Find out how AmCham Uganda has successfully maintained its impressive retention rates with Glue Up.
About AmCham Uganda
The American Chamber of Commerce in Uganda is a company limited by a guarantee founded in December 2008 by American investors in Uganda with an interest in fostering and promoting greater commercial and cultural ties, cooperation, and dialogue between Ugandan and American firms and related professionals.
As a member-based organization, their memberships are tailored to the top leadership of firms – either CEOs or MDs – and are currently hosting over 55+ of the country’s top-performing firms.
Their mission is to bring together a community of US brands and businesses, US citizens participating in community development in Uganda, and Ugandan-based businesses wanting to do business with the USA using a platform for sharing business, new investment opportunities, and cross-cultural exchange.
We recently sat down with Meg Hilbert, President of the American Chamber of Commerce of Uganda. Meg takes us through AmCham Uganda’s journey and the impact Glue Up’s Membership Management Software has had thus far.
Optimizing Our Membership Management with Glue Up
We were referred to Glue Up by AmCham Kenya given they do a lot of data tracking due to their huge member database. We did an intensive analysis with different companies and tools to see what would best suit us. We settled on Glue Up to help us improve our business moving forward. There were a few shortcomings with the other companies–some were too expensive, others had limitations to the number of contacts you can touch and lesser capabilities. We started using the Glue Up platform in 2019. One of the greatest benefits of acquiring the software is the all-in-one ecosystem that meets the administrative needs of our organization and the needs of our members.
From an administrative point of view, housing your member’s contact information, new member registrations & renewals, dues and invoices, and event registration in one place makes all of our essential documents more readily accessible to the staff. With Glue Up’s cloud-based membership management suite, our staff is able to access the current organization’s data at any time, from anywhere.
Improved Communication and Better Tracking of Member Engagement
So before we started using Glue Up, we manually managed our processes and had some minimal use of online tools such as Mailchimp for sending out campaigns, this was quite cumbersome and that’s how we ended up taking on the platform as we wanted to automate our processes. We experienced a lot of difficulty in tracking communication to our prospective and current members.
However, with the platform, we could easily set up and send emails as well as track open and click-through rates to gain insights into email campaign effectiveness. Tracking and evaluating member email campaigns has been crucial to better email performance and engagement. Knowing what is working and what isn’t has made it easier to tweak our strategy and improve results significantly. Focusing on our communication has increased our rapport with our members.
With communication capabilities, Glue Up’s membership software has allowed us to reach out to members with ease. From recurring emails like dues to one-time messages to a specific group such as welcome emails to new members. Plus, we have been using the data from our membership directory, to send auto-personalized emails at a touch of a button.
Top-Notch Member Directory
We can easily find and manage our members with auto-updated membership profiles. This way we know that contact information in our member directory is accurate and current, enabling our organization to reach out to any member with confidence. Our members have visibility of their own status. The feature allows us to personalize the privacy levels of members and allow them to decide which fields they want visible to the public. Each member can change their contact information as displayed internally by fellow members too.
Streamlining Our Event Management with Glue Up’s Event Management Software
We normally run around 6 events monthly. This used to be one of our biggest pain points. But today, we have an easier time with our event management processes. Online registration has assisted us in registering members faster, publishing schedules and agendas seamlessly, and conducting polls and surveys effortlessly. It has also helped us in nurturing connections and promoting engagement before and after the events.
The software is well equipped with communication tools, hence, we can now ensure maximum engagement at every stage of the event planning and execution process.
We have also made it possible for members to register for emails for upcoming events. Members receive reminders for events they showed interest in. With the help of the event reminders, we have increased our members’ chances of becoming event attendees.
Valuable Analytics
Before Glue Up, we were using spreadsheets to generate reports. This process was tedious and left room for human error. With the platform, we have been able to leverage the power of analytics with tools that gauge membership activity and engagement to provide significant insights that enhance decision-making. It provides real-time data that keeps us informed with critical insights into membership and event activities. The data we gather has helped us understand what is really driving our business forward and we have been focusing on tracking and responding to that data.
"We were fortunate enough not to have lost any members during the pandemic and we attribute it to having great digital communication tools to navigate those hard times covid times. I do recommend Glue Up to other AmChams around the world. Their Membership Management Suite has helped us manage our members, analyze performance, and process membership performance all in one place, in less time, and with greater flexibility."
Meg Hilbert, President of the American Chamber of Commerce of Uganda
Book a demo to learn how Glue Up is helping chambers of commerce, associations, and other organizations in Africa and the world revolutionize their membership and community management experiences.
Is your organization looking for some inspiration to stay relevant in the industry by using technology to streamline the membership management process? Discover how Glue Up’s all-in-one Membership Management software has automated AmCham Kenya’s membership management process to become more efficient and responsive to its members.
