Glue Up hosts events across the globe so that we can engage association and chamber of commerce professionals, and find out what truly challenges them. Recently we held one such event in Jakarta, Indonesia and discovered what makes it such a up-start associations market.

Indonesian associations are considered to be both successful and optimistic. However, they are somewhat lagging behind when it comes to embracing new technologies and creating member experiences. But adding value to your members doesn’t have to be such a struggle. It should be effortless and it can be! Digital technologies offer a way for you to boost membership value.

Indonesia is moving at its own pace; but with the world's 4th largest population, it exerts so much potential and is fully recognized as a powerful country. First, though, it is necessary for them to innovate and embrace technology. This will require associations to step up to the challenge and say yes to transforming themselves.

So, are you ready?

Importance of Memberships

Do associations really need members? Couldn't it be easier just to go member-less, be open to the public, and just get the ROI from other areas like events and partnerships?

Well, yes, and here's why: Members are the value of your organization. It creates a sense of community and members will often time bring value back to the organization in other ways, meaning there is always room to grow and having good member relationships is a good way to spread positive word of mouth. Too, members keep you on your toes! You have to keep engaging them, updating social media and providing meaningful reasons to stay, which only goes to improve the experience of being a member in the long run.

Memberships exist to benefit everyone involved. Association memberships provide a place for people to network and hopefully grow in some way. They encourage links and meaningful connections, some might even say they have become crucial to a person's professional success.

So why then, are the Gen Z and millennials not joining associations?

Indonesian Association’s Challenges

Sadly everyday businesses are losing grip of millennials. They are simply failing to keep up and are not adding enough value to make them stay. This is something Indonesian associations are really struggling with, not only because they are not tapping into the use of technology but often due to the financial restraints preventing many from making the investment.

Indonesia is growing at a rapid pace but is still constrained by limited access to technology and a lack of technological know-how.

If they fail to keep up, retain and find new members, they could risk losing their business.

Low Membership Retention

Having a high membership retention rate is crucial to an organization's long-term success. It costs 7-10 times more on average to attract a new member than it does to actually hold on to an existing one; so if you are losing more members than you are gaining, you need to act fast.

This can be done by adding value to your members making them more engaged. Getting your members more involved through social media, connecting them via networking events or simply providing them with more personalized and relatable content.

Lack of Data

If you as a company are not leveraging the latest technology in Indonesia, it is likely that you are unable to track and access as much data as your competitors. But, having membership information is vital if you are to increase your engagement rate and entice new members.

So, now is the time to change. Associations need to start embracing new technological change and incorporating analytics into their decisions. Tracking and analyzing data will not only help you to make smarter business decisions but it will keep your members happy with a more valuable experience.

Lifetime Payments

Offering lifetime memberships seem like a good idea at the time, but is it really a long term solution to your temporary cash flow problems?

No, this really is not a good idea and is often a reoccurring issue among Indonesian associations. Members may change careers, be no longer engaged or simply not want to be part of your organization anymore and it’s important to remember that offering a lifetime membership payment will not keep them.

This kind of quick fix strategy should not be used to try and increase ROI. Managing your new members, hosting events and spending money promoting social media campaigns is all going cost your association. So, yes it is a tempting idea to try and increase your current revenue by drawing in lifetime members, but there are background costs and additional time that must be spent on these members; and costs will often increase more than your association was perhaps prepared for.

Misuse of Technology

One major association issue in Indonesia is that they are not using their existing technology enough in order to fully enjoy the benefits. Most don’t have enough time or money to be wasting on membership tracking or analytics but utilizing technology to your advantage doesn't have to be so much of exclusive luxury. Besides, if your business doesn’t start to adapt, you risk a huge loss in revenue and members.

Therefore, it is important to embrace the idea of using technology as a way of not only adding value to your members but increasing your overall revenue. It is a shame to see some associations social media platforms not being utilized in a more engaging manner as it is so easy to do and can be done without costing your association any extra cash - you just need a creative thinker and 10 minutes to spare.

