Association Database

By Lauren Bashaw, Senior Manager of Customer Adoption

One of the best qualities about a full membership management software solution like WebLink is its ability to handle it all – your membership data, your event registrations, your aging reports, your website content – it’s a one-stop shop.  Unfortunately, this can cause some fun features and helpful tools to get overlooked in the day-to-day of managing your database.  As a trainer, I see several of these rise to the top as the most underused...

By Tao Stadler, Senior Membership Management Executive

In a meeting a few months ago, my CEO, Terry Dwyer, made a point about progress that strongly resonated with me and has been in my mind ever since.

In discussing a feature that we all agreed would be a dramatic improvement for our association clients, a litany of reasons why it would be hard or even impossible to accomplish came rushing forward, as though months of research had already been done and the answer was set in stone.

After a few...

WebLink recently launched a brand new iPad app designed for associations and chambers of commerce using the WebLink Connect membership management system to conduct mobile commerce by accepting credit card payments for new memberships, current member invoices and event registrations when away from your office. The WebLink iPad app has only been out a few days, but the feedback has been amazing!

By streamlining the interface and workflow, we've created a intuitive tool for sales teams, events staff...

By Mike Lobue, Membership Management Executive

If you are involved in technology decisions for your association, more likely than not, you’ve engaged with multiple vendors, each providing a separate technology solution. You’ve probably talked to a company that provides an association management software solution, while engaging with another that will handle your association website needs and another for your mobile app and so on. All the while being promised all the systems will ‘talk to’ and...

By Rory Beall, Membership Management Executive

When is the last time you reflected on your association’s membership management technology? Have you ever? Frequently, associations find themselves too busy preparing for the next big event, looking to add their next member or keeping existing members happy to do a thorough self-assessment of how they maintain their most important asset, their association membership database. Event history, financials and profile information of members,...

Recently, my son was helping me with his homework (yes, you read that correctly!) and it made me think about ways that business associations and chambers of commerce can solve problems with their data.

His 5th grade class is learning pre-algebra using tokens and dice to represent the Xs and the Ys to help them "break down" the equations into manageable chunks and ultimately lead to the solution.  Being in my mid 40s, it took me a while to grasp the concepts, but once I did, it made understanding...

By Chris Landis, Vice President, Finance and Operations

As a decision maker in any organization, one of the most important decisions you make for the health and success of your association is related to the tools and technology in which to invest. Whether you are leading a Fortune 500 business, a professional association or a local Chamber of Commerce, the choice you make will have lasting implications on your staff, your budget, and the way you run your organization.

As an association management...

By Travis Tetrault, Membership Management Executive

Like most people, I will play the victim and blame software for performance issues and causing unwanted frustration. Time and time again when I reflect on the issue, it is proven to be a manual error and not the software causing the compounding frustration. I get it, taking responsibility for user error is difficult and almost inhuman (especially for the male species), but when you take the responsibility, a world of software opportunities...

By Matthew Bugnacki, Membership Management Specialist

Recently, while I was walking with my ten year old son around our neighborhood, we discovered a tree house that seemed to be falling out of its respective tree. The tree house was not uncared for. In fact, some of the boards seemed new while some seemed a bit worn with age. My son easily identified that there was a substantial problem with the tree house as it looked warped and about ready to collapse. This led to some very...

By Terry Dwyer, CEO

As 2013 begins, it is the perfect time to assess your association, set new goals and plans to lead your team, as well as your members, to success in the new year.  I use this time of year to quietly think through where I, as CEO, can have the greatest impact. This effort can take real discipline since, if you are like me, you might want to make sure “all the important items are included.”  Most of us will lean toward making this list too long and, as a result, find ourselves...

Business associations and chambers of commerce spend precious time and money recruiting new members and trying to retain existing members.

But some members are naturally more inclined to renew based on how they feel about your association BEFORE they join.  You'll create greater chances for success at renewing these members if you can identify them before they join so you can:

1. Capture details needed to demonstrate value in your membership management database
2. Try to "convert" them to a type of...

By Joseph Loria, Vice President, Advisory Services

In the financial world, investments are expected to return profit and pay dividends. Do you feel the same about your member management software?  Likely not.  More disturbing, research from Forrester Group  shows that only about 33% of customer relationship management (CRM) system implementations are deemed a success. So, why do so many fail? Surprisingly, only a third of the failures are due to the technology itself. The majority is related to...

By Tao Stadler, Membership Management Specialist

Isn’t it interesting when a well-worn cliché proves itself to be true yet again?

Yes, grandpa, I know a penny saved is a penny earned. Many times you are damned if you do; damned if you don’t. But would you dare say a member in hand is worth 1.5 in the bush?

A recent sample we took with some of our more established association clients illustrates this nicely.

I recently gathered the VPs of Membership at a handful of associations. We came up with a...

The user experience of your association website reflects who your organization is, what it has to offer members, and represents your credibility in the industry. If it is hard to navigate, difficult to understand or isn’t engaging, you can count on any traffic you have driven to your association website to go somewhere else. How can you improve the user experience of your website? Here are five proven methods for doing just that.

1. Integrate with your membership database software. Nothing is worse...

Increasing website traffic to your association’s website can mean more member sales, improved member retention, and increased non-dues revenue for your association. With the right visitors to your website, you'll achieve your goals and have happier members. Though there are dozens of methods that promise to help you to increase website traffic, we recently did an analysis of our client websites and found the following 8 best practices.

In fact, we found that on average, our clients experienced a 6...

By Beth Gannett, Membership Management Specialist

At the ASAE Membership Marketing Conference last month, at a session based upon association website design, they took an informal survey.  The question was posed to the room asking when the last time each organization had redesigned their website.  Most of the associations in the room said they hadn’t made a significant design change to their site in five years or more! If it’s time for your association to think about a new website design, here...

Each year, the WebLink Summit brings together business association and chamber of commerce executives from around the country to discuss ways they can use technology to improve their organizations.

This year's WebLink Summit will be May 30-June 1 at the brand-new JW Marriott in Indianapolis. The WebLink Summit is far more than a software user’s meeting – it’s a unique marketing, technology and social media conference designed to help associations and chambers of commerce use technology to market...

Your association database is the single most important asset your organization owns.

Many associations and chambers of commerce don't hold patents, produce products or create proprietary information, such as extensive research projects or detailed industry reports.  However, the collection of data in your membership database IS a propriety asset.

This data is unique and extremely valuable to your organization.

Your membership database software should contain everything you need to manage your...

I recently picked up the book, Search Engine Optimization An Hour a Day, by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin. You know how you feel when you pick up a book that you just know you're going to like? That's how this book made me feel.

I like things that feel manageable. I really dislike breaking promises or missing deadlines, and an hour a day seemed like something I could commit to. Also, I love the way the book is set up with real examples, special tips, and even extra credit items.

Week 1 is...

Technology surrounds us everyday.  Most of it is even beneficial. :-)

It seems like just about everything is now being hosted in "the cloud" or turned into "as a service."  

There is even a company called Dollar Shave Club that recently began delivering razors to your door each month - for a low monthly fee, of course.  Razors As A Service - what's next?

Over the last 10 years or so, association management software and membership database software have followed this trend so association executives...