Benefits of integrating your website and management system

Our platforms are becoming more intelligent and can provide us with ample information to help us better understand what is happening in our marketplace. The one downside of all this information is that if you aren’t set up properly, managing all this information in silos can be overwhelming, labour intensive and fragmented.

This is where integrating your online systems can be highly beneficial as it makes it easier to track and use the information collected. It also ensures that data and communications across your platforms are consistent and reduces the staff administration time for duplication of tasks.

One of the most beneficial integrations for Associations is the connection between your website with your management system. Both of these systems are huge collectors of data so having them linked will empower your staff with the best quality information to make decisions. Allowing your members to log in and self-manage their professional profile will provide you with a bird’s eye view of your membership and a single source of truth.

Below are four benefits to integrating your website and management system:

Simplify the management of data:

Having your website and management system interconnected will streamline the data management process as it will remove the need for manual data entry or synchronisation across systems. This is hugely beneficial for your team as they can focus their energy on more important tasks, while ensuring data is accurate and up to date across all parts of your organisation.

An example of this is when a member renews their membership via your website, this information automatically updates in your management system so no staff intervention is required

Create an easy member experience:

Your members can have greater autonomy over their information as they can log into the website portal to update their information and this can be automatically shared to your database. For example, if the member’s postal address changes they can log in and make the update so they don’t miss out on important information.

This also relieves pressure off your staff as they can focus their time on more complex queries from members rather than minor updates to contact information.

Understand your members’ needs:

Having your website and management system connected will provide you with better analytics to understand what your members are engaging with most and what areas they aren’t as interested in.

This level of detail is beneficial because it allows you to understand your members’ interest areas and target communications on that topic. For example, if a lot of members have been looking at events related to being business owners you could create an enewsletter including all business owner related events and blogs to engage further with your members.

Smarter, more ‘informed’ automated workflows:

Because all information about your members, events, membership etc. is all contained within a single, centralised system, your management system can reference this information to facilitate workflows and capabilities more aligned to the user and context. For example, when registering for an event, the system can know this user’s membership type and automatically assign the appropriate registration fee. Or control what content on your website a user has access to based on their membership status and type.

This high level of data will empower your team to make better decisions based on facts and evidence. Your members will be more engaged as they are getting targeted with information and interactions that are relevant and of interest to them.

Associations who embrace advancing technology and integrate their website with their management system will experience great advantages. It will save on internal resources, free-up valuable resources in your team and ensure member needs are understood and addressed.