Student Engagement Campaign Guide

Students are the future of trade and professional associations, and it's necessary to nurture the relationship. Students are the pipeline to the next generation of industry workers. As the Boomer generation retires the workforce, associations are finding their membership demographic changing. Your student members will also give you unique insights into industry development and trends. For trade associations, you'll be helping your member companies find their workforce, too.

Just as there are many different campaign types for engaging your members as a whole, there are many different campaign types/strategies to engage students. Depending on your goals, you may chose to use all or some of these ideas.

Unlike most email marketing platforms, PropFuel allows you to customize and tailor the member experience. Students and young people desire to have their experience made just for them, and strive to utilize technology when possible. PropFuel check-ins quickly and easily connect with and engage students to learn more about them and drive them to content that is relevant to their journey. You may also want to meet them where they are with PropFuel SMS which provides a quick and easy way for members to communicate back-and-forth with your team.

A few things PropFuel can do better than traditional email marketing include:

• Gathering more context around the student member's interests, by simply asking them.

• Triggering other questions based on answers to capture further insight around their interest.

• Automating further actions , such as: display resources related to their interest or drive the member to take a further action, such as signing up for a mentorship program or to volunteer on a committee. PropFuel can also write-back data to your AMS so you can stay on top of when students are leaving academia and entering the workforce.

• And most importantly, PropFuel campaigns can be designed and deployed with minimal time and effort. And if you have new staff, your PropFuel Client Success Manager will help you build the campaign.

PropFuel is one tool in your toolbelt when it comes to membership communications. You may still send broadcast event emails outside PropFuel. Similarly, you could mimic what PropFuel does using other systems, but "frankensteining" systems together is time consuming and rarely yields the desired results - from both a member experience and data analytics perspective.  

At PropFuel, we view student engagement in 4 categories: Acquisition, Validation and Profile Building, Creating Value and Nurturing the Relationship, and Conversion of Students to Full Members. You may find that you want to focus on one category, a few categories, or all of the categories. The structure will depend on your current engagement efforts and your goals.

In the acquisition phase, your campaigns will focus on exposing students to what you offer and enticing them to join as a student member. This audience may consist of contacts who know nothing about your association. This is your time to show these prospects what you offer and how you will cater to their educational success. You can use this phase to find out what their needs are and direct them to the resources you offer.

Questions you may ask:

• Are you interested in continuing your free membership during your first year of residency?

• Are you planning on applying for your free (or discounted) {association} membership?

• Are you interested in connecting with peers in the profession?

• Which keeps you up at night? (list struggles students in your field face, such as understanding a certain concept, finding a mentor, or finding an internship, for example)

  • If you don’t know the issues students in your field face, this could be an open-ended question. Make sure you have a plan for outreach for the responses you receive!

If you already have student members, or have obtained them through an acquisition campaign, you will want to both nurture the relationship and gather data on them. It’s a fine balance that can be achieved with sandwiching questions types. Your audience will consist of student members who may have a varying range of knowledge about your association. 

Questions you may ask:

• When is your projected graduation date?

• What is your major?

• What is your desired career?

• Have your career goals changed?

• Is this still your projected graduation date?

• What is your alternate email address so we can stay in touch?

Creating value and nurturing the relationship with your student members may be the most important category. This stage of the student’s interactions and engagement with your association could set the tone for their longevity with the association.

Questions you may ask:

• What are you hoping to get out of your membership?

• What's your #1 goal this year?

• How would you prefer to connect with your peers?

• What type of support do you need?

• Would you like to get involved in our [fill in the blank] program?

• Is there a topic in which you have expertise that you can share with others?

• Are you interested in volunteering?

• To what degree are we giving you what you need?

• What benefit/resource have you found most valuable this year?

Once you’ve gained student members and nurtured the relationship, it might be time to work on converting them to full members. You will need to be aware of where the student is in their career, that they have graduated, or if they plan to go into that field (See Validation and Profile Building). This may be a campaign that is structured like a renewal campaign you may use for your full membership, however segmented towards this group. 

Questions you may ask:

• Are you planning to renew your {association} membership?

• What member benefit did you find the most valuable this year?

• Which benefit are you looking forward to exploring next year?

• Would you like to renew your membership now?

• Would you like to upgrade your membership from Student to Regular now?

• Why have you hesitated to renew (or upgrade) your membership?

• Is there something we can do to help you upgrade or renew your membership?

Students may come to your association with no connections made yet, so give them the personal touch from the beginning. Strive to familiarize students with your staff and key volunteers so that they feel welcomed and apart of the association. 

Just as you interact with regular members, you will want to be mindful of your approach to students as their worldview and experiences may be different that what you are used to with your association's demographic. Keep messaging short and sweet, and don't be afraid to use emojis here and there.

Maybe some prefer email interactions where others are solely SMS-based. Find out their communication preferences then cater to that. 

Don't forget to position your benefits, resources, or mission as "what's in it for them." Speak to your benefits as how it will help them in the current stage of their career or academia journey.

In this campaign, New Jersey Society of CPAs were tasked with validating if the member was still a student and updating profile information (email address). The check-in began with asking if they will still be enrolled in a program after a particular date, then based on how the student interacted they spoke different and routed them through questions differently.

• Will you still be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program AFTER June 30, 2022?
  

  • If Yes: Great! Are you still enrolled in an accounting, finance or business-related program?
    

    • If Yes: Is this {email address} still the best email for you?

      • If No: I wish you good luck on your career journey! Can you tell me the reason(s) why you are no longer pursuing a career in accounting or finance?

• Will you still be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program AFTER June 30, 2022?
  

  • If No: Are graduating and pursuing a career in accounting or finance?
    

    • If Yes: Please provide the email address for communication with you.

      • If No: I wish you good luck on your career journey! Can you tell me the reason(s) why you are no longer pursuing a career in accounting or finance?

      • If I'm Not Sure: Is this {email address} still the best email for you?

Out of the 521 enrolled contacts, 142 (27%) engaged with this campaign.

The American Academy of Pediatrics created a PropFuel campaign to engage members who are Residents with the intent of creating value and nurturing the relationship with these members.

• What are you most hoping to get from your AAP Membership?

• Have you checked and/or updated your personal information (like mailing address, email, and demographics) in MyAccount?

• Are you interested in finding out more about AAP advocacy efforts?

• What AAP Educational Resources would be most helpful to you right now?

• Are you interested in volunteering?

• Which of these member advantage programs is of most interest to you?

• To what degree are AAP resources helping you achieve your career goals? (5=greatest)

• Was there something you felt was lacking in your residency training that you hope to get through AAP membership?

• On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend AAP membership to a colleague?

The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists created a student acquisition campaign that connected with university program leaders to encourage them to share information about ACGIH's complimentary student access.

• Would you like your students to have complimentary student access to our full Data Hub?

Out of the 261 enrolled contacts, 32 (12%) engaged with this campaign. 87% of those who responded said they did want to share this information with their students.

The American College of Emergency Physicians created a campaign to convert graduating residents to full members.

• Have you taken your qualifying exam?

• Do you plan to renew your ACEP membership?

• Why did you choose not to renew your ACEP membership?

Out of the 1,410 enrolled contacts, 356 (25%) engaged with this campaign.