Measuring the ROI of an Online Community for Professional Associations
Setting SMART goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound by Business Impact are crucial, even for associations and other nonprofits. They are important in getting initial buy-in and continued commitment for your professional association to have an online community platform for your membership. Let’s discuss how you can measure the added value and ROI of your association’s community platform.
At the Community Consultants Collective (CCC), experts from all over the world with experience in consulting for associations and their communities and events are working together to create frameworks and methodologies for creating successful community strategies. This article explores an initial version of a framework for measuring ROI for professional associations. We invite feedback via comments or direct outreach to the authors. CCC plans to publish multiple iterations of ROI models for online communities, since understanding and measuring ROI is vastly different depending on the type of community, audience, organization, goals, and resources.
Initiated by Mathijs Vleeming and Dennis van Aalst of Yard Digital Agency in Europe and its Community Platform for Associations, Yunits, Mathijs brought a first version of the model to Catherine Hackney, a seasoned US-based online community consultant specialized in engaging association members through online communities. After working on the model together, more community consultants from the CCC added their feedback and we came up with the below “ROI Framework for Professional Association Online Communities”.
Mathijs and Catherine find the following categories to be most impactful to professional associations and their membership needs: member retention and contribution, support & efficiency, and association growth and relevance. You will see which KPIs to use to effectively measure each of these aspects of community in the framework below. It is important to understand that many behaviors can influence multiple Business Impact sections, so we have placed them in the section where they relate the maximum impact.
As this framework focuses on quantative data, it is important to note that there are also many qualitative outcomes of an online community that are very impactful – think about case studies, member quotes, and testimonials.
ROI Framework for Community Platforms for Associations
Business Impact | KPIs / Behavior | Measurement (Active vs non-active Before vs after launch) |
---|---|---|
Retention | – Platform / mobile app logins – E-mail Open Rate – E-mail Click Through Rate – Session duration – Page views per session – Documents downloaded | – Customer Lifetime Value – Satisfaction score – NPS – Reduced Membership Churn – Member onboarding success – rate – Exit Survey Completion/reason |
Contribution | – Questions asked / answered – Likes, Comments – Blogs / Articles posted – Documents uploaded – Event registrations – Participant searches & connections (DM; Follow) – Active Volunteers – Active Working Groups | – Event Revenue – NPS – Average number of replies to questions – Average time to community response – Sense of community survey – Successful connections (e.g. Mentors, Jobs) – DAU/MAU |
Support & Efficiency | – Peer-to-peer questions asked – Member-driven answers – Reduction in member support questions – Content searches – Adoption of membership products & services – Product & services feedback | – Reduced questions / emails / support cases – Cost savings on email/event software – Effective platform integration – Reduced staff time |
Growth | – Website / platform visits – New members from WOM – Event registrations new members – Documents downloaded by new members – Community SEO attribution | – Member growth – (Repeat) Event participant growth – Improved SEO/more website visits – External promotion by community members – More positive quotes, testimonials, cases – Enhanced advocacy / Industry Impact Reports – Repeat event / New event attendees |
Relevance | – Survey/poll responses – Popular themes and topics – Most popular content – Staff questions answered – Comments on staff posts | – Collected feedback & ideas – Decision-making influenced – Event evaluations – Members voting at GA – Industry Impact Reports |
Created by Mathijs Vleeming & Dennis van Aalst of Yard Digital Agency & Community Platform Yunits.
Co-authored by Catherine Hackney
Here are two case studies showing how parts of the framework are applied:
ROI of online Communities in real life: VBO
Mathijs helped to launch the online community of VBO, a Dutch Association for Real Estate Professionals. After researching the needs and current processes of the members and the association bureau, the desired behaviour on the online community platform was identified. A strategy and onboarding plan was rolled out, focussing on contribution, retention and support & efficiency. Desired behaviour on the platform was measured as Key Performance Indicators.
In the first two months, members asked 100 questions on the platform, which received 464 answers from other members. Within the first 5 months, 90% of members registered for the platform. The platform automatically sends out 5000 personalised emails per month, saving the bureau around 30% time in member communication while email open- and click-through rate shows increased member engagement.
ROI of online Communities in real life: MGMA
During her time working at MGMA (The Medical Group Management Association), Catherine successfully grew the online member community while also implementing specific goals and KPI tracking to help the organization understand the large, positive business impact of keeping up a well-managed online community. Catherine focused her goals on contribution, support, and relevance.
By engaging volunteer members to focus on special interest groups within the online community ecosystem and training each association staff person to understand and effectively use the online community platform, MGMA started to see results within three months. There was a clearer understanding of the online community platform and the benefits it offered both to members and to the association, making it easier to ensure stakeholder buy-in, and thus the future of the community.
How are you measuring the ROI of your online community?
We want to hear from you. What do you think? What is missing here that is important to how you are currently measuring ROI? Would this framework help you show the value of an online community for your professional association?
Contact us or follow Mathijs on LinkedIn to share your thoughts. We’d love to hear your examples of retention, contribution, support & efficiency, growth, and relevance in demonstrating how an online community adds value to a professional association and its members!
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Co-authored by Community Consultants Collective Board Members Mathijs Vleeming of Yunits & Catherine Hackney of Confident Communities Consulting.