CRM and Optimization

CRM is all about the future. It is for associations who are ready to enter a whole new era of intelligence. Implementing CRM software not only makes your life a lot easier but it offers effortless membership experiences. CRM opens your association up to a world of possibilities. It allows you to first have all of your membership information in one place, meaning that CRM will input all the relevant information to give you a better understanding of who your members really are. It allows you to track them and plan your marketing according.

Adding CRM to other tools is extremely effective also. It can be used in connection with email marketing. Once you have established what attracts a member to open or attend an event you can target your campaigns and events accordingly. They will feel involved and appreciated as you took the time to personalize the email. Likewise, CRM leaves room for better customer service. Members can get in touch with someone in real-time and this is something that is very important to the millennial generation.

People value being valued and members will most definitely appreciate a member welcome email. But, don’t forget to check up on your loyal members also, sending a thank you email once in a while can be extremely effective at keeping retention high.

Social Media

Although Indonesia might be a little later when it comes to joining the social media party. It doesn’t have to mean that it can’t still be as effective. Social media is a great way to keep members digitally engaged which is so important in the new tech-savvy era.

The most popular social media platforms in Indonesia right now are; Youtube with 88% using it. 83% of people in Indonesia are using WhatsApp, 80-81% using Facebook and Instagram. With only 52% and 33% using Twitter and LinkedIn. Here are a few ways to target members using these platforms.

Micro Content

The average reader’s attention span is 8 seconds, which means if people don’t like what they see they won’t stay interested for long. So how do you engage members within 8 seconds?

You target your members firstly by using the personal membership data you previously obtained via tracking and analyzing your analytics in CRM. Then, try your best to understand your members, figure out what they might like reading about or do they watch more videos than read articles? This can allow you to create social media content that they are actually interested in. Since Youtube is the biggest platform in Indonesia it can be assumed that they prefer video content. So, then just make it more appealing, more targeted and relatable. It is that easy.

Too, remember then to share your Youtube videos on Facebook and Instagram to grow your traffic. Facebook and Instagram now allow you to add stories. These are perfect for micro-content as they are only 15 seconds long. So, add little snippets of your day, tips or daily motivation videos here. Likewise, on Facebook start live videos, stream your association's events and present Q+As on Facebook.

Sense of Community

Building a sense of community through social media is not only an excellent way to draw traffic to your website but it keeps members super engaged. They like to feel apart of something and they enjoy embracing their connections online. So, encourage conversations online by posting a video or picture while asking a question to start a debate. This will be sure to raise brand awareness and create a strong, loyal community of members.

Membership Tracking

Understanding your members is a key advantage. As you can see from the points tackled above, in order to optimize social media, engage members and gain new ones you need to know and understand your members. It enables you to pull everything together and get the most out of technology.

You can access your analytics data on social media posts and interactions. This can help you decide who is interested in what, what time is best to post new content and events as well as what new trends people might be following. Then, with the new data created using CRM you are able to have a better insight into who your members really are and how can you best keep them happy.

Another way to do gain a better insight into your members would be by creating a new membership survey as well as an exit survey. Most firms tend to forget that this can be an extremely useful piece of information. This allows you to get a better understanding of the new members and see what it is that they expect to gain from the membership.

Too, an exit survey can be used to help improve the company’s bottom line in an attempt to decrease retention and the associated costs of membership.

Tackling Security Concerns

72% of people in Indonesia have high privacy concerns. 95% agree that this concern is mostly due to cybercriminals and most fear sharing their data online. As a result, your association needs to make members feel safe sharing their data with you. If a member does not trust your association is protecting their information, they will leave and the word of mouth that can spread from one concerned member will turn into a mass amount. So be careful with member data and protect it as much as they expect you too.

CRM allows you to put restrictions on your member's private information so it can’t be viewed by just anyone. This is important to protect and ensure a tight restriction and a limited number of users have access. Too, instill a safe and respectful culture within the organization and have competent employees operating the cloud systems.

So, as a result. If Indonesian associations want to keep up and add value to their members, technology is the way forward, even if that means shaking up your organization’s every-day activities and engagement strategy. To learn more about how your organization can start benefiting from membership software, book a demo today, and we'll show you how Glue Up can do just that.