The emergence of virtual meetings, remote work, and online learning in the past two years highlighted an association’s technological capabilities – or lack of resources in some cases. Nearly half of the organizations in one study report accelerating their timeline for purchase of technology to meet the changing needs of the organization and its members.
Each organization’s needs will be different, but one technology company identifies the five most common challenges associations face that can be solved with the help of technology:
- Understanding members. The proliferation of data on members provides great insights but may not be easy to distill and use to tailor services or messages to specific audiences. Creating and documenting member personas using your data can provide a clearer path to focused messaging.
- Content utilization. Associations have vast libraries of content created for magazines, newsletters, and other publications but do not maximize its value by using it in other ways. Repurposing content for retargeting campaigns across social media platforms uses an existing resource to further engage visitors to your sites.
- Content findability. Users get frustrated when a website has a lot of information that is hard to find. Improve site search functionality by making sure your site has the ability to search. Place search buttons or other calls to action on every page of the website.
- Poor web navigation. Websites designed with siloed information or based on organizational charts may not “speak to” visitors. Revamping website navigation based on member personas ensures that people can easily find the information they need.
- Fragmented technology platforms. People want a consistent experience across all digital platforms offered by your association, so update your brand by consolidating all platforms into one that has the same logos, colors, fonts, and navigation on all pages.
Planning to invest in technology to improve access to services, support virtual programs, and provide easy access to information is a good goal. A better goal is to plan upfront and identify how technology will help the association meet its goal, then identify technology needed.
