Many associations want to become more data-informed but find themselves hesitating to take the plunge into analytics. It does make sense – non-profit workers have an edict to good stewards of the organization, and need to be careful in the choices they make. During a recent Analytics in Action webinar, Bill Conforti and Merritt Rohlfing of A2 discussed some salient issues that come up when associations consider new tech, and ways around them.

“Analytics”, as an idea, can be daunting. The thought of changing the way you do business altogether – not to mention having to introduce new tools – can be worrisome and spook people, even if they have good intentions. That said, the reality is that lack of knowledge of just how to “do analytics”, while commonly cited as a barrier, shouldn’t prevent progress down the data-informed road. It’s not that organizations don’t know what to do – they’re simply not doing what they know they should. The good news is that there are numerous free resources available for learning analytics, from Microsoft and Google certifications to university courses offered by places like Harvard or Yale. You can even go on YouTube, channels like Guy in a Cube being a popular one. The barrier to entry has never been lower, it’s just about taking a glance and seeing what is possible. Taking that first step is the toughest, but even that can help. It’s not even about becoming an expert, just being able to speak the language a bit can help open doors to analytics. Introducing just concepts can pique the interest of colleagues and leaders.

The “we’ll do it later” mentality is a common trap. While timing concerns are legitimate, indefinite postponement means missing out on valuable insights. As Bill notes, “Just be careful with the things that are quite open-ended. If you do have a legitimate reason to push something off and it’s finite and known, like ‘I’m going to absolutely revisit this at the beginning of next fiscal year’ – then all those things are legitimate.” But sometimes, it’s more an excuse. Building a precise plan is vital, building toward a goal is a must.

The key is to build internal momentum by finding allies within your organization. As Merritt suggests, “Don’t just do it by yourself. Find some other people you work with and kind of build a small team within your organization.” This building of a coalition or united front makes it much harder for the higher-ups to say no to at least researching new tools that could help their team. Between the coalition and agreeing on at least the beginning of a timeline (“We will look at this on January 10th, I know it”) makes the “someday” disappear, and turn into “in a few weeks”.

Limited budget and resources emerged as one of the top concerns. The solution? Start small and build incrementally. “Think smaller,” advises Bill. “You might really want that cluster analysis of all your customers… but instead you need to do something a little bit smaller. You can absolutely get started with a couple of key activities and an Excel template.”

Consider analytics as an investment that can benefit multiple stakeholders. As Bill explains, “If you implement that analytics platform, that central repository, it extends and augments the source systems that are connected to it… rather than incrementally changing your marketing system or your LMS or even your AMS.”

While some struggle to see the concrete value of analytics, calculating potential ROI isn’t as complicated as it seems. “You look at different business areas or strategic goals and think about what it is now, like our retention rate, and come up with a reasonable future state that you feel like you could achieve,” explains Bill.

“When you leverage data, it shows that it’s proven something and then shows the value of other projects as well,” adds Merritt. “You can show that this marketing outreach had this level of impact on membership growth or event attendance.” Data helps associations tie seemingly separate aspects of the organization together, and paint a broader picture of where it stands. Plus, it opens up a window into the future of what could be.

Many organizations feel paralyzed by messy or incomplete data. However, perfect data is neither realistic nor necessary. “Perfect data is dead data,” as Merritt puts it. “If you have perfect data, that means you’ve done a great job in cleaning everything up and there’s nothing new coming in. That means you aren’t growing, and the end is nigh!” A bit dramatic, but very true.

The key is to start with what you have. As Bill emphasizes, “You’re making decisions already with imperfect data” in areas like digital transformation initiatives and event planning. “We don’t need all the data in order to make decisions… and to see patterns, spots, anomalies and things like that.”

The path to becoming a data-informed organization has its challenges, but probably challenges that are familiar to most association professionals trying to make new decisions at their organizations. Having new tools and techniques to address these obstacles head-on and taking incremental steps forward can allow them to start discovering valuable insights from their data and making more informed decisions for their members’ benefit.

The role of the marketer – particularly in associations, and especially focusing on content delivery – has changed drastically over the last decade, perhaps and only seems to be speeding up. Associations are facing an issue of an increasingly digitized membership, and need to roll with the times to make sure their messaging and content reach the right eyes and ears, at the right time. A recent Analytics in Action webinar, titled Embracing Data Analytics to Reinvent Your Content Marketing, delved into just this.

