7 Best Free Marketing Tools for Associations and Membership Organisations
Olena Lima CAE
Member Experience & Association Digital Transformation | Membership Marketing Expert | Speaker | Host of Membership Marketing School & Association Hub Podcast
In today's digital age, it has become more important than ever for associations and membership organisations to have a strong online presence. However, many small to medium-sized organisations may not have the budget to invest in expensive digital marketing tools.?
That's why I’ve compiled a list of 7 free Digital Marketing Tools that can help associations and membership organisations increase online visibility, engage members, and attract new ones. These tools are easy to use and can make a big impact on your organisation's digital marketing strategy.?
So, whether you're a small association just starting out or a larger organisation looking to save on marketing expenses, these tools are worth checking out. Let's dive in!
1. Tell the story
Associations have lots of stories to tell! Whether it’s sharing interviews with members, photos from past events, or success stories on how your association represents the industry – your stories are an invaluable asset for your marketing team.
In our fast-paced modern world, people love a personal story. So why not leverage it into a powerful marketing tool for your association?
Sharing stories is important because it:
What’s more, people remember stories 22 times more than facts! (J. Aaker, 2013).
Want to create an effective narrative for your next marketing campaign? Here’s an industry example to inspire your content:
In 2021, the AUSactive team launched digital badges to encourage members to share their content on social media. Digital badges allow members to share their proud moments, such as their awards, completed training, or achieving certification. After only one year, over 1,000 members shared stories about their achievements - along with AUSactive programs and events - to their networks.
2. Encourage your members to share your content
What we often forget is that our community can be amplified by our members’ networks! Remember to use this resource by encouraging your members to share your news, articles, and events.
When you run an event or promote any of your association’s initiatives, don’t forget to create accessible templates, banners, and email examples to make it as easy as possible for your members to share your content to their networks.
For example, the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) has created a member referral program and landing page where members can easily find and download AMI membership marketing materials. The page includes clear instructions on how members can share AMI’s content, which in turn works as free promotion for AMI.
3. Recycle, repurpose and refresh your content
Do you have an exciting and successful webinar from the last few months that you could now convert into an article or podcast episode? What about a case study or how-to guide that you could update and use again to reflect any changes that might have occurred since it was originally published? Or even a popular blog post or white paper with quality information that could be broken up into bite-sized pieces of content to share on social media?
Much of the content you’ve already invested time and effort into creating could be recycled, repurposed and refreshed to continue working for you and potentially generate more leads along the way.
4. Use free digital marketing tools
There are many free digital marketing tools available on the market, so use them as much as you can! Our favourites include:
Comment below to share your favourite free marketing tool!
5. Optimise your business presence
Your online business presence (social media profiles, website, Google Business account) needs to be optimised and up-to-date to work as free promotion for your association.
Why it’s important
Updating your online profiles and listings is important because customers will visit these platforms to search for information about your association.
Having a relevant, up-to-date online business presence will:
If you aren’t taking advantage of these, you’ll miss out on reaching potential, high-intent customers, as well as the greater return on investment that follows.
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How?
Ensure you fill out your main social profile pages?front-to-back, and that you keep it?consistent?on every platform.
This will make your association easy for your audience to find and let them know all about you!
Platforms you may need to update include:
Haven’t updated your social media profiles or online listings in a while? Is it time to tidy up your digital presence??
Check out our Digital Clean Up Challenge, a 4-week project with actionable guidelines and tasks dedicated to each week. It will help you declutter, systemise, and fine-tune your digital assets, and ensure your members can easily navigate your space! Read more
6. Choose the right media
When it comes to using your marketing resources wisely, it’s always important to choose the right media to distribute your content.?
So, what social media platform works best for associations?
Let’s compare two: Facebook and LinkedIn.?
It varies greatly from industry to industry, but for many professional associations and industry bodies, LinkedIn is a better social media choice, especially for organic interactions (not paid).
Not only is LinkedIn a B2B platform, but its algorithm is not as strict as Facebook’s for content exposure and engagement. It’s a well known fact that Facebook’s algorithm restricts the number of people who can see your business page posts, whereas LinkedIn allows you to tag connections and organisations in your posts to boost your exposure to their networks.
Below is case study with one of our clients:
“At the beginning of 2020, when we started running a client's social media accounts, they had the same amount of followers on LinkedIn and Facebook - between 9,000-9,500 on both. We posted the same content on both platforms, and ran paid campaigns on Facebook. Although we used no LinkedIn advertisements and stuck to the platform’s features (i.e. tagging people, saying congratulations, sharing posts), by the end of the year our client only gained 500 new followers on Facebook and reached 18,000 followers on LinkedIn. Just in a year they had doubled their amount of followers on LinkedIn with sero investment from paid advertising!”
Still considering Facebook? No problem!
If you would like to use Facebook for your member engagement, we highly recommend exploring Facebook Groups. At the moment (beginning 2023) Facebook algorithm favours groups posts, placing Groups content at the top of your news feed, providing maximum exposure.
When running a Facebook Group, don’t forget to think about the keywords and phrases your members might use when searching for your group. Incorporate these keywords in your title and description to help bolster your group’s standing in Facebook search results.
7. Create a podcast
Podcasts are another great way to build your audience, and you can pretty much set up your own podcast for free at home using a phone, microphone, and laptop.
A podcast is a powerful tool that can help you acquire new audiences, build awareness around your association, and potentially convert your listeners into future members!
Moreover, they go beyond just gaining exposure by making members feel a deeper and more personal connection to the association.
By putting a voice to the values and content you’ve been sharing through other channels, you can easily showcase the character of your association and thus organically attract more people to join your membership.
Some examples of topics that your podcast may offer are:
Here is some association podcast inspiration for you:
Undertaking these tools will help your association reach new audiences and convert them into loyal members without blasting your marketing budget.
We’d love to hear if you implement any of these activities, and your experience with them. So let us know by commenting down below!
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