Many membership organisations have the same issues with handling renewals, retention and communication with their members. It can be challenging to keep on top of all of the memberships to ensure you serve your community.
There comes the point when trying to manage your customer database on several different spreadsheets; switching between systems or even trying to find written-down notes no longer becomes an option. A trade association CRM and Website allows you to control and organise everything in one place.
But what do you need to look for when choosing a trade association CRM? Today we will look at what makes a good CRM for your trade association and how to know what to look for.
First, let's look at the benefits of a CRM for your trade association.
Where do we begin? There are a multitude of benefits of a CRM for a trade association. Below are some of the main benefits:
Put simply, a CRM is software that helps you to gather all your members' interactions in one place. In turn, it helps to improve customer satisfaction and user experience. In addition, a CRM helps to increase retention by better understanding your trade association members with member management.
A CRM streamlines all your systems in one place and lets you clearly see your members' user behaviour. Access to this information can help you create a better relationship and communication stream with your members.
Finally, an important benefit for trade associations is improving customer retention. You want to ensure that retention is more than just renewing fees- CRMs aid retention by increasing interaction and communication. In addition, CRMs provide analytics to help you understand user behaviour to resolve problems quickly.
It sounds simple, but you must choose a CRM that suits your needs. Unfortunately, a mistake many companies make is they don't focus on the key features they need for their trade association.
Ask yourself these questions?
Here are our top 6 tips to help you when choosing a trade association CRM.
Now, we know this question is very broad. With so many options on the market with different features and tools, it can be challenging to know what you actually need.
We are here to help you out. Your trade association is unique to you, its processes, growth and members. You need a CRM that grows with you and your business needs. Put simply; you need a scalable CRM solution.
Trade associations often overestimate what features they actually need or will use. Consult your employees and ask them what they would find useful from a CRM. How will a CRM boost their efficiency and productivity?
The same goes for the executives of your trade association. Selecting a CRM that adds strategic value to your business is important. For example, the most inefficient process in your company might be understanding your members and managing their profiles.
Therefore you should look for a CRM that helps organise your member profiles to help improve your customer retention. Here at memba, our CRM allows you to manage member profiles, generate member reports and create member events. These are the kind of specific features you need to look at to see if your trade association would benefit from them.
There is no point in choosing a trade association CRM if the user experience is poor.
Is your CRM intuitive? Does it boost productivity? Is it confusing and slows you down?
A good user experience is vital when picking a CRM. You don't want a CRM to slow you down and confuse you more than your current solution does. You want the CRM to be user-friendly for both you and your members.
Assessing whether you enjoy the user experience leads us to our next tip, booking a demo.
You wouldn't buy a car without test-driving it first, ensuring it has all the features you want, works properly and fits your needs. So why would you invest in a CRM without testing it first?
Memba offers a free demo and a free 60-day trial to give you a chance to play around and see how you feel. In addition, you can test the user experience through a free trial and see if it has all the features you need for your trade association.
A demo also helps you see how an expert uses and explains it first-hand. It allows you to ask your burning questions and see if it has all the features you are looking for.
A CRM is not to be confused with just 'another system' to add to the workstream.
A CRM is there to help streamline all of your operations within your trade association. For example, you want your team meetings, member's notes, email integration and event management in one place. Therefore it is important to see if your CRM integrates well with all the applications you already have.
For example, here at memba, we can integrate your Mailchimp to sync your mailing lists, link your Zoom or Teams meeting and even add Google Analytics to help track your member engagement.
Additionally, getting an integrated website & membership CRM can solve issues with one solution. This feature Memba offers allows you to seamlessly integrate your trade association website and CRM.
To make it even easier for you to decide what CRM to pick, you know you want a vendor who has worked with trade associations similar to yours.
It helps to narrow down your search. For example, Memba is a membership CRM specifically for Trade Associations, Charities, community groups, societies and clubs. Therefore, memba understands your association's needs and pain points by specialising in creating websites and CRMs for the trade association industry.
When looking for a trade association CRM, check out who they have worked with before. For example, Allmi uses a CRM, giving you a live case study similar to yours. Seeing a trade association with similar needs can help you visualise whether the CRM is for you.
You don't want to get your CRM and go in completely blind. You want to ensure that the CRM solution you choose is configurable so that you can adjust it to your liking.
At the end of the day, your CRM should complement your trade association, your customer services and your event management. Therefore, it should be easy to configure to reflect your trade association's needs.
Here at Memba, we provide onboarding for new clients and have a configurable CRM software because we understand that every trade association is unique. Similarly, we want to show you have to use every feature properly to make the process as easy as possible.
Choosing a trade association CRM can be a lengthy process, but we hope we have simplified it for you.
You need to select a CRM solution that works for you and your members. No matter the size, assessing your needs and what features are important to you is always a good idea.
If you have any questions or want to try a free demo of Memba CRM, please get in touch.