1. Personalized Content: Tailoring Messages for Maximum Impact

Creating highly personalized content using data and AI tools is crucial for engaging members effectively. During the webinar, Association Analytics VP of Strategy and Solutions Bill Conforti emphasized, “We’re talking more about like communications, right? The content that we’re gonna send, and who is going to receive it. How do we curate that message? How do we make that member feel validated and valued?”

Key components of this approach include:

• Segmentation: Divide your audience based on demographics, behaviors, and preferences.
• Data Integration: Ensure your data is collected, integrated, and optimized for analysis.
• AI-Powered Content Creation: Use AI tools to craft personalized messages for each segment.
• Dynamic vs. Static Personalization: Move beyond basic “merge and purge” methods to create more engaging, context-aware content.

Bill cautioned about data privacy, noting, “You can use the AI for the content creation, but if your organization has standards or practices around data security, make sure to anonymize somehow.” With how AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude.ai pull in all your data, it can be as simple as missing out on a checkbox and you’ve accidentally allowed them to aggregate with public data. So keep an eye on that.

This content personalization and curation is vital to associations, as members look more and more for the information that matters to them with having to work for it. Associations sit on a trove of valuable information as members look to grow their career and improve themselves, it’s the delivery that is the problem. With these new tools, there’s lots of new opportunity to fix that.

2. Make the Most of Predictive Analytics

Predictive tools are becoming a bit more common with associations, but they’re not ubiquitous yet. Smart associations are starting to see amazing insights though, and that shouldn’t be overlooked. Leveraging predictive analytics can help associations anticipate member needs and behaviors, and be the proactive organization that modern members are searching for. During the webinar, Bill highlighted the increased accessibility of these tools: “Associations have the data for it, they just haven’t taken the leap. There’s a growing list of them, whether Acumen or other more rudimentary tools, it’s a great option for associations to find actionable insights.”

This approach involves:

• Utilizing various data inputs (profile data, engagement metrics, behavioral data, transactional data)
• Applying predictive modeling to analyze churn risk, segment members, and recommend content
• Generating actionable insights to inform targeted campaigns and personalized recommendations
• Even without dedicated data scientists, associations can use cloud-based services to gain predictive insights.

Considering these tools as a resource specifically for marketing is a novel approach in its own right, but uniquely powerful. Typically people expect to take advantage of predictive tools to look at big activities – renewal, recruitment, or annual conference attendance – but increasingly it’s becoming easier to infer smaller steps, and more micro-engagements within the larger data model. If you have the right tools to do it, predictive analytics can unlock a host of benefits for staff and members alike.

3. Take Advantage of Content Automation Delivery

Time is any content marketer’s greatest asset. Whether saving time in their day-to-day, or building the precise cadence of outreach that will drive optimal engagment with their audience. This is where automation comes in. Automating content delivery ensures the right message reaches the right audience at the right time, every time. Bill explained, “We want to automate the matching and the delivery of the content. So we wanna leverage all of that evergreen content that we have. We want to build the experience that each member is looking for, and make it repeatable and effective.”

Making this process work isn’t a snap of the fingers, it’s going to take some work. Luckily, those steps are pretty easy to identify and take, even if the work involved can be a bit of a lift. They look something like this:

• Developing a content taxonomy for structured categorization
• Using AI-powered tagging to categorize content efficiently
• Leveraging evergreen content (case studies, white papers, research reports)
• Setting up automated delivery systems based on member profiles and behaviors
• Repurposing existing content for different formats and audiences

It’s not a hard and fast process, but this is a good structure for any association to approach optimizing delivery of their content. Bill’s colleague Merritt shared an example: “We’re trying to find a way to repackage [case studies] for easier consumption. This is evergreen content like you said, but sometimes hard to digest because they’re seven, eight pages long. Repurposing segments for new persona-based outreach or re-targeting aspects of them to specific demographics can make old content new again, and have a whole new impact.”

Implementing these strategies doesn’t require a complete overhaul of existing systems. Bill encouraged an incremental approach: “We’re making improvements to how we automate. We’re making improvements to how we save time, and we are positioning ourselves and our organizations to take advantage when things like private LLMs and things are more affordable and more accessible to us.”

By focusing on personalization, predictive analytics, and content automation, associations can significantly enhance their content marketing efforts. These data-driven strategies allow for more targeted, efficient, and effective communication with members, ultimately driving engagement and value for the association.

The key takeaway is to start small, iterate, and continuously improve. By leveraging the power of data and AI, associations can create more impactful content marketing strategies that resonate with their members and support their organizational goals.