Marketing research can be a great asset to your association. It helps you understand your target audience better, enabling you to market to them more effectively and provide them with greater value.
But how can you conduct marketing research efficiently and use it effectively when you have a small staff? To conduct market research optimally, you must understand what market research is, the role of market research data, and how to collect and use this information in decision-making to positively impact your association’s goals.
Let’s look at the importance of marketing research for small associations.
What is Association Market Research?
Typically, market research for associations involves planning, collecting, and analyzing data relevant to decision–making. It also includes communication of the analysis results to association management and other leaders.
What is the Role of Market Research Data for Associations?
Market research data fulfills three key functional roles: descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive:
- The descriptive function includes gathering and presenting statements of fact about your target audiences.
- The diagnostic function involves explaining the data or actions of your target market.
- With the predictive function, your association answers questions that help you capitalize on new opportunities in an ever-changing marketplace.
As you conduct market research, try to balance these three areas to provide the highest-quality and most valuable data and insights for your decision-making.
How Do You Conduct High-Quality Market Research?
To conduct high-quality market research, it’s essential to understand what questions you’re trying to answer. Here are some key questions that can be helpful to consider as you begin your market research and data collection:
- Who are our target audiences? Members, volunteers, donors, sponsors, or all of the above?
- What are the issues and concerns most impacting each target audience? How can we translate this knowledge into action?
- What programs and services provide the most value to our target audiences? What opportunities exist for our association, and how can we capitalize on them?
- How can we best modify our programs and services to target our audiences more effectively?
With these questions in mind, here are six great ways to collect and use market research data for your association:
1. Send Periodic Surveys
Send surveys to each of your target audiences to gather their thoughts about your association’s programs and benefits. For example, you might send a member survey to learn how well your member benefits and programs are meeting members’ needs. You may consider sending a separate survey to volunteers to gather feedback on ways to improve your volunteer program. You might send another, separate post-event survey to sponsors to understand which sponsor opportunities they value and which could use improvement.
2. Conduct Focus Groups
For each of your target audiences, invite a diverse group of people to meet with you (in-person or online) to gain a deeper understanding of their needs and how you can deliver greater value to them.
3. Read What Your Target Audiences are Writing
Keep an eye on what your members, volunteers, and sponsors are writing on social media and in your online community. Participate in conversations to encourage more discussion and feedback and gain insights into what’s important to your members.
4. Look at Association and Membership Trends Research
Look into research about associations and members to learn more about what’s happening in the association industry and what members value most. For example, association trends research provides information about member values, engagement trends, and more, along with recommendations on how to apply the research to benefit your association.
5. Dig Into Your Association’s Data
Your association’s staff might be small, but the data you collect in your AMS can give you significant insights to help you make more informed decisions for your organization. You can run reports for everything from membership and accounting to events. The insights gained from these types of reports can facilitate easier planning of programs, implementation of improvements, identification of new opportunities, and delivery of a better experience for all your audiences.
6. Regularly Review Market Data
Market research doesn’t do any good if you don’t put it to work. So, be sure to regularly review survey and focus group feedback, as well as other data you’ve collected, and incorporate your learnings into your organization’s strategies. Here are a few tips for putting your data into action:
- Schedule a meeting with your team to review the data and make recommendations on how to incorporate feedback into your marketing and other activities.
- If you need more details for some of the responses from your target audiences, follow up with them. Be conscious of whether, based on their feedback, you think they’ll be open to additional contact from your organization.
- For any individuals from your target audience who indicate changes your organization could make to improve their experience, consider presenting them with your solutions and ideas for improvements and asking for their feedback.
