Have you ever noticed how some of the most successful associations have a special bond with their members? How do these groups connect so well and seem to be so in synch with members? Odds are they invest in getting to know their membership. In today’s association landscape, that often means creating a member persona. Understanding your members is a core component in building a strong, vibrant organization, and creating a member persona can help drive engagement, improve retention, and increase satisfaction for professional organizations. In this article, you will learn, step by step, how to create effective member personas that best reflect your membership. We’ll explore best practices for building and maintaining these personas and the importance of updating them. If you are not utilizing member personas for your organization, get ready to discover a powerful new tool. If you are using them, get prepared to power them up. Here is what you need to craft effective association personas. Member Persons: The Basics Definition A member persona is a description of an ideal member or prospective member of an organization. Rather than a broad generalization of a target audience, a member persona dives deeper into the professional and personal traits of a desired member. It is, in essence, a composite of the characteristics of your typical members and potential members. Purpose The purpose of a member persona is to help associations recognize and visualize that their members are more complex than just being sorted by education, job status, or age. There are a myriad of other factors that go into a member persona, including the number of children, marital status, hobbies, interests, and how they are likely to spend their free time. The more details in a member persona, the better an association may be able to relate to their members. This can be beneficial in planning events, programs, and in providing communications and services. The Benefits of Developing Member Personas Personalization Member personas are extremely valuable in humanizing your members. Rather than sorting them into education levels, regions, or job status, it infuses a certain personality into the membership roll. This serves to create better connections and into the development of more personalized member experiences. Targeted Communication Member personas can be a crucial tool in keeping your messaging on target and on point. Association communications should be seen through the point of view of a persona to make sure they connect. It can help steer messaging to keep it relevant. Improved Member Engagement One of the best ways to improve member engagement is by strengthening relationships with members and crafting engagement opportunities that will appeal to your members. Member personas help provide the roadmap for engagement ideas that will entice members. Steps to Creating Accurate Member Personas Since you will be relying heavily on your member personas, crafting them accurately is vital. Step 1: Gather Data Crafting effective member personas begins with gathering data from a variety of sources. These can include current member data, polls and surveys, personal interviews, and industry data and statistics. Build personas that include input from both current members and desired potential members. Look for common denominators. Step 2: Segment Your Audience As you gather information from various sources, you will likely begin to see commonalities and trends in demographics, behaviors, likes and dislikes, and more. When certain traits show up repeatedly, they begin to shape a potential persona. In some cases, statistics can be averaged. Each trait, like and dislike, and need can serve as building blocks. These segments can help facilitate better connectivity with current members as well as in member acquisition. Step 3: Identify Common Traits and Challenges Pinpoint characteristics that seem to dominate in your research phase. What goals do they have in common? Be sure to include pain points. Place traits in groups or segments. As these characteristics emerge, they will begin to build a more defined persona. Step 4: Create Detailed Profile Once you have performed your research and identified and sorted traits and characteristics, it is time to build your persona. Include demographics, goals, challenges, and preferred communication channels. Is this a person who pretends to be involved in his community? Do they value building friendships and increasing their knowledge? It may even prove to be helpful to identify individual personas by a fictitious name. An Example of an Association Member Persona “Manager Mark is a 40-year-old sales manager who is married with two children in middle school. He owns a small home and hopes to buy a larger home within the next two years. He is active in his community. He enjoys sports and takes every opportunity to travel. He is technologically proficient and enjoys the latest in electronic devices. He communicates mainly via text, but checks his email regularly. He drinks socially and enjoys gathering with friends to watch sports and to have barbecues. He is driven to be successful in his career and recently completed courses to earn his Bachelors Degree.” Maintaining and Updating Member Personas Continuous Improvement It is important to reevaluate and revisit any member persona created to make adjustments. After investing in the initial creation of these personas, it is crucial to maintain their accuracy and relevancy. Feedback Loop After you create your persona or personas, you should continue to gather information to improve their accuracy. Use surveys and polls to expand your membership data. Conduct surveys at events. Make a conscious effort to expand upon what you know about your current member roster. Surveys can be an efficient vehicle to accomplish this. What are the traits and characteristics that can provide valuable input in focusing in on your member prosonas. This ongoing research will serve to continually improve the accuracy of your personas. Conclusion Building member personas can be a game changer for associations looking to strengthen relationships, boost engagement, and improve retention. By gathering data through surveys and interviews, you can uncover key traits and characteristics of your members, which can then be organized into specific personas. These personas enhance communication, keep your messaging on target, and transform your member roster into a dynamic, relatable group with real goals and aspirations. We encourage you to begin your own journey in creating a member persona for your association. What else would you like to know about them? We encourage you to get started and share your experiences. The persona creation process can be enlightening, informative, and educational. It also can be a bit of fun. Enjoy the process along with the potential benefits you can realize when they are put to use. Connect Better with MemberClicks At MemberClicks, it is our mission to help organizations, associations, non-profits, and event planners become more efficient. Our software is designed to help with everything from member sign-ups and processing to event management. We can help you make the most of the data available to you and to increase your efficiency and effectiveness. The next step is up to you. Contact us at MemberClicks to book a demo. Let us show you how MemberClicks can help take your association to the next level!