Technology is constantly changing. Memberize looks a lot different today than it did six years ago when the brand was born. Since 2004 we’ve added over 250 key features to our product and our customer base has grown steadily year after year.

But here’s the thing, technology is going to continue to change and so is Memberize. It is with this commitment to continuous evolution that Memberize is excited to present the faster, easier, more powerful Memberize 2012.

When it comes to technology, change can be good. Change can mean a more streamlined organization with less wasted energy and hassle. At Memberize, our mission is to stay on the forefront of new developments to provide our customers the most advanced software available so they get their jobs done quickly, reliably and easily. See the list of what you’ll find in this First Wave from Memberize 2012 below.

As always it must be made clear that we appreciate your loyal business and we sincerely hope you find these updates as exciting as we do!

Dos Lagos golf course has had a rough year.  The southern New Mexico and El Paso, Texas area didn’t see the cold snap coming but it came alright.  Some reported the area experienced the longest and coldest stretch in over 50 years.  One of the victims of this weather was Dos Lagos.  A family owned golf course in Anthony, NM.

What eventually happened was the loss of over half of their putting greens.  During normal economic environments (and when Tiger Woods is at the top of his game) this would be a sizable repair but relatively affordable.  But…sense Dos Lagos and the golf industry has been down over the last few years this became a serious situation fast.  According to Dos Lagos owners, if you have decent greens then you’re players/customers can be happy.  A big concern was the thought of people spreading the word about the condition of the greens. 

Dos Lagos, with the use of their communication tools within their Memberize website and certain social media outlets (Facebook and Twitter), decided to keep people closely informed on the matters at hand with pictures and short messages of what progress was being made on their favorite affordable public golf course.

Thankfully Dos Lagos had built and promoted their bulk email lists to date so there was a quick way to get any important news in front the eyeballs of their subscribing golfers.  Also, during this period of rebuilding they were able to promote the idea of following Dos Lagos on Twitter to get quicker snippets of information rather than the more comprehensive email updates.  With the linkage and interface to Facebook many of those people began to follow Dos Lagos on Facebook.  All of these vehicles provided ways to direct interested people back to their website where the message was perfectly clear.

The idea of staying in front of the problem and offering up to date information to current/potential golfers was very valuable to the business.  The audience felt connected and rather than jumping ship to another option of golf course they’ve feel like some if not many have hung in there with ‘their club’.

The golf club has been promoting their annual tournaments online more than they have in the past because they’ve noticed the growth in their email and social lists.  This has had a measurable impact on event participation.  “I had completely forgot about the club championship this month”, replied one golfer.

So now that they finally have their greens in better shape they can happily provide this information to their golfers to come back and enjoy their club just as they did before.

They have a long way to go as does Tiger Woods but I personally think they’re going to make it.  We here at Memberize are happy to offer the tools to help!!

Dos Lagos doesn’t even use the Membership Management part of the Memberize feature set.  That tells you something doesn’t it?  We’re pulling for the Dos Lagos Golf Course family and hope we can continue to work with them to support their come back!!

In the upload form you determine the access rules for that file, whether it is going to be available to all members or select members in the Library or hidden from all users, in the latter case this will limit access to that file in links you publish.  And any file uploaded to the Document Library will appear in the Select A Link tool on the HTML editor.  So as soon as you upload your file you can quickly and easily create a link that loads that file in any message or page you make inside Memberize.

Determine who can see the document

Select A Link tool lists Your Documents to link to

If you have the New CMS setup follow these steps (If not please see the note below).  In your “Web Pages” area find the Parent menu item that you wish to edit or change and click the Edit icon.

The key here is the “Menu Item Type” field.  It’s important that you select “External URL”.  That will show the “External URL” field below it.  When that appears simply enter a pound sign.  “#” as the illustration suggests.  Click “Post Your Work” and then preview your changes.  The Parent menu item, when clicked, shouldn’t go anywhere but you will see the sub menu items when you mouse over the parent.

This may or may not be the best way to work with this situation as it generally exploits the name attribute for the <a> tag – scheduled to be deprecated.  If you have any comments please feel free to share.

Note:  If you do not see these choices when editing your page you most likely need to have CMS updated for your account.  I would recommend reading this document first so you know what, exactly, this means for you and your members.  New Webpages and Menu Adminstration.

So often we hear from people who are actually in charge of managing their websites that their board or boss is fine with the old “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.  If it’s working than don’t mess with it.  Well, that’s not going to do you any good on multiple levels.

Considering a design treatment/effort is good form every so often.  Some say it’s good to consider this every 3 months or so.  If it’s been a year or more then you should definitely take a good hard look.  Yes it can be as simple as changing colors, headings and navigation.  Changing your header information is a great practice.  It’s right there in front of you and who ever is visiting your website. Change keeps things fresh for you, your members, your prospective members, and search engines!

If you are a little resource poor in the creative department Memberize offers it’s Professional Services.  We can help you realize your vision with these valuable services and then next time you may be able to take care of things on your own.

