April 2025 - Rottman Creative

The Follow-Up Plan Matters (More Than You Think)

Most associations stumble after the introductory content, defaulting to generic emails and inbox clutter. To convert interested visitors into committed members, rethink that approach entirely.

Your follow-up should directly address a prospect’s individual compliance needs:

Build streamlined, easy-to-digest landing pages that clearly guide prospects to the next step.

Respond thoughtfully to actual visitor behavior with personalized, bite-sized information.

Retarget interested visitors through targeted social ads and short-form videos.

Stories From Real Members—The Human Side of Compliance

Compliance isn’t just sharing the rules to follow. You have the potential to relieve anxiety, solve problems, and make people’s work and lives better. Prospects trust real stories from actual members.

They want to know precisely how your compliance expertise makes a meaningful difference. Showcase testimonials about members who overcame compliance struggles, avoided costly mistakes, or improved their businesses with your help.

This kind of proof is powerful—it humanizes your expertise and brings tangible value into sharp focus.

Rethink Compliance, Rethink Your Growth

Attention spans are short. Patience for interruptions, lead forms, and friction are even shorter. People desperately want clear, credible information about compliance without barriers—and they’ll reward associations who provide it.

Your compliance strategy shouldn’t push prospects away by gatekeeping. Instead, openly showcase your expertise, connect the dots through personalized follow-ups, and share authentic success stories. That’s how you genuinely attract today’s discerning prospects and convert them into tomorrow’s loyal members.

At Rottman Creative, we specialize in fresh thinking, straightforward strategies, and no-nonsense messaging designed to attract, engage, and grow your membership community.

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Your members’ time is their greatest asset. To inspire members and prospects to consistently choose your association, you first have to understand how they’re investing and engaging—not just how you wish they were.

The Misconception of Member Engagement

We all carry a romanticized notion about engagement. As if members are waiting, ready and eager to commit hours each week to read email newsletters, participate in webinars, and explore new offers. But that’s not reality. Just like you’re splitting attention across competing responsibilities, your members are balancing work demands, personal obligations, family needs, and their own health and wellness. Even the smartest, best-intentioned association professionals often overestimate how invested their members really can be.

Take weekly emails as an example. Maybe your Monday morning email sees decent open rates—but is it generating real action? Or are your members opening quickly, skimming, and then instantly moving on to their first meeting of the day, never truly absorbing your message?

We’ve seen this happen before. One client discovered that their members, busy healthcare professionals, were only available on Fridays. Another association we interviewed found that engagement peaked on weekends and evenings. While Monday morning emails were once considered the best time to connect, this reality has shifted. That long-standing habit of sending emails on Mondays was actually limiting opportunities for deeper engagement.

But if you’re not continuously testing and asking the right questions, how will you ever find this out?

Too many associations are relying on data from months ago, automatically assuming what worked then will work now. But life—and work—continue to shift. People’s routines change drastically, and their availability and preferred engagement times change with it.

The Shift in How to Measure Engagement

The key question to ask is no longer, “Are members opening our emails?” It’s now about actionability and usability. Is engagement actually happening as a result of your outreach? What times, formats, and methods create true, actionable engagement—especially among the busy majority who aren’t responding to typical midday communications?

Instead of sending yet more emails into the busyness of mid-morning inboxes, ask yourself: Would evenings—after dinner, family time, and exercise routines—be more effective moments for relaxed, intentional engagement? Could Sunday night, when people’s thoughts naturally shift toward planning the week ahead, be the perfect window to connect? Finding these pockets of attention means your association can become a welcome ally.

Doing this means committing to ongoing experimentation. Test emails sent Sunday night versus Monday morning and measure what’s driving increased registration, deeper content interaction, or stronger membership renewal intent. Regularly poll your members in quick, lightweight surveys about their preferred times and channels. Segment your audience not by assumptions, but by actual behaviors—by what they’re really choosing to engage with now, in 2025, and beyond.

The Key to Member Engagement

In short, understanding your members’ limited time shouldn’t feel like guesswork or habit. The end result means respecting your members’ realities, and thoughtfully integrating your message into the times they truly have available.

At Rottman Creative, we help associations shift from noisy assumptions to impactful realities—creating outreach that fits naturally into your members’ lives. Let’s replace guesswork with targeted, intentional engagement that works in the real world. Let’s Talk >

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ARE YOUR MEMBERS TRULY ENGAGED?

NOT ANOTHER SNOOZELETTER.

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Month: April 2025

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