FFA Streamlined Their Tech Stack and Improved Member Engagement

The Film Festival Alliance (FFA) used Higher Logic Thrive Platform alongside a rebrand to refresh their member experience; consolidate and integrate their membership community, communications, and website; save staff time; and drive higher member engagement.

As FFA undertook a rebrand after 10 years with the same brand design, they felt it was important to back up their shiny new look with added value for their members. They decided to use Higher Logic Thrive Platform to build a highly interactive, integrated, and engaging new website and community.

“We were examining what our product is at FFA, and we identified that our value is really in our community and connecting our members,” said Gray Rodriguez, FFA’s Director of Communications. “So when I found Higher Logic it was a great fit because that’s what Higher Logic Thrive Platform does. It allows us to connect our members and manage and facilitate conversations in a sustainable way.”

Prior to using Higher Logic Thrive Platform, FFA was piecing together multiple different platforms and tools to connect with their members, which could be tricky and time-consuming. They used Mailchimp for marketing, WordPress for their website, and occasionally Google Docs to host documents. The member experience wasn’t ideal and their ability to communicate with and connect with their members was limited because they only had one point of contact for each member organization.

While members could log into their WordPress site to download resources, they couldn’t really interact with each other there. Additionally, there is a large Facebook discussion group that’s sometimes misattributed to FFA, but they can’t manage or moderate that community. FFA wanted to have a community and website that would allow them more oversight and would integrate with their communications and resource library.

In addition to membership experience improvements and staff time savings, Gray described how using Higher Logic Thrive has led to more member engagement and a better understanding of their members.

“What was frustrating for us pre-Higher Logic Thrive was that we didn’t know everyone. We only knew the person who signed up for FFA, and that could be anyone from the billing person to the executive director. Since we only had that one contact for each organization, that person had to pass on our communications and resources to the rest of their team. With Higher Logic Thrive Platform, we have a place for more members from these organizations to get involved and access our resources individually. We’re able to communicate with more members, see who they are, and gain a better understanding of their titles, experience levels, interests, and more.”

“Another thing that’s really great – and that I even told our board – is that community lets us mine the brains of our members. We can see what they’re asking and react to that and develop programing around that. It’s almost like having another employee because it’s collecting research on our membership just by existing.”

Higher Logic Thrive also made it easier for FFA to implement segmentation, personalization, and automation. They use automated email campaigns to communicate more regularly with members without having to undertake manual work. They also save time by using dynamic content to share specific messages – like discount codes – with targeted email recipients without having to set up a bunch of different messages.

FFA worked with Higher Logic Thrive Design Services to craft an aesthetically pleasing and highly navigable site that aligned with their new brand guidelines.

They also coordinated a multifaceted launch plan with their Higher Logic Advisor, which included:

• Using Higher Logic’s Advanced Starter Kits to prep automated communications they wanted to use post-launch.
• Conducting beta testing with a group of 50 members to collect feedback on the community before it went live.
• Populating seed content in the community to encourage member participation.
• Hyping the new community at events and in communications and encouraged their member contacts to forward the news to their colleagues to encourage them to join the new community.
• Lanching their new community at the Sundance Film Festival with a big membership brunch. During this event they showed off the community functionality and collected contact info from any members who weren’t yet using the community and wanted to sign up.

The Film Festival Alliance (FFA) creates a collaborative global community for mission-driven film festivals, advocating for a sustainable and inclusive environment within the cinema exhibition ecosystem. They work year-round to celebrate and support the art of film, filmmaking, and film presentation by connecting festival professionals with one another, and with other industry stakeholders including the greater filmmaking community. FFA offer’s professional development and engagement opportunities and cultivates a voice for film festivals and the people who run them. FFA is home to more than 230 members from the United States, Canada, and the UK, including large, mid-size & start-up festivals, festival consultants, and programmers.