Video marketing may be the best way to convey member benefits and engage prospective and new members.
Running an association or other membership-based organization right now certainly has its challenges. In-person events have taken a significant hit and members are distracted by labor and supply chain shortages, lingering impacts from Covid, inflation, and more. Breaking through long enough to get their attention and convey member benefits and the corresponding value of membership fees can be a tough nut to crack. But the following video marketing tips can help you increase engagement with prospective, new and existing members.
Why is video marketing one of the best marketing channels to engage members?
In a world with lots of distractions, videos have become a sure-fire way to engage, educate and communicate with members at various stages of their association journey. And as video content creation has become more accessible and cost-effective, video consumption has grown exponentially — 215% since the pandemic. That translates to approximately 19 hours per week that the average consumer watches videos online.
Additionally, videos can dramatically improve your association’s website search engine optimization (SEO). This is because videos tell the search spiders that there is quality content on your pages, which ranks higher and keeps people on your site longer. To maximize the benefits more so, host your organization’s videos on YouTube (owned by Google – the world’s largest search engine) and it will boost your SEO rankings as well, giving you additional visibility and credibility.
Creating and building trust is essential, and video creates a perception of authenticity out of the gate, especially when it’s personal, includes messages from the leadership team, and shows what it’s really like to be part of the member community.
Types of Video Marketing: Start with a Welcome Video
The easiest way to think about your association’s video marketing strategy is to break it down into the journey a prospective member takes with your organization. It’s not unlike online dating, maybe minus the whiteboard. 😉
Your profile (which could be your website, social media pages, etc.) needs to attract prospective members who are looking for what you have to offer. They may not know your name yet, but prospective members will find you if your SEO and other marketing touchpoints are working on your behalf. Once they find you, you want to make sure you make it to the next date, and being “attractive” is a crucial ingredient to success.
Michele Morgan, Executive Director, NiUG International
In this case, we aren’t necessarily talking about aesthetics or physical beauty (though you do want to put some effort into how you look in your videos). Instead, it’s more about connecting with the prospect. By welcoming them to your website or YouTube channel, you’re inviting them into your brand, pulling back the curtain, and showing them how great it will be to be part of your community. When this welcome message comes from the Executive Director or Board Chairperson, it indicates a vested interest at the leadership level. It shows they care, are accessible, and are willing to go the extra mile for their members.
Don’t make it too long, and stick to the warm welcome content. You can certainly include some high-level benefit statements, but instead of making a 3-5 minute video, it’s a better strategy to have several short videos on a specific topic and potentially facilitated by other members of your association.
Explainer Videos Help Convey the Value of Member Benefits
From the welcome video, the Executive Director, for example, can tee up the next video by closing with, “To learn more about your membership benefits, I’m going to turn it over to our Director of Membership, [add name here]. Simply click on the next video in the series, and if you have any questions, please contact me directly at [insert email address].”
Many member organizations have a list of benefits sometimes outlined on their website, but reading a bullet list versus having a few of the primary benefits explained in greater detail will engage prospective and new members even more so.
Source: Vidyard
Let’s take dues for example. That’s where prospective members tend to focus when it comes to deciding whether or not to join. If your pricing structure is complicated, an explainer video done by your membership committee will help address any frequently asked questions or hesitations. The same holds true for any significant perks or “best-kept secrets” your organization can better convey in a video. Sharing stories about ways other members have used benefits to their advantage and gotten the most out of their affiliation with your organization will make it easier for members to renew. When they get more value, they have less hesitation in paying that renewal fee.
User-Generated Content Videos Create Trust
It’s one thing for the leaders of an organization to sing their praises. It’s another when members or fellow peers without direct ties to the organization tout member benefits. Using case studies or member testimonial videos to showcase how other members have leveraged the benefits to their advantage will be reassuring and more believable.
Source: NiUG YouTube Channel
To create such content, identify members who fit your prospective or new members’ profile (demographically, geographically, specialty, or otherwise) and encourage them to submit a video testimonial that explains their journey and how they’ve found success as part of their membership. To avoid getting the same perspective, arm each person with a few bullet points to focus on so you get a nice variety of sound bites. Sharing these as part of your nurturing process will help convert prospects into new members and new members into advocates.
Video Marketing Tools to Make Your Efforts Effortless
The pandemic catapulted all of us into the world of Zoom and Microsoft Teams, both of which allow videos to be recorded. However, there are a plethora of other tools that lend themselves well to the types of video engagement strategies mentioned above.
To follow is a short, curated list with links to help you compare features and benefits so you can decide what works best for your organization’s needs and budget.
Use Your Videos Everywhere!
Once you have a nice repository of videos, or even if you’re creating them one at a time, you’ll enjoy the fact that your efforts are magnified because you can use your videos just about everywhere!
Once created, be sure to post them to a dedicated YouTube channel and optimize them. Then you can generate an embed code or a link and share that across your social media platforms, email newsletters, and one-off emails.
These Video Marketing Statistics Will Motivate You to Take Action Now
If you’re looking for more proof that video marketing is the boost your association needs to increase member engagement, look at the following article from HubSpot entitled, “The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics 2022”. There you’ll find a plethora of information about several different marketing channels, but none are quite as compelling as video marketing.
You don’t have to be the next Stephen Speilberg, TikToker, or IG-Influencer to succeed at video marketing. You just need a smart strategy that is built around your target audience, their journey, wants, needs, perceptions, and objections. If you consider those and use the tools mentioned above (or something comparable), you’ll find your members are far more engaged and your organization will be on a more solid footing.
If you need help along the way, don’t hesitate to reach out: dina@incitecmo.com.
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