eBook outlines unique system for tracking member engagement over
time
TYSONS CORNER, Va. April 16, 2012
– “Engagement” has become the marketing buzzword du jour. In a world overflowing with social media platforms and
mobile devices, businesses and organizations seek ever more creative ways of
engaging consumers with brands, using tools like QR codes and near-field
communication (NFC) to turn customers into active participants. Finding a reliable
and precise way to measure engagement, however, has been an elusive task –
until now. Aptify, a leading provider of fully configurable association management
software (AMS), today unveiled its new eBook – Scoring Member Engagement – designed to teach membership organizations
how to quantify, with a single number
between 0 and 100, the engagement levels of their members.
“ ‘Engagement’ describes the
mutual exchange of value between an organization and its members,” said Amith
Nagarajan, author of the eBook and Aptify CEO. “Since the advent of the
membership model, effective association executives have understood that the
health of an association – membership growth, events, foundation support,
volunteerism, etc. – is proportional to the engagement level of its members.”
Because no codified and consistent
method for measuring engagement was in place, association management
professionals had to rely on guesswork, Nagarajan said.
“I wrote Scoring Member Engagement to give organizations and their leaders a
clear, consistent method for measuring engagement,” Nagarajan said. “Once they
understand how to compare engagement scores among members over time, they can
do what’s necessary to strengthen, grow and maintain member relationships across
all segments – on an individual level.”
The keystone of Scoring Member Engagement is its
introduction of the Composite Engagement Score™, or CES, Aptify’s method for
calculating member engagement. With CES, Nagarajan said, Aptify’s goal was to
contribute some standard architecture to the rapidly evolving landscape of
engagement management. In determining the final CES, the maximum possible score
is 100 points, with a score of “0” signifying no engagement and a score of “100”
signifying maximum possible engagement.
“One of our goals for the eBook is
the creation of a standardized vocabulary in the world of engagement
management,” Nagarajan said. “Just as financial professionals and manufacturing
professionals have standard sets of metrics by which they gauge progress, we
believe CES will spur the development of a similar kind of standard vocabulary
for associations and their executives.”
For a qualitative metric like
engagement, Nagarajan faced a major obstacle in formulating a standardized
system of measurement: the fact that engagement means different things to
different organizations at different times. Membership organizations go through
phases in their life cycles, defining effective engagement differently during
those various phases.
“During some phases, member
attendance at conferences may have the most value for an organization. During
other phases, engaging members online, through the web and social media
channels, may be most valuable,” Nagarajan said. “The point is that engagement
is always in flux, and the way organizations measure it must evolve
accordingly.”
Dedicated to producing a method
that allows organizations to historically compare member engagement levels,
Nagarajan devised a system that dispenses with superfluous data points.
“The reports that business
professionals so often create for management include an abundance of data
points, many of which are unnecessary,” he said. “These extraneous points can
distract the reader and undermine the successful transmission of useful
information.”
With this in mind, Nagarajan’s
system is lean and focused. To calculate CES, he advises organizations to use
no more than five KPIs (a common business acronym meaning “key performance
indicators”) as inputs. Next, each KPI is weighted (ranked in importance) with
a percentage. For example, if “event attendance” is a KPI worth 35 percent of
the total CES, this means there are 35 possible CES points a member can earn
through event attendance. The next step is mapping the KPI units of measure to
CES points. This process is clearly outlined in the eBook, with simple line
charts and graphs explaining the process.
“As engagement is essential to the
core purpose of all membership organizations, CES is immensely valuable and relevant,”
Nagarajan said. “Yet CES is applicable, in some form or another, to every type
of organization on the planet.”
Click here to view the PDF
Download the eBook now!
About Aptify
Founded in 1993, Aptify provides
powerful, flexible and comprehensive association and membership management
software solutions to a global clientele. With a focus on delivering a complete
solution for association business needs, Aptify offers the most flexible
technology platform in the world – helping clients unlock their full business
potential, without constraints.
Aptify has been named to the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing
privately held companies in America and has received recognition from Software magazine as one of the top 500
software companies in the world. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., Aptify
maintains offices in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Pune,
India. Aptify has a broad partner presence internationally, with local support
in countries ranging from Australia to the United Kingdom.