Making smarter use of your association’s membership data can help you work more efficiently, keep your data safer, and gain deeper insights for more informed business decisions. Read on to learn three ways to use your data more intelligently.
When it comes to running your association and improving member engagement and retention, your membership data is invaluable. But to get the most out of your data, it’s important to make smart use of it.
Managing and using your data intelligently can lead to greater efficiencies, higher levels of data security, and deeper insights that can help you spot opportunities for growth and make more informed business decisions.
So, are you ready to take your use of data to a higher level?
Here are three ways to raise your membership data IQ:
1. Manage your data from one place.
Intelligent use of data starts with managing it well. When your membership data is spread across multiple systems, it can be challenging to understand it and to keep it clean and secure. Managing your membership data from one place makes it much easier to understand it and use it to optimize every stage of the membership lifecycle.
For example, NetForum association management software (AMS) by Community Brands is robust and feature-rich. It includes extensive functionality and features that help you manage everything from memberships and marketing to fundraising and accounting – in one place. This approach means that you can see a complete profile view of any record in your database. You can manage and streamline the member journey – from application to renewal. You can also keep better control over access to your data so that users can view and edit only the data they should, depending on their role or relationship with your organization.
Here’s a real-world example: American Mensa (Mensa) is a society for individuals with high IQs. Their outdated, homegrown membership management software held only a portion of their data. They turned to NetForum for a more modern and reliable AMS solution. With all data now in one place, Mensa has more reliable and higher-quality data.
Learn more about how Mensa uses NetForum AMS to meet their unique needs. Read the case study
2. Put powerful reporting to work.
To make smarter use of your data, it can help to be able to see it in quick views and various reports. Having tools that help you to easily view key organizational metrics each day, and then drill down to view the data behind charts and graphs, can help you to identify trends and better understand what might be impacting those trends. 
For example, NetForum provides configurable dashboards and hundreds of reports that allow you to gain visibility into the health of your organization. You can quickly modify standard reports without needing help from your IT team. And in just a few clicks, you can drill into graphs or charts to view the underlying data. Essentially, it gives you the data you need every day to make smarter business decisions.
3. Take data analysis to the next level.
You can go beyond day-to-day insights into your data by using data visualizations. For example, using Nucleus Data Analytics for Associations, available in NetForum AMS, you can use data visualizations to:
- Identify trend data and key insights to grow your programs and increase revenue
- Uncover actionable insights from your data to boost member engagement
- Empower your entire team to make data-driven decisions
With Nucleus, you could, for example, determine at what points your memberships stop renewing so that you can create personalized campaigns for at-risk members. You could also find out which membership tiers receive the least number of joins so that you can re-evaluate the value of each of your membership types and improve value for those that are more prone to membership lapses. You could see trends in how members change from tier to tier so that you can design targeted campaigns to drive members to the best membership tier.
The list of insights you can gain and the actions you can take goes on.
Learn more
Learn more about how NetForum AMS and Nucleus Data Analytics for Associations can help your association make smarter use of your membership data: Watch the on-demand webinar, “Exercise your membership analytics muscles“.
