Are Newsletters The Best Way To Communicate With Club Members?

Miscommunications are all too easy to have. For example, take the two cars below. The car on the left is the (let’s be honest, hideous) Mazda Laputa and the one on the right is a Mitsubishi Pajero.    

 

 

Both of these cars failed to sell in the Spanish market, which is a big deal as Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world, behind only Mandarin. They failed to sell because no one checked what Laputa and Pajero mean in Spanish. For reference, these cars' names translate in Spanish as the Mazda Whore and the Mitsubishi Masturbater. You can see why they didn't do well there; no one wants to look at their Uber app and see their driver is picking them up in a Masturbater. 

My point is that miscommunications are easy, and we should pay close attention to what we say and how we say it. Don't worry; newsletters are undeniably a good method of communicating with your members, but are they the best way? 

Today, let's investigate the best ways to communicate with your club members and how these methods of communication work best.  

The Best Methods Of Communicating With Your Club Members

Effective communication plays a vital role in the success of any club or association. Clear and consistent communication helps to foster a sense of community, keeps members informed about events and activities, and ensures that everyone is on the same page. 

In this article, we will cover all the following methods of communication and when and how to use them: 
 

1. Newsletters & Automated Emails For Club Communication

2. Push Notifications For Club Communication

3. Group Chat Rooms For Club Communication

4. Website Updates

5. Which Method Of Communication Is Most Effective 
    

Emails & Email Newsletters For Club Communications

With the Member Jungle system, you can send four different kinds of emails. 

1. Direct Emails

Firstly, you can send old-fashioned direct emails to individuals or groups. I really don't need to explain this much more. I'm just talking about regular emails that we’ve all sent a thousand times.

2. Event-Based Emails

You can set up emails in the Member Jungle system that are linked to chosen club events, which will be sent out automatically at the times you choose. This means you can have an email go out to all members when you first publish your new club event to notify them. You can also set reminder emails to go out at selected times leading up to your events to keep people aware and informed of your events. 

These emails can be sent to all members or only members who have already registered and bought tickets to your event via the system. This allows you to advertise upcoming events with one set of automated emails and update attendees with another.  

All this makes organising and advertising your club events a whole lot easier. 

You can set up automatic emails for member actions or milestones, such as birthdays, membership anniversaries, or event registrations. This ensures timely and personalised communication to strengthen your connection with members.

3. Renewal Reminder Emails

Just like event-based emails can be set to automatically send emails to members at certain intervals leading up to an event, renewal reminder emails can do the same for your club’s membership renewals.  

You can set your renewal reminder emails to go out at intervals leading up to and after your members’ membership renewal date. This makes reminding your members to renew their membership a whole lot easier and requires much less manual effort on your part. You can simply set the system up to send out as many renewal reminders as you would like and let your members renew online with the Automatic Renewal System. 

To hear how this works in real life, check out the interview below with John Howden, the Treasurer of the Newcastle District Hunting Club. 

P.S. I have set the link below to start at two minutes and 35 seconds into the video, where John talks about his renewal system usage. Don’t panic if it looks like the video has started halfway through; it’s on purpose. 
 

 

4. Newsletters & Email Campaigns 

The Member Jungle Email Campaign Module provides customisable newsletter templates, allowing you to craft engaging and effective newsletters and email campaigns for your members and the public.

You can utilise Member Jungle's advanced member search to create targeted email campaigns for specific groups within your membership base. This means you can send your newsletters and email campaigns to any subgroups in your club. For example, if you want two different newsletters, one for members and one for the public. You can easily do that. If you're a car and bike club, and you want to set up separate marketing campaigns for members with cars and members with bikes, that's no problem either.

You can customise your messaging and content to align with the unique interests and preferences of each segment, which will help make your communications feel more personal. Which is great for engagement and member retention. 

You can set up automatic emails for member actions or milestones, such as birthdays, membership anniversaries, or event registrations. This ensures timely and personalised communication to strengthen your connection with members.

For more information on how to customise newsletter templates with Member Jungle, chekc out How To Customise Email And Newsletter Templates With Member Jungle.

