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5 Tips for Choosing a Membership Management Software
When it comes to membership software, you need to make sure you choose a system that makes it easy for you to grow your association at a fast-yet-practical pace. Although the content you publish through your association is undeniably important, the system you’re using to run your association could easily make or break your membership program. Software solutions like MembershipWorks are easy to recommend, but what exactly should you be looking for in your membership management software in the first place? Here are some useful tips for choosing membership management software:
1. Look for mobile-friendly software solutions
We’re in the 2020s now - mobile apps are 100% essential for any business or association that takes itself seriously. You need to make sure that your software you’re using is available to both members (and ideally workers) in app form on their smartphone. A membership app makes it easy for people to manage their membership, engage with content, and perform other essential actions all from their phone while they’re on the go. It also makes it easy for team members to engage with members and make changes if they’re away from the office and something needs fixing. All in all, you can’t expect your members to be near a laptop or PC in order to engage with your content - make sure it’s mobile-friendly.
2. Choose one centralized system
If you’ve got a good membership management software solution, it will be a centralized system whereby you can control literally all aspects of your membership association through one single piece of software. This makes it easier for new hires to pick up your software (there’s just one system to learn) and it reduces the bottlenecks and workflow issues that inevitably occur when data is spread across multiple disparate systems. If you operate from one central system, there are much fewer opportunities for mistakes and confusion to arise on the management side.
3. Make sure it’s scalable
If your membership management software isn’t scalable, don’t even bother with it. You need to make sure that the system you’re using is able to grow with your organization. If you’ve got a system that can’t handle a growth in membership, then you’re wasting your time. Most modern systems have the infrastructure necessary to grow as large as needed, making it easier for your association to naturally increase its numbers. If your software can expand without you needing to make any significant changes to your workload, it’s just more incentive for you to increase the membership base.
4. Look for an automated CRM
If you can find an automated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, then you’re going to save yourself a ton of time in human working hours. As you probably know, a CRM is the system used to interact with customers in regards to things like payments, events, reminders, renewals, etc. If you have an automated CRM, the software will watch out for triggers in member behavior (missed payments, responses to invitations, etc) and then send out automatic emails based on those triggers. It saves your team a lot of time behind the scenes!
5. Use a referral system
If possible, find software that has an integrated referral system or create a plug-in so you can run this yourself. Word-of-mouth is the single easiest way to grow membership numbers, with 27% of new members joining due to word-of-mouth referrals. A referral program is a natural way to get current members talking to potential new members about your amazing membership association! We hope you enjoyed these tips for choosing membership management software! Hopefully these tips will help you to choose the best software for you.
