Make It Easy For Your Association Chapter Members To Find Chapter Information

Updated: Apr. 26, 2023  |  Categories: Membership, Board Productivity, Website  

Your members rely on your association chapter for education, advocacy, networking and more. And to keep them engaged and interested in your chapter and all it has to offer, finding the information related to each of these areas should be as easy and seamless an experience as possible. How are you doing in that area? Are you providing information where they typically look for it and/or expect to find it?

If they want, for example, to find details about upcoming events or a summary of past events on your website and all they find are events from a year ago, that’s not a great user experience. Or, if they expect an email from you with meeting minute attachments and links to a recording of your last speaker and it goes to their Spam or they know you sent it, but they can’t easily find it again, that’s not a good user experience.

Do you know where your members want to get their information?

If you don’t know the right ways to get information to your members, you’re missing a big opportunity to engage them. You can survey members to be sure, but based on what we’ve heard from many of our clients – the top two ways association chapter members want to receive their association chapter-related content are via –

• websites
• email

Knowing how they want to get their information, the content on your website needs to stay up-to-date and easy to find, and that you need to use your association chapter email appropriately, to highlight information and drive people to your website to find what they need without overwhelming them. You probably have members who:

1. Attended a meeting and want to review the PowerPoint presentation
2. Couldn’t attend and want to see what they missed
3. Aren’t exactly ready to return to your association chapter events in person.

An easy way to give those in each of these groups what they want would be to house the content on your website, send an email with links to web pages with the information, and make it straightforward for your association chapter members to find the timely content when they get to your site.  

Do you really need to do more on social?

For the most part, people come to your association chapter website for details. They may see social posts in your Facebook or LinkedIn feed, but if they want more in depth information and guidance, it can be hard to find on social media. There’s too much noise on social and often, not enough room for details. Social media is a good way to expand your association chapter’s reach, but people will come to your website, the hub of information for your chapter, to get what they need. And they’ll want to find current, relevant information on your blog, in your public and private chapter forums, on your events information page, etc.  

Get help from your association chapter sponsors

You know you need to make these changes to how you disseminate association chapter information, but you may also think that you just can’t add another task to your chapter’s To Do list. You could ask for association chapter volunteers, but we all know how hard it can be to find them to help with regular chapter activities.

This is a great opportunity to ask your sponsors to get involved. They’re always looking for opportunities to connect with your members. Ask them if they’re interested in reaching out to members in a regular blog post or email series. And if you’re worried about the content they write meeting your association chapter requirements the mission of your chapter, have someone in your chapter do a quick review before publishing. Doing this would still save your association chapter time, as you don’t need to find someone in the chapter to write yet another piece of content.

Interestingly, asking your association chapter sponsors to write content could eventually lead to an additional source of non-dues revenue for your chapter. Make it free in the beginning, but it’ll be easy to start charging, once sponsors see the increased engagement they have with your members.

In this time of transition, where we can meet in person but not everyone wants to, it’s more important than ever to meet your members where they are. And these days, that means providing value by including relevant timely content on your association chapter website and in email. Be seen as a resource to your members and make it easier for members and those you want to better engage come to your website, to avoid the craziness of social media and see your chapter as the “place to be.”  That’s what they’re looking for.

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