Why Don't Members Open Association Emails?

How to leverage personalization to break through your audience’s filter.

In this age, people are absolutely bombarded with communications. The culmination of  emails, texts, push notifications, billboards, banner ads, sponsored posts  and commercials mean that the average person receives thousands of messages per day.

This constant onslaught creates fatigue, and in order to cope with the sheer volume of information, people have become experts at filtering - utilizing only seconds to determine what content they will engage with and what content they will delete or ignore.

Your average association member is no different. After a day of filtering through coupons, event invitations, centerfolds, pop-up ads and app notifications - what are the chances that they still have the mental bandwidth to open your newsletter?

The unfortunate truth is, if your association is communicating primarily in bulk - through un-customized eBlasts, digital or web posts - your messages will not breach the filter of your audience. If you’ve noticed a declining open rate on your newsletters, or waning engagement rates on your blog updates  - this could be why.

Leerage Technology to Personalize CommunicationThe secret to getting through that filter is continuous drip marketing. It’s a proven trick social media has leveraged for a long time  - but now, you can put it to work for your association.

In continuous drip marketing, each story or communication is personalized to the receiver and is therefore less likely to be filtered than a full magazine or newsletter.  For example, instead of sending your member a digital copy of your magazine - send them one article that you know is applicable to them. Chances are, your click-thru rates will increase significantly.

But how do you collect the information required to personalize your communications, if members aren’t engaging with your systems of feedback? Continuous drip marketing works for gathering intelligence as well.

Leberage Feedback Automation to Discover PreferencesInstead of sending a full survey to a member send one relevant question based on something you know about them. Are they a new member? Are they part of a committee?

If you structure a survey in this way, it is far more likely to make it past your audience’s filter.
If they answer the survey you have one more piece of information to drive your next targeted communication.

You can’t reiterate the value of membership and cultivate engagement if your communications never make it past your audience’s filter. But if you leverage drip marketing to consistently deliver content that is relevant, you can build far more meaningful relationships with your members.

To learn more on this topic, watch our webinar summary video or access the full webinar on 3 Lessons Associations Can Learn from Social Media and Drip Marketing.

or discover how Feedback Automation can be utilized at your association with the experts at PropFuel.

 

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