ASAE: "Are You Measuring What Matters to Grow Revenue?"
I love a good discussion on measurement and goals.
The American Society of Association Executives has a great little article here that presents a few gems worth noting:
1. Long-term tracking provides insights to actual program results.
The American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians ...monitors a group of nonmember attendees that it offered memberships to in 2019. “We have tracked this cohort and have been able to maintain just under half of these physicians since,” [the association's Executive Director] said.
2. Organization-wide access to your metrics helps everyone pull together.
“You may have membership data on renewals or lapsed membership that the CFO alone is looking at from a revenue standpoint. But those numbers can help the organization identify what they need to create a communications strategy and messaging that will resonate with a member.”
3. Website stats can help identify weak points in your messaging.
If engagement with your products isn’t what you’re hoping for ... Carlisle suggests looking at your website’s bounce rate—the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate can mean you’re leaving money on the table.
4. Goals matter.
Any meaningful work around KPIs should begin with a discussion of what strategic goals the association is trying to meet, says Cruz... “The organization should be defining the problems that they’re trying to solve, and the data they’re collecting should be providing insight into the effectiveness of the organization at solving those problems,” she said. “Before data collection can start, you should have a thorough, achievable, and measurable operations plan.”
5. Common terminology keeps everyone on the same page.
For an organization to draw meaningful conclusions from its data, it needs to establish consistent terms for KPIs across departments and agree on definitions and usages. “We’ve standardized it—here’s the data, here’s the metrics we’re pulling, here’s when it’s pulled, here’s when it’s communicated,” George said. “Everybody has a single point of truth, and there aren’t alternative narratives.”
I encourage you to give it a read, and think about how your goals, plans, and measurements are (or could) work together to help you nail your development goals.
All the best,
A.