Association events are essential for providing value to members but are also often costly investments. This can put pressure on your team as they try to balance your budget while still creating an engaging experience for your members.

That’s why your trade or professional association should leverage the right event management tools to boost attendance, maximize engagement, streamline operations, and make the most of each event. 

We’ve identified essential association event software solutions and what features to look for in each tool. Make sure that you come prepared with these tools for your next event:

• What is an Engagement Infrastructure?
• Event Management Software
• An Event Platform
• Membership Data Software

Ready to supercharge your in-person, hybrid, or virtual association events? We’ll explore top solutions and practices for making the most of them, from practicing good data hygiene to ensuring you choose the right vendor for your needs.

What is an Engagement Infrastructure?

Associations don’t just need tools to host their events, but also to announce them, promote them, and continue conversations long after each event wraps up.

When assessing a platform with engagement infrastructure, look for the following features:

• • Community feed. A community feed allows your members to connect with one another and provides a place for your association to announce and promote events. After the event wraps up, your team and members can keep conversations going.
  • Event hosting. The platform should have basic video conferencing software for hosting virtual events. Plus, even if you have other event hosting tools, your platform should still have event scheduling tools so members can RSVP and stay updated with all event details.
  • Marketing automation. Before your event, your chosen platform should be able to send alerts to RSVPed members to remind them. Schedule these reminders to go out 1 week, 1 day, and 1 hour before the event.
  • Sponsorship promotions. Look for member engagement platforms that open the door to non-dues revenue opportunities, like sponsorships. For example, our favorite platform, Tradewing, allows associations to promote sponsors through a visible but non-obtrusive tab during events.

• Engagement Analytics. Insights from engagement analytics show which touchpoints generate the most and least engagement, as well as each member’s level of participation. This information helps you make informed decisions about which engagements to keep and which to drop, keeping your members connected and maintaining retention. 

• Mobile experience. The modern association member is always on the go, which is why it’s essential that your platform has a mobile experience. This feature allows your members to learn and connect with the community anytime, anywhere. 

• Knowledge-sharing. Ensure that engagement infrastructure is built on your knowledge-sharing mechanisms by providing members with a space to learn collaboratively. A good platform should have a dedicated resource hub so that members can store and publish multimedia content and participate in discussion forums. 

For trade and professional associations on a budget, Tradewing can double as an engagement infrastructure-based community platform and your virtual event software. Compared to subscriptions for services like Zoom, you might find an all-in-one platform like Tradewing to be the most cost-effective option. 

Event Management Software

Event management software refers to a broad set of tools that help associations plan, promote, and manage events. This software facilitates every step of the event lifecycle, from multichannel marketing to post-event reports. Plus, these systems improve the event experience for organizers and attendees alike by eliminating tedious registration and setup processes. 

That being said, some event management systems are more comprehensive than others. If you’re looking for an all-in-one platform to manage the creation and execution of your events, a few top features to keep an eye out for the following features include:

• The ability to plan and manage all event formats—virtual, hybrid, and in-person
• Easy-to-use, mobile-optimized forms to streamline registration
• Ticketing and QR code or barcode scanning capabilities
• Seamless data integration with your association management software (AMS)
• Reports on event and attendee data
• Management capabilities for vendors, sponsors, speakers, and exhibitors

When assessing event management software, be aware that many top providers cater to a range of audiences and may not have association-specific features. Narrow your search to vendors used to working with associations and have the resources you need to host your unique networking events, new member welcome meetings, conferences, online courses, and other events.

An Event Platform

In addition to an event management software, your association should also invest in an online event platform. This platform is where all attendees gather and enjoy everything your association offers.

While there are plenty of free conferencing apps with basic streaming and discussion features, a dedicated event platform gives your association the power to connect with virtual attendees, encourage greater member engagement, and facilitate networking and community-building.

Many professional and trade associations have a significant number of members who join solely to network. As such, hosting only a handful of in-person events a year isn’t optimal, nor are virtual events where attendees are passive.

