The Wisdom of Members
What more natural place to take a look at how to “do” community effectively than an organisation set up specifically to support membership organisations? We spoke with Richard Gott, Founder of the MemberWise Network, the leading free network for membership and association professionals.
Spotting a gap in the market and answering a personal and professional need
Richard was in his first Marketing Manager role within a professional body and was struggling to establish “what good looked like”. Working in a newly formed function, that had traditionally been 100% admin focused, he realised there was nowhere where he could meet other professionals dealing with similar issues, share experiences, or get advice. So he decided he should set up a network himself, and MemberWise was born. He says he started it as a side-hustle – mainly to develop his own professional network - but he found it was answering a real need in the wider market and it soon became his main focus.
Offering tangible value to a specific audience
MemberWise is laser-focused on supporting membership and association professionals. It is for people at all career stages and all types of organisations and sizes are welcome, but if you’re not a membership or association professional, it’s not a community for you - so much so that you can’t join unless you can prove you are part of a membership organisation. This ensures the community remains true to its core audience.
Members join to meet others like them. They want to better establish what “good” looks like in their industry, learn from each other, keep up-to-date with innovation and find suppliers who understand their needs. Despite coming from different sectors and varying in size, all members are grappling with the same basic issues – how to attract new members, retain existing ones, enhance engagement, grow. They recognise the benefit of being part of this community ( = more success for their own organisations) and so are keen to stick around (= more success for MemberWise).
Community-led growth in action
Here we have another example of growth coming from the member community itself. No advertising or promotion has been necessary, as members are spreading the word about the benefits of being part of it. So what would Richard have done differently if he could wind back the clock? His succinct answer is, “launched sooner!”
Key stats:
Members – c.8000
Geography - global (34 countries)
Platform built on – Wordpress, Higher Logic Thrive and BlueSky, all out of the box, minimal customisation.
Business model – paid for recognised supplier programme, webcast and event sponsorship, advertising.
Community activity – members can connect on the platform, there is tons of content, there are regular events and conferences held. Also 100s of on demand courses and webcasts.
Find out more at Member-wise.
Click worthy content from around the web
Have you ever been to a conference and felt completely out of of your comfort zone with the need to “work the room”? Jenny Weigle has the answer! Read all about Keynote connectors here.
Gareth Wilson has again provided us with a great deep-dive case study - this time on Notion. He shows us how it is a perfect example of this new(ish) phrase being bandied around - “community everywhere”. If you missed our (slightly less in-depth) take on Notion’s impressive growth you can read it here.
For any community curious readers, Mighty Networks has shared a good introduction to building a brand community here.
This newsletter is brought to you by www.customer-ization.com. We work with B2C brands to activate and empower customer communities to deliver growth, retention and satisfaction. To find out more why not book a call to explore how we can help you harness your customers’ enthusiasm and achieve a step change in your business outcomes.