Associations are sitting on a data gold mine. Are leaders making the most of it?
- As associations look for new ways to engage their members and raise revenue, data products offer a potential gold mine that can deliver a cash influx while offering major value to members.
- Associations are uniquely positioned to conduct industry surveys and issue reports to members, as well as provide insights drawn from the deep well of member data already on hand.
- As a first step, ask your membership what sort of data products or reporting they would find useful and work with a third-party advisor to implement industry surveys and increase your analytical capabilities.
More associations are leaning into data collection and analytics to better understand their members. During an era of falling engagement, this can help you to focus on providing offerings that are relevant to what your members actually want.
But too many leaders are still missing out on what may be the most valuable opportunity here. Your association is uniquely positioned to gather data on not just how members engage with your products or events, but on how your industry functions — and then provide that data to your members as a product.
Gathering and productizing industry data can help you generate revenue, increase retention, advocate on behalf of your industry and better serve your members. Keep reading to learn more.
Why should your association start productizing data?
Your association should explore collecting and productizing industry data for your members as a growth strategy for two reasons. First, because you may already have a great deal of valuable data in your systems. And second, because your members are also much more likely to respond to industry surveys coming from your association than from a third-party market research firm, which allows you to gather even more valuable industry health and performance data.
You already have valuable data on hand
Consider the data that’s sitting in your association management software (AMS) or archives right now. Your systems may hold decades of details on member behaviors, industry trends, thought leadership, efforts to educate legislators and more.
You may already be integrating and analyzing this data to glean insights to refine your own offerings, but could it provide value to your members as well? Almost certainly.
Your credibility also leaves you ideally positioned to lead industry surveys
Think about the enormous value that industrywide data in areas like benchmarking, compensation, purchasing patterns and general sentiment can provide to your members. This data is typically collected by market research firms, but those firms may not have an easy time getting businesses or organizations in your industry to participate.
However, if your association decides to collect its own industry survey data, you’ll typically see a better response rate from your members. You’ll also be able to focus your question areas more specifically on what matters most to your members.
Your credibility and relationships with your members leave you uniquely positioned to gather, analyze and provide actionable insights to help your members understand where your industry is going and how to adapt to meet the moment.
What kind of data products would your members find valuable?
Any data products or reporting that can help your members better understand their industry and peers can be valuable. Here are five broad categories you may wish to consider (some of these will require you to conduct surveys of your members):
Financial and operational benchmarking data
The most valuable product you can offer your members is often industry benchmarking data. Everybody wants to know how their peers are performing, but no one wants to share their own performance data with their competitors.
Your association can collect data from your members on financial and operational performance, validate it, anonymize it and then report it to give your members clear industry benchmarks while protecting each individual member’s privacy. This kind of data is typically shared only with the organizations that participate in the collection process, making it a major asset exclusively available to your members.
Industry sentiment surveys
You can also survey your members to gather data on industry sentiment and broad trends. This is helpful to individual members who want to get a better sense of where your industry is headed, but is also a valuable tool to help policy makers or elected officials understand how your industry would benefit from their support.
Sentiment data is especially useful for educating government officials about industries that are largely privately held, as your association can speak with unique credibility if you have data on tens of billions of dollars worth of businesses that nobody else has.
Wage and benefit data
Details on industry compensation standards is valuable for companies wrestling with how much to pay their people. But with BLS statistics proving less reliable than in years past, there is a data gap your association can step up to fill.
One area to specifically consider surveying is executive compensation. Base pay is typically only one part of an executive compensation package, which may also include everything from a company car to stock options, so your members will find data on what their peers are offering their leaders to be incredibly useful.
Member benefit programs
This is a bit of a two-step. As an association with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of members, you can help your members leverage the power of scale to negotiate better rates on everything from supply purchases to health insurance.
But you need data to do it. Survey your members on their purchases or other business expenses to find areas where acting as a conglomerate would help your members control costs. Then you can work with your members to create bulk-purchasing programs or find other ways to use collective action to benefit your entire membership.
Other member resources
You have more data beyond what’s already been covered. If your association already does original research or thought leadership work, you may have years, if not decades, of articles or reports in your archives. Can you make this more accessible and available to your members?
Or what about providing a searchable member directory to allow both members and potential clients or customers to connect more easily? This is often a low-hanging fruit that can quickly help put your members in front of more potential new business.
Think about what other data you have and whether it could serve your members’ needs.
How should your association start creating data products to offer members?
Here’s how to start creating valuable data products that your association can sell or give to your members:
1. Gauge member sentiment about productized data
Before you do anything else, talk to your members about your interest in collecting and offering productized data. You need to make sure that not only is this something your members would find valuable, but also won’t feel like an invasion of their privacy. Handling this step poorly or skipping it entirely will likely just anger your member base.
2. Understand your existing data stack
What data do you have access to right now? And who is in charge of managing it? Take the time to really understand your existing data assets (which could be more extensive than you realize) as well as how those assets exist within your organizational structure.
That second piece is important because inside many associations, a lot of the most valuable data falls under the purview of the member engagement team. But data management is a dramatically different skill set than member engagement, which means you may need to rethink your organizational structure before you can kick off your productization effort.
3. Find out what kind of data your members want
Productized data should generate revenue for your association, either directly or in the form of new member signups and higher retention. But this only works if you provide data products your members actually want.
What would be most valuable to your specific membership base? Benchmarking is usually a hit, for example, but find out for yourself by surveying your membership on what specific kinds of data products they would like access to.
4. Work with an advisor to collect, analyze and productize member data
You don’t have to add a market research division to your association to benefit from productized data. Work with a third-party advisory firm for help on actually conducting and reporting on industry surveys, as well as making sure you have the data foundation and tools to find value in the member data you already collect as part of your regular operations.
Look for an advisor who knows your industry and has experience in both surveying and data and analytics solutions.
How Wipfli can help
We advise associations on driving engagement, improving performance and growth. We also conduct surveys on behalf of associations. Let’s talk about how we can help you implement strategies like new data product offerings to excite your members and strengthen your financial foundation. Start a conversation.
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