes? Consider what they need and expect from your association, their career goals, and how you support their efforts to learn and grow. Now, ask yourself if you offer the engagement opportunities they need to fulfill those expectations.

Whether members want to expand their professional network, access exclusive resources, or attend top industry events, it’s up to your association to deliver the benefits and opportunities they need to succeed. Additionally, an engaged membership benefits you by driving higher retention rates, revenue, and referrals.

In this article, we’ll discuss member engagement basics and top strategies for boosting engagement with your members in-person and online.

Your Top Member Engagement Questions, Answered

What is member engagement?

Member engagement includes all of the ways that members interact with your association, including joining meetings, participating in group discussions, attending events, or completing workshops or educational courses. Each new blog post or event presents an opportunity for members to engage. To encourage members to engage, it’s crucial that associations shape these offerings around members’ preferences and promote them to boost awareness.

What does member engagement look like?

There are many different ways for members to engage with your association, especially in the current digital, AI-driven age. Some of the most common types of member engagement include:

• Online community engagement: Use an online community platform to offer spaces for virtual, ongoing peer interactions, content and resource sharing, and industry- or career-focused discussions, helping members build connections year-round.
  • Examples of engagement opportunities: Discussion boards, private forums, and special interest groups.
• Onboarding: Introduce new members to your association and share content about your mission, core offerings, and engagement opportunities they may be interested in.
  • Examples of engagement opportunities: Welcome email series, orientation sessions, and guided onboarding paths in your member portal.
• Content engagement: Members can engage with materials your association creates by reading and responding to them. Additionally, you can offer them the chance to create and share their own content.
  • Examples of engagement opportunities: Blog posts, infographics, reports, or webinars created by your association and members.
• Event attendance: Provide a mix of in-person, virtual, and hybrid events to accommodate members, no matter their lifestyle. Consider their preferences and ensure events align with their expectations and interests.
  • Examples of engagement opportunities: Traditional conferences, virtual networking hours, and workshops.
• Networking and mentorship: Provide members with opportunities to build new relationships with their peers. Mentorship programs allow seasoned professionals to offer advice and insights to those new to the career.
  • Examples of engagement opportunities: Dedicated networking events, interactive member directories, and structured mentorship programs.

Additionally, make sure to frequently engage members in feedback loops to better understand where you can improve or hone your offerings. Typically, this means soliciting feedback, processing members’ comments, determining whether you can implement their suggestions, and circling back with an answer.

Explain why you are (or are not) moving forward with their suggestion and when you’ll make the changes. This shows that you value members’ thoughts and experiences and are actively working to enhance association benefits.

What are the benefits of an engaged membership?

Engaged members tend to be:

• More likely to renew. Engaged members are aware of and interact with your association’s offerings. As a result they perceive higher value from their membership, motivating them to renew.
• Drive more non-dues revenue. Engagement opens the door to additional revenue streams, such as event registration, educational courses, and even branded merchandise.
• Feel more connected and supported. Because these members tend to interact deeply with resources like job boards, upskilling opportunities, networking or mentorship programs, and more, they’ll feel more connected to peers in the industry.
• Refer friends or colleagues. When members interact with association resources and can clearly see how their membership benefits them and their careers, they’re much more likely to recommend membership to those in their personal networks. In other words, they’ll be advocates for your association.

Additionally, these members can be strong supporters of positive change for your association. They have the most experience with your offerings and are often willing to give detailed, constructive feedback. This help enables you to cultivate the best offerings and benefits possible to attract and retain more members.

How do associations measure member engagement?

