Part of growing your organization is communicating membership value – and that’s tough! You and your active members know there are things that are totally unique to being a member of your organization, but it can be hard for a potential member to see that before joining. Instead of working extra hard to convince prospective members that there’s more than meets the eye, here are a couple of steps to easily communicating membership value through regular activities: Identify what your members value about your organization If you want to truly understand the value your association gives to your members, ask them! You can do this by: speaking to your staff that work closely with members interview long-term members send out regular member surveys If you can understand what benefits your members love most, you can start to understand how they experience your value. Plus, you can then connect that to your bigger association mission and see if it’s aligned. What if my member’s interpretation doesn’t match my organization’s vision? If there’s a discrepancy between what your mission is and what y our members value, it might be time to take a look at what your organization does a bit deeper. Value is received through membership benfits, the events you hold and your communication practices. Maybe it’s time to update some of these. If you have a membership management solution, dig into engagement reporting. Managed well, your data should tell you exactly what benefits stand out! Take it a step further and by segmenting your data so you can see what types of members value what types of benefits. (More later on why this is HUGE!) Highlighting your value in different ways Some ways to explicitly communicate your association value is through: social media posts your organization website what sponsorships you accept at your organization your members newsletters the events you plan There are tons of opportunities to showcase your benefits on these platforms without the message getting stale. For example, you could share pictures of members in action, celebrate their achievements with fun graphics, and ask benefits-related questions to start a conversation in the comments. Your website should definitely have at least one page dedicated to listing all of your benefits and packages (if you have them). A few other ideas: Keep Members Only access front and center (prospects will be curious what’s behind the login), make a point to tell member stories in your blog, and host your important resources in a learning management system that non-members can access for a fee. Consider giving prospects a taste of membership by letting them experience some key benefits for themselves. You could host a “member for a day” type event, or even grant the privilege on an individual basis to prospects who just need an extra nudge. Get as creative as you’d like with how you do it, but definitely make sure the experience involves the benefits you KNOW are loved by members. Find your value – and then share it with your members! The value of your organization’s membership relies on the strength of your benefits – not just what the benefits are, but how they’re offered to members. And creating packages or levels of memberships will inherently add more value. Want to learn how? Download our guide about implementing a tiered dues system!