The endless march of technology hasn’t stopped in 2020. In fact, the pace may have picked up since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
As such, it’s crucial that associations keep up with rapidly changing industry trends and modernize their processes to match the changing demands of members.
Here, we’ll go over the various ways you can modernize your association.
The Modern Association: What Does it Look Like?
The modern association caters to their members in ways never seen before. Modern associations are driven by data, technologically up-to-date, and provide their members with a well-rounded and seamless membership experience.
Here are some of the ways that modern associations achieve this effect:
Utilize Cloud-Based Solutions
All successful modern organizations utilize the cloud in some way. The key to modernization is flexibility, and cloud services offer it in droves.
Outdated legacy IT systems are often what holds organizations back from becoming truly modernized. You may think that your IT infrastructure is up to date, but when is the last time you’ve taken a look at it?
As your organization modernizes, you will take on new and ambitious goals that may spread your current IT system too thin.
Cloud-based IT systems allow you to easily and instantly scale your IT requirements as they change over time. As you implement new systems and features, your bandwidth requirements will change dramatically.
With legacy hardware-based IT systems, this entails costly and time-consuming modification processes. Cloud-based systems can adapt instantly and inexpensively as your needs change.
From the Blog ⇒ Which type of Email Newsletter should I use for my association?
Implement Real-Time Marketing
Collecting market data to improve your marketing strategy is very important, however the traditional method has its flaws.
Not only is it very costly and time consuming to collect market data, but the data you collect may be outdated by the time the report is ready.
You can circumvent this issue by taking advantage of real-time marketing tactics. Implementing apps such as Google AdWords or the business analytics features of various social media platforms.
Don’t be one of the organizations that desperately need market data but have no way of collecting it. Use the analytics from social media platforms and search engines to collect valuable data quickly for little to no cost.
Automate Where Applicable
The chances are good that someone that works for your association is wasting their time with tasks that can be automated. All modern associations automate tasks that would otherwise be time consuming for human workers. For example, visitor management systems and automated CRMs can improve the efficiency of your service.
Automation services can be used to streamline your workflow by organizing assignments and predefined processes. Any recurring processes can be automated, such as scheduling perpetual deliveries of office supplies and so on.
From the Blog ⇒ Drive Membership Growth for your Association: A Guide to Email Marketing
Streamline Intra-Association Communications
While email is very effective for communications between associations and their members, you might want to consider an alternative for employee communication. We’re all familiar with the pitfalls of email communications within an organization. In a way, email can be a black hole for communications for your employees and team members.
It’s far too easy for a highly important email to be missed and lost in a trough of hundreds or even thousands of unread emails.
Instead of dealing with this problem, ditch email entirely in favor of a new app to facilitate the flow of communications inside of your organization.
Services like Monday, Slack, and Campfire are a few ways you can transform your communications infrastructure into a far more efficient version.
Giving Your Members Actionable Advice for a Changing Industry
Now that you’ve learned how to modernize and keep up with the ever-changing modern industries, it’s time to share this expertise with your members.
By using a service such as rasa.io, it’s much easier to share valuable information with your members in a timely and cost-effective manner.
