There’s a huge paradox at the heart of digital marketing. You have to communicate on a huge scale, potentially to millions of people. But you have to create personalized messages and try to have one-to-one conversations with each lead. How can this be achieved?

Associations put a lot of effort into their programs and services. In theory, this should result in excellent levels of member engagement, as people take advantage of what’s on offer to further their careers.

Marketing would be so much easier if you could just ask each individual member what they want. That would be impossible, of course, especially if you have a large, nationwide association. And yet, members do expect a high level of personalization.

It's very worrying when you see membership rates dropping. How can you tell where your association is going wrong? How can you identify the areas where you need to improve.

When you’re trying to increase your association membership figures, you have to ask yourself two big questions: how do you attract new members, and how do you hang onto the members you’ve already got?

Every association needs to try to attract new members, especially those associations that are experiencing membership decay as long-term members move towards retirement. But is it possible to grow your membership without a huge advertising spend or a massive recruitment push?