5 Ways to Boost Member Engagement Through Web Design
If you are looking for better ways to engage your members while also encouraging new member sign-ups, it’s vital to have a website strategy that suits your users’ needs.
Communicating information with your members is very important to ensure they renew their own membership as well encouraging new members to sign up to your organisation. The way you communicate information is through your website, so you need to be sure that your members find using your website engaging.
To tie in with our forthcoming seminar “Boost Member Engagement with a Custom Website Strategy”, we’ve identified 5 tips to increase engagement of your users and the sign-up of new members through excellent web design.
Discover how a website can be affordable and custom all in one
By using a custom website design you are bringing an affordable and flexible solution to your users’ needs. You see, most open source software which provides “off the peg” website designs seem very cheap in the first instance, but as time goes on you begin to notice how you are spending more and more money upgrading them. This is because open source software such as WordPress and Joomla have a defined structure and upgrades for these systems (known as plugins) are very generic and often do not match up with your and your user’s exact needs. This becomes a problem when your membership base begins to grow, as with more users brings more individual needs to cater for. This becomes a bigger problem when you find that your organisation is paying more and more money in trying to modify your website to meet user requirements when it is cheaper and easier to build custom software from scratch. In the worst case members can give up on the online service if they find the experience too off-putting, or you end up having to change the way your organisation works to suit the software.
On the other hand, choosing a custom website is far better in terms of costs because you can have a system that is created to suit your organisation from the beginning. As your membership needs change, you can upgrade and alter your website as custom websites are much cheaper and easy to change compared to an “off the peg” website. So, not only does this save you money, but it also keeps your users more engaged and happy with their experience.
Achieve your digital makeover in small steps instead of one big jump
If you are thinking of rolling out your organisation’s digital makeover in one big jump, I would warn you that this can be a very risky move! While a complete one-stop digital transformation may look great in terms of timescales, in the long run, you will most likely find that your website doesn’t engage with your users like you hoped it would.
Instead, perhaps consider your approach in smaller steps. In terms of timescales, this may mean that it takes you a little longer to achieve your digital makeover, but it pays off in terms of user experience. A custom web design will allow you to change your website bit-by-bit based on your user’s comments and your own testing. Not only does this mean that you can keep changing your site to keep your users happy and engage, but it is also much better on the budget!
Reduce your costs and focus on engagement
When you think about how you like to shop or book a reservation I can imagine that your favourite way is through your phone or computer. Ours too, why? Because it is convenient. This is why it is important that you think about how its members like to things and cater for this in your website. Think about how your user wants to get information, and what is the easiest way you can get this to them. This will also save you a lot of money. For example, by having an e-commerce system on your website where users can subscribe or buy services, you cut out the middle-man operating the phone line or having to do the face-to-face meet up. Not only does this make the whole process cheaper and faster for your organisation, but your members will love the ease of access and the convenience to them.
Stay on top of changes in relevant to your industry
If you were wondering how this fits in with user engagement, the answer is very simple. Basically, you need to make sure that your website can continue to provide a great user experience and super user engagement over the next few years. Simply because if your website begins to fall behind, your users will move on.
This works in both in terms of technology and your organisation’s business strategy. The digital world is constantly changing, and becoming more and more advanced. In just three years everything could change. Think back to how many people had smartphones just three years ago, now look at all you can do on yours. You have to make sure that your website is able to stand the test of time and technology, and as an organisation you need to embrace this. A custom website design allows you to keep modifying and keep updating your website to make sure you keep engaging your members in the most exciting ways.
Network with web design experts for business consultation
The best place to get advice about membership websites is from those who have the most experience in the sector; so make sure you network. Not only will it help you to gain more knowledge into the potential your organisation has for increased member engagement, but it can also help you discover how you can do things differently for better results for your own membership organisation.
We are hosting a seminar: Boost Member Engagement with a Customised Website Strategy, which is taking place in London, on 15th September 2016, at the City Business Library.
Featuring leading association professionals and industry experts, this half-day event will help you to go beyond off-the-peg web solutions and improve user engagement with cost-effective made-to-measure web services enable greater engagement.