Push Notifications Via The Member Jungle App

Member Jungle’s membership management system comes with a free integrated mobile app to help your club or association more effectively organise and communicate with its members. The mobile app is free, customisable with your club's logo and colours, and a super useful tool for communicating effectively with your members. 

The Member Jungle mobile app has the following features plus a lot more: 

• Membership Renewals 
• Event Sign Up
• Members’ profiles 
• Online Product store
• Process Digital Payments 
• QR Codes & Barcodes 
• Emails from app
• Push notifications to the app
• Group chats 
• Access to digital membership cards
• News pages
• Blog pages 

Using the app's push notifications is an amazing way to reach your members on the go. If your event is cancelled last minute due to weather or pretty much anything else that you need to quickly tell your members about, push notifications are ideal. 

Members who are getting ready or are in the car on their way may not see emails or posts on your website in time, but being able to send pop-up notifications to members' phones instantly can be a real lifesaver.

For more on the Member Jungle mobile app, have a peep at A Club App To Help Your Club Or Association Thrive.  

Group Chat Rooms With Member Jungle

Member Jungle also provides group chat rooms that you can set up to allow for more direct communication between you and your members. Group chats are perfect for more personal, informal communication. They make it easier for members to communicate with each other and build a sense of community. 

Another benefit is that admins can create separate chat rooms for different groups within the club. This allows for more focused communication and avoids chaotic all-member chats. You can instead have separate group chats for different subgroups or activities within your club. 

When setting up a new event with Member Jungle, you can choose to create an event-based chatroom that will automatically generate when you publish your new event and deactivate after a set number of days following your event. Any members who register to attend this event will be automatically added to it. Giving you a dedicated group chat to discuss things related to your upcoming event. This makes organising and communicating with your members in the lead-up to your event easier, keeps it all separate from members who aren't coming and neatly disappears when it is no longer needed. 

For more on group chats in general, have a look at Why Your Club Should Be Using Group Chats.

For more information on how you can subdivide your chats and make more specialised ones read Opt-In Chat Rooms: What They Are & Why Your Club Needs Them.

Website Updates For Better Communication With Your Club Members

As part of our membership management package, Member Jungle offers a custom website that is integrated with our management system and mobile app. However, our system will still work if you keep your old website. 

Either way, your club's website is vital for communicating with your members and potential members. It will likely be the first point of contact potential members have with your club, and you must ensure that it makes a good first impression. Keeping your website fresh and up to date with new, timely content is a great way to do this. Your website should feel current and fresh, not old and cobweb-filled. 

Keeping your website up-to-date and engaging can significantly enhance communication and strengthen your club's online presence.

For more information on how you can keep your website looking and feeling fresh, check out the following articles:

• 3 Simple Ways To Improve Your Club's Website
• Why Your Club Needs A Well-Designed Club Website

For two more quick examples of poorly translated car names, we have two cars whose names were less than ideal to English speakers. First, on the left, a little light truck called the Mazda Titan Dump, and on the right, the honestly gorgeous Daihatsu Scat. 

 

 

I can tell you that both cars are still sold, just under different names. The Mazda is now just called the Titan, and the Scat’s name was changed to the Wildcat or Taft, depending on the region. 

In tragic news, though, look at what the modern Taft looks like. 

 

 

What’s The Best Method Of Communicating With Club Members?

The key is to utilise all of these methods in unison, as it truly does take a village to effectively engage your club members. It's also important to consider your member base and their preferences. For example, some members may not be able to receive emails at work but can receive push notifications. Additionally, the demographics of your members should be taken into account; younger demographics are going to be much more likely to want communication methods like chatrooms and push notifications. You could also consider gathering member communications preferences in their application forms when they sign up. 

With Member Jungle, sending a combination of communication types allows members to control what they receive. For instance, they can choose to turn off push notifications for news but keep them on for events and do the same for emails. 

I know that’s not as satisfying as declaring one form of communication the grand champion and moving on, but it's the truth. 

For more information on how to get the most out of these methods, see How to Improve Your Club’s Communication With Its Members.