Image source: istockphoto.com

Apparently new membership seems to play a big part in these measurements.  Read more by the numbers here.  I take this as a positive!  Is this a reflection of what you’re seeing with your memberships? Let us know.  Leave a comment.

Get a copy of the Membership Marketing Benchmarketing Report.

I’m not sure I spend enough time looking at my privacy settings though.  I have in recent past but as I write this post I’m starting to think I better get over to Facebook just for a thorough review after I’m done here. Just because.  Well… because they may have changed something on me while I wasn’t looking!

I also again felt a little weird because I saw a friend of mine post about a nasty virus that is floating around on Facebook and that got me thinking about exposure.  There’s a whole bunch of people out there on Facebook.  They’re on Facebook a lot!  I am.  What a place to really take a shot at the complacent masses with a nasty worm to really screw things up!  Be careful!

So back to my excitement.  Google release what seems to be a very viable alternative to Facebook.  It really does!  It’s being tagged as the Google + Project.  I’ve taken the tour.  I read this article from PCWORLD called 9 Reasons to Switch from Facebook to Google+ and it really brought it all together for me.  I began to see the possibilities.  Speaking of bringing it all together… well… that’s exactly how the Google people are seeing this working.  As a central point to all of their services that are so widely adopted.  The level of integration (especially if you’re an Android user) is “Exciting” to me.  Look out iPhone/Apple.  I can’t wait to see how this all unfolds.

This is something to pay close attention to.  It appears this will become another social tool for all of us to leverage for our own causes.

Risk

Customers (your members) HATE to look at a credit card statement and see some unexpected charge.  I don’t care how many emails you may send reminding them that he/she had agreed to the charge, that the charge would be on this date, and that now you have assessed the charge and here is your receipt.  When you auto-bill, the duty to prove the validity of the charge rests completely upon you, the merchant.  The customer only has to call the card issuer and deny the charge.  No questions asked.   There’s your RISK.  Chargeback.  They just took money from your bank account and charged you a nice fee.  You now have a chargeback history…your discount fees won’t be decreasing any time soon.  The merchant (you) must provide documentation as to the validity of the charge.  Do you have a signed authorization?  Can you produce it?  When was the last time the customer used your service?  That’s a tough one to show when we’re talking membership dues.  If you have the right software and database structure in place, you’ll be able to figure out when and if they have been logging into your website or attending meetings or events, but will that be enough to reverse the chargeback?  How long will it take to submit all that as an appeal?

Retention

Customers (your members) HATE to look at a credit card statement and see some unexpected charge.  They’d much rather be politely reminded.  Better yet, they’d like to think they’re getting a deal.  Marketers know this.  So do smart membership chairmen.  Approach an annual membership anniversary as an opportunity to contact your members on an individual level.   Re-energize them.  Remind them of the benefits their membership brings.   Start early and nudge them along.  Utilize automated tools to send personalized emails on a predetermined schedule.  In the long run, your membership will grow much more quickly.

Practicality

Take a look in your personal and company credit cards.  How many of the cards in your possession will expire within the next twelve months?  The next 24 months?  When is the last time you had to call a card in lost or stolen?  A recent study found that one in five credit cards is called in lost or stolen each year.   When setting up annual auto-billing, you’ll be lucky if one in five make a complete cycle anyway.  The over four of five have just been declined.  Your member now gets an email saying their credit card has been declined.  Trust me, that email they do NOT LIKE.  Are you going to get your membership fees?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  If you do, it’s certainly won’t be as soon.

Image Source Tradebit

iStockphoto.com

If you’re running a membership website chances are part of it’s purpose is to offer or share private information with your membership.  Another purpose is probably to foster communication among your membership about common ideas associated with your Membership.  I’m talking about ideas or topics that are more focused on what your organization is all about and why your members – are in fact – members in the first place.

Being social in places such as Facebook are… well… less then private but are great places to inspire new membership for your organization.  All this is fantastic but part of the end goal is getting these people to your website where they can communicate with other privileged members right?

With your Memberize message board forums you can facilitate discussion on a private (members only) OR public level.  You can direct the topics of discussion or allow your members to participate in that process.  From here it’s all about membership retention and this particular feature in the Memberize tool set has that kind of power.

If you’re not a Memberize customer give it a trial run.  It won’t cost you anything.

Restricted means that only newsletter adminis trators can add, edit, and delete email address information from the list.

Members Only means that the administrators can add, edit, and delete email addresses and information from the list BUT… Members who login to our website can also manage their Members Only newsletter list subscriptions. They do that by going to ‘My Info’ and ‘My Subscriptions’. All Members Only and Public lists will be there for logged in members to subscribe or unsubscribe to.

Public lists are open to visitors of your website. They don’t have to be logged in to subscribe. Once you create a Public subscription list a subscription form box will appear under your left hand navigation in the public area of your site. This will allow visitors to subscribe. That’s assuming that you are hosting your public area of your website on the Memberize system. If not then this is N/A. You would have to provide your own links to the public subscription area. Give it a try. Create a subscription list and make it Public. Then go see if there is a new subscription box on the left hand side of your homepage.