The power of setting up relationships in your database

Managing your data can be complicated because your members are human beings with different needs and wants, but there are ways to make it easier. The relationship tool in an Association Management System (AMS) is a key way to do this - it allows you to set up "parent" and "child" relationships to link profiles to other profiles.

In the context of Associations, think of the organisation as the parent and individuals as the children. This could be in the form of staff, primary contacts, managers and more. You can even define relationships between mentor/mentee, teacher/student, manager/subordinate and much more. 

Utilising the relationship tool will help you zoom out on your stakeholder relationships and see how the industry connects. Having greater visibility of your data and being able to determine clear meaning from it quickly will equip you to pre-empt and respond to member needs (organisation or individual).

Below we share some of the ways the relationship tool can benefit your association:

Separates organisations and individuals 

Every association operates differently, some having only individual memberships, others organisation memberships and those with a mix of the two. Regardless of your membership structure the relationship tool can offer you great benefits.

By linking individual profiles with organisations, you can better follow a person’s movements even if they leave the organisation. This is useful because you can learn their interest areas, follow them in their career journey and potentially identify new opportunities to engage with their new organisation who are not members and use this individual contact as a connection point.

It also allows you to undertake gap analysis to see how many individuals are linked to an organisation. This provides an opportunity to either encourage the organisation to sign up more members or even reward organisations with high individual memberships with discounts.

Creates a dynamic database

The usability of your data is key to running a successful association that is able to retain and grow membership. Setting up relationships will help you better organise your database which in turn will allow you to better target your communications.

For example, when it comes to renewals time, depending on your membership structure you could look at targeting CEOs and encouraging them to renew their membership and encourage their staff to join/renew also.

The relationship tool is key to driving membership growth as it provides you with more control over your data, depth and greater visibility of your membership.

Allows you to map the web of your industry

We know that your members don’t fit in just one box – they are part of an industry with lots of connection and crossover points. This is why the Membes system has the relationship’s tool – it allows you endless possibility to connect and map all the correlation points of your stakeholders to give you a better understanding of what is happening.

This viewpoint enables you to identify trends in your industry e.g. relationships between different stakeholders, turnover rates and business size. You can use this information to determine how you engage with members, develop curated content appropriate for the trends and better service your members.

The ability to map the industry can also support sponsor and prospect managers to determine who best to connect with and maintain the relationships.