The way you measure member engagement will vary depending on the activity and channel. However, these are some of the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’re most likely to use:

Measuring Member Engagement Cheat Sheet

Metric	Definition	Used When	How to Calculate
Membership Retention Rate	The percentage of members who renew their membership within a given time period (e.g., one year).	Assessing the impact of engagement efforts to sustain membership.	(Renewed Members / Total Members Up for Renewal) × 100
Churn Rate	The percentage of members who did not renew within a given time period.	Identifying gaps in engagement strategy or pinpointing dips in engagement.	Total Membership − Retained Members OR 100% − Retention Rate%
New Member Acquisition	The number of new members gained over a set time period.	Measuring growth from engagement efforts.	Sum of all new members (tracked as a raw number)
Event Attendance Rate	Percentage of members who attend a specific event.	Evaluating event appeal, relevance, and promotion success.	(Number of Attendees / Registrants) × 100
Participation Rate	The percentage of members who participate in a given activity (e.g., webinar, discussion forum, survey, etc.).	Measuring the interest in or perceived value of specific engagement opportunities.	(Active Participants / Total or Eligible Members) × 100
Digital Engagement	Metrics like email open rates, click-through rates, or website visits.	Evaluating interest, content effectiveness, and campaign resonance.	Email Open Rate (Emails Opened / Emails Sent) × 100
			Click-Through Rate (Total Clicks / Total Impressions) × 100
Member Satisfaction Score	An average rating of overall member satisfaction with your association.	Obtaining a quantitative measurement for how members perceive value and satisfaction.	Average survey score (e.g., scale of 1 to 10)

6 Innovative Member Engagement Strategies

1. Understand your members.

When it comes to member engagement opportunities, you must understand their interests, motivations, and engagement habits to offer opportunities they want to engage with.

This means using your AMS platform to compile and analyze data about your members, including:

• Demographic data
• Communication preferences
• Past engagement and behavioral data
• Interests, focus areas, or specialties
• Membership lifecycle or tenure (e.g., are they a new member or a member of five years?)
• Engagement scoring metrics (e.g., score each member by assigning points to different actions with positive or negative weighting)
• Survey feedback

Additionally, confirm that the contact and profile information you have on hand is up-to-date and accurate. Remind members to update information like their current role, employer, and home address in the member directory.

2. Develop member segments.

Next, divide your membership base into manageable groups or segments. Segments are made up of members that share common characteristics, like their experience level or place in the membership lifecycle. Associations use segments to launch personalized communications or design engagement pathways tailored to each group’s preferences.

Here is an example of what kinds of segments a healthcare organization might create:

• Early-Career Practitioners: This segment consists of recently licensed professionals who are about three to five years post-graduation. They are eager to learn, network, and build their careers. The association engages this segment with mentorship programs, virtual skill-building workshops, and guides for accelerating career progression.

• Experienced Clinicians & Specialists: These members are practitioners with at least five years of experience, often with leadership roles or working within niche specialties. The association engages them by inviting them to serve on expert panel discussions, featuring them in member spotlights, and providing advanced continuing education opportunities.

• Non-Practitioner Members: Members of this segment work in healthcare but are not practitioners—think administrators, educators, or researchers. The association engages this segment with policy roundtables, strategy-focused discussions with practitioners, and leadership training specifically for non-clinical roles.

• Retired or Semi-Retired Members: These members are either retired or working on a reduced schedule. They are still passionate about healthcare, but no longer practice in their day-to-day lives. The association engages them with volunteer or mentoring opportunities, lifetime-member gatherings, and resources that reflect the industry’s long-term changes.

3. Make engaging convenient and accessible.

If engaging with your association is difficult or inconvenient, members may give up before they even get started. Here are some quick tips for making engaging simple for busy, on-the-go members:

• Leverage single sign-on (SSO) so members can access all of your resources, event registration, learning management system, and other offerings, with just one login.
• Equip your website or portal with intuitive navigation using clean menu labels, visual icons, and search functionality.
• Offer self-service tools so members can update their profiles, renew their membership, and pay for event registration independently and on their schedule.
• Centralize and organize all association content in one place to make finding resources easy. For example, create a searchable content library within your member portal.
• Focus on digital accessibility by ensuring all of your online spaces meet digital accessibility guidelines.

Additionally, make sure engagement opportunities are mobile-friendly whenever you can. For instance, ensure your member portal uses a responsive design that will work for smaller screens. Or, choose an association management tool that offers an integrated, custom app, which we’ll discuss in the next section.

