SHAPE America's Community Provides a Real-Time Download Of Member Needs
Keeping Up With What Members Want
The Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE) America America uses Higher Logic Thrive to provide a private professional learning community where their members congregate, connect, and elevate their careers. It’s one of their most valued member benefits, and SHAPE America has made it a one-stop-shop for members to access their full suite of benefits.
It’s also a valuable tool for staff: “The number one benefit for internal staff is learning what is important for our members in their day-to-day jobs. And that’s incredibly helpful when we’re trying to think of new content ideas – we can pull what’s popular from the community and create resources and guidance around it. Without that, you’re guessing, or putting out surveys, or asking at conferences to try to figure out what members want, and in contrast this is a real-time download of what is working, what is not, and what our members are dealing with,” said Joey Martelli, SHAPE America’s Advocacy & Public Affairs Manager.
“There aren’t many things specifically tailored for associations but Higher Logic Thrive is really a full-service association tool. We used to have separate tools for email, our AMS, our community, our events and more. Getting to where it’s a one-stop-shop – like Higher Logic Thrive offers – and working within that one platform that has everything is so much better and easier for us. And it makes a more streamlined experience for our members.”
Joey Martelli
Senior Manager of Marketing and Membership, SHAPE America
A Professional Learning Space
Ever since SHAPE America closed their previous online community due to budgetary changes, their members had been asking for it back. It was their most popular member benefit and although the organization still used marketing automation to communicate with their members about events and other member benefits, their members missed having a place to engage with their peers.
“What our folks always needed and wanted was a place to discuss their careers, responsibilities, challenges and successes with like-minded people. When they were on Facebook or Twitter they weren’t able to have that same level of targeted conversation. As the membership organization for these folks, they’re coming to us and paying for membership with the goal of elevating themselves and their career. And our online community gives them a place they can go where they know there are other people doing the same thing they are – and that’s really a huge benefit.”
Joey Martelli
Senior Manager of Marketing and Membership, SHAPE America
Easy to Customize
SHAPE America was excited by how easy Higher Logic Thrive made it to customize the community and make it their own. They built on the product’s out-of-the-box designs to create the perfect brand-aligned, cohesive member experience they were looking for
“One of the coolest things is how custom your community can get. We built off the out-of-the-box design, plus all these new features, like the really intuitive homepage, and we blended all that to make it ours – it was easy to use and something we were super fired up about.”
Joey Martelli
Senior Manager of Marketing and Membership, SHAPE America
A "Happy Melting Pot" of Engaged Members
Members are so excited the online community is back. They love being able to connect there and are enjoying the new features. Experienced members are sharing their knowledge; there are enthusiastic discussions around strategies and best practices; and even people who don’t engage as often are expressing appreciation. Joey described it as a “happy melting pot.”
The community also makes members more engaged with their membership – SHAPE America has noticed that one of the main ways members know their membership has lapsed (and are then spurred to renew) is when they stop getting their daily community digest emails.
“When these community digest emails go out – and members see the names and faces of people they may know, or they see passionate discussions about some niche topic they care about –these messages are something that stands out. So our open rates on our community digests are absurdly high – last I checked it was over 40%, which just doesn’t happen for our other messages. Our people really get into it - even when they’re not actively posting every day, they’re still listening and engaged.”
Joey Martelli
Senior Manager of Marketing and Membership, SHAPE America
About SHAPE America
Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE) America serves as the voice for 200,000+ health and physical education professionals across the United States. The organization’s extensive community includes a diverse membership of health and physical educators, as well as advocates, supporters, and 50+ state affiliate organizations. SHAPE America’s National Standards for K-12 Physical Education have served as the foundation for well-designed physical education programs across the country and the organization helped develop and owns the National Health Education Standards.
What’s next: SHAPE America is planning to use their community to generate non-dues revenue from ads on their community and in email. The primary goal will always be serving their members, but this allows the organization to diversify their financial support.
How can Higher Logic Thrive grow your community?
Let’s set up time to talk about your needs and how we can help you deepen member engagement.