The MemberWise Digital Excellence (2022) survey explored the digital strategies and solutions that best support the membership sector, particularly as the pandemic sharpened the focus on online experiences.
The Digital Excellence report is designed to help inform the Membership and Association Sector on the digitally focused strategies that will provide their members with interactive, engaging and value-driven online experiences.
What we learned from the survey:
- The top three technology tools employed by membership organisations are: Association Management Systems (74%), CMS (62%) and email marketing (58%). Well over half (65%) have integrated AMS and CMS
- Umbraco is the number one CMS used by medium to large membership organisations
- The first 18 months of the COVID pandemic accelerated digital transformations by 5 years
- There is now a much stronger emphasis on improving members’ user experience and value. Members now expect their associations’ websites to enable self-service and to deliver value-driven experiences with online participation, videos, and images.
- 40% of member organisations reported that website content is structured via audience, rather than the organisations’ internal departments, up from 30% in 2016.
- 62% use CMS to personalise and automate members’ online experience
- 37% of membership organisations use CMS to measure engagement levels
How Umbraco’s open-source CMS enhances digital user experiences
Umbraco’s open-source CMS, which forms the core of our composable digital experience platform, allows membership organisations to integrate third party solutions more easily. This offers them the flexibility to select exactly the right mix of technologies to deliver the best digital experiences for their members. This survey shows that we are continuing to provide our digital agency partners with the right platform to create tailored digital experiences for membership organisations that help them to engage with, retain and attract new members.
How Umbraco’s composable approach supports agility
Our longest-standing gold partner, Novicell has been using our open-source CMS for more than fifteen years, creating websites and digital solutions for membership organisations such as the British Medical Association (BMA), Denmark’s Nature Conservation Association (NCA), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), The British Library, The Red Cross and the Blue Cross.
Novicell is very well known for working with membership organisations and we were introduced to MemberWise by our client, the British Medical Association. During the COVID pandemic, the BMA had to swiftly respond to deliver vital information to its large, diverse membership. Using Umbraco, we were able to quickly develop a progressive web app, allowing people to access information on their mobile phone. The great thing about MemberWise is that membership organisations share information on the agencies and technologies that have helped them to successfully navigate such digital challenges, so that they know that they are working with tried and tested technologies and trusted partners.
How a headless CMS keeps digital services relevant
Novicell is a proponent of developing microservices, connected by APIs, which allow organisations to be more agile in their approach: quickly adding or retiring technologies in response to changing customer requirements. Novicell also takes a ‘headless’ approach, where content can be quickly changed in the backend and accessed via multiple channels (‘heads’), to provide a consistent user experience on web, chat and mobile.
As the survey shows, membership organisations are being challenged to create content that is relevant and engaging, to help retain existing members and attract new ones. As an example, the BMA has had to adapt its written content for the new generation joining the medical profession. This means providing more videos and social media links to cater to that younger audience. We’re helping membership organisations to be ready for this shift.
Why membership organisations trust Umbraco CMS
Umbraco gold partner, Cantarus, has almost sixty clients in the membership sector including The Law Society of England and Wales, Royal College of Physicians, Nominet, British Computer Society and Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Commenting on the Digital Excellence (2022) survey finding that Umbraco was the number one choice of CMS for mid-to-large membership organisations in the UK, Cantarus CEO, Lee Adams said:
Umbraco appeals to a wide range of organisations looking to engage with their respective audiences and stakeholders. It's an open-source product and there's a fundamental element of trust that comes with that. Umbraco solutions avoid vendor lock-in and allow for low-cost implementations whilst also being a very powerful platform. It's easy for us to build great solutions on the platform. It's reliable, it's secure, it's not putting our reputation at risk. Umbraco is also pursuing the composable digital experience platform (DXP) model which we see ever-growing demand for, particularly among bigger organisations.
Why our gold partners are backing Umbraco Cloud too
“Cantarus also uses Umbraco Cloud. Developers and clients like and trust it. It has a rich ecosystem of add-ons from the developer community to enhance its capabilities. Umbraco encourages that and the development of a vibrant ecosystem to the benefit of everybody. We can source an add-on to solve a particular problem and be confident that it is of a high quality, well supported, and won't disappear in six months’ time. When you're responsible for the security, performance and stability of a site, it's really important to have confidence in the quality of the add-ons,” asserts Lee Adams.
How you can find out more about Umbraco
Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how our friendly CMS helps our partners to win big clients in the membership sector and how our open-source CMS, composable DXP and Cloud products can support you.