4. Use a member engagement app.

In 2025, more than 64% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. This means that a majority of your members likely access your association’s website on their phones. Cater to these members’ experiences by optimizing your website for mobile

Take mobile-friendliness a step further by giving your members streamlined, intuitive mobile experiences through a member engagement app. Invest in association management software (AMS) like Protech that includes a custom, branded mobile app your members can use to access information and connect.

To turn your app into a digital hub for members, leverage these capabilities:

• Member chat: Your members are used to texting and mobile messaging platforms, so chatting with other members on an app may feel more natural than message boards.
• Surveys and polls: Answering survey questions and voting in public polls are fun, quick ways members can engage with each other and make their opinions heard.
• Content library: Host members-only content directly in the app, so members can access resources easily from anywhere.
• Event schedules: With your app, members can readily find information about speakers and event activities. Plus, they can get push notifications for important updates.

To make the most of this tool, keep your app up-to-date and consider member feedback. If members love your app’s content library, for example, don’t hesitate to expand it with more resources.

5. Provide exclusive content and opportunities.

Access to exclusive content and activities is a key membership benefit that association members expect to receive. Exclusive content can come in a variety of different forms, from conferences to discussion boards to monthly newsletters.

Build a robust library of members-only educational content and an exciting schedule of informative events to ensure that members always have resources to engage with. Provide options for both in-person and online events, like webinars, to increase accessibility and attendance.

As you compile these opportunities and resources, remember that your content must be relevant and personalized to add genuine value for members. To ensure your content appeals to members, you should:

• Survey members frequently about their content preferences.
• Take stock of opinions on the content in community discussion boards and comment sections.
• Analyze page views, bounce rates, webinar and event attendance, and other engagement metrics to see how many members engage with specific content.
• Send out post-event surveys to gauge overall satisfaction and solicit feedback on how you can improve future events.

Keep in mind that your association can also benefit from making select content available to non-members. Prospective members will explore your website before deciding to join, and giving them a taste of your benefits can assure them that becoming a member is worthwhile. Track industry trends and monitor other associations’ websites to find the best way to strike a balance between exclusive and open content.

6. Create branded eCards for members to send.

Providing opportunities for member-to-member recognition can greatly improve the quality of your online community. When you encourage members to support each other, you create space for more positive interactions, leading to increased engagement overall.

Create a collection of members-only digital greeting cards that make it easy for members to recognize each other and improve their online experience. Members can send these eCards to each other to celebrate accomplishments, facilitate discussion, and build relationships.

The process for getting started is simple:

1. Design a set of branded eCards. Design eCards for a variety of purposes and occasions, from saying congratulations to wishing someone a happy holiday. For instance, take inspiration from eCardWidget’s top Christmas eCard designs, then put your own spin on them. Add your association’s name, logo, branding, and custom imagery.
2. Add a sending widget to your website. eCard platforms allow you to embed a widget into your member portal or website. From here, members can easily choose an eCard, write a personal message, and send it via email or text to another member.
3. Promote the eCards to your members. Send an announcement email or add a section in your newsletter about what members can do with eCards. Explain how they can send cards to celebrate special occasions, congratulate other members, or thank someone.

By adding eCards to your engagement options, you’ll give members a unique, thoughtful way to interact with each other online.

Plus, if you want to add some creativity to your fundraising strategy as well, consider using eCards for fundraising. Supporters can send an eCard when they contribute in honor of someone or receive an eCard to share with friends when they donate to support your association.

Wrapping Up

Remember to maintain accurate member data in your AMS or CRM, and supplement these strategies with personalized outreach that caters to members on an individual level. When it’s time for them to renew their membership, they’ll remember the feelings of community they experienced and the engaging benefits you provided.

To learn more about the best ways to engage and manage your membership, check out these additional resources:

• One-Stop Buyer’s Guide to Membership Management Software. Uncover everything you need to know when choosing a membership management platform.
• How to Set Up Your Membership Directory + Key Elements. Does your membership directory need dusting off? Explore this guide to crafting a fresh, useful, and intuitive directory that inspires members to connect.
• Building a Space for Connection: Overcome Barriers to Online Community. Help members connect from anywhere, overcoming barriers and geographical boundaries with these tips for cultivating online connections.