Ensure your members get the most out of your event experience by seeking out an event platform that offers:

• Live chat and reaction features
• Polls, highlighted questions, and other interaction features
• Virtual community and committee creation features
• Viewable attendee profiles
• Chat and video invitation capabilities

These tools aren’t only important for virtual attendees; they also help in-person attendees use their mobile devices to connect with others and enjoy a fuller, multifaceted event experience by enabling them to interact with online participants. 

Membership Data Software and Resources

Events offer associations an opportunity to connect with their members. If done correctly, your association can encourage members to move to higher membership tiers, purchase add-ons, or increase their value by engaging in other activities. However, this is only possible with high-quality membership data management.

Having software to manage your memberships enables your association to constantly learn about your members and enhance your event follow-up. When members first join your association, ask them to create detailed profiles. While they should be able to pick and choose which of this information is private, your association will have access to essential details you can leverage to improve your communications.

Using membership management software is the best way for your association to keep detailed records of your event so that you always know how to contact your members afterward.

Unsure what data you should be targeting? We recommend focusing on the essential data, such as:

• Preferred name
• Age
• Email address
• Phone number
• Physical address
• Employment status and employer
• Educational background

You can ask for other information relevant to your association’s specific industry or about members’ interests and hobbies. While this may seem intensive, members are more likely to give out this information when completing their profiles since these details will help them network with other members.

Data Appends

If your association lacks member data or you fear your members’ information is outdated, you can ask members to take a second to update their profiles. If this proves ineffective, your emails are bouncing, or your physical invitations are being returned to sender, that might be a sign to kick your data collection practices up a notch with a data append.

Data append is the process of pulling data from external sources to fill gaps in your database and ensure you have up-to-date records of your members. Appending your data also encourages strong event turnout. For example, if you are planning a webinar, data appending can fill in missing contact information in your attendee list so that everyone receives an invitation.  Appending services such as those NPOInfo offers empower you to maintain contact with your members.

To secure an append, conduct the following steps: 

• Select a Provider. Pick a trusted data vendor that specializes in the specific type of data you need (e.g., B2B contacts, consumer demographics, financial data). Check accuracy rates, master database size, and data-handling practices. These should all be satisfactory. 
• Transfer Member Data. After choosing a vendor,  you will export your clean dataset (usually as a CSV or Excel file) and send it to the vendor. Since databases contain Personally Identifiable Information (PII), this transfer must be conducted securely, such as via an encrypted SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) server or a secure API connection. 
• Vendor Performs Data Append. The vendor compares your dataset against their master database using match keys. You will decide with the vendor beforehand how strict the matching criteria can be. When the vendor finds a match based on the agreed-upon criteria, the vendor’s system extracts the requested missing information and adds it to a new column in your file. 
• Data Delivery. The vendor returns the appended data, typically alongside a “Match Report” that details the match rate and the number of new data points added. Ensure the columns map correctly to your original dataset and upload the newly appended data to your CRM.

Some associations choose separate vendors for member engagement, virtual events, registration, and member management. While this approach can work, it often creates duplicate data and additional administrative overhead. Unified engagement infrastructure helps associations reduce complexity by bringing these experiences together in a single platform.

Regardless of whether you’re hosting a virtual networking fair or an in-person awards ceremony, you can improve your events by using the right software to power the planning, management, and hosting processes. 

By leveraging the software platforms we’ve highlighted, you can increase member engagement, leverage your data, enhance the value of your membership program, and reduce stress on your event organizing team.

The right association event tools don’t just help you host successful events, they also help you strengthen member engagement, improve retention, and uncover valuable insights that support long-term growth.

Donors want to hear about the story of your nonprofit, its beneficiaries, and its work. In fact, 42% of donors indicate that stories from beneficiaries influenced their decision to donate. The best way to tell your organization’s story is through cohesive, effective marketing campaigns—but how can you know that your campaigns are having the impact you intended?

In this guide, we’ll explore some of the top metrics you’ll need to track to accurately assess your marketing campaign’s success, whether your goals are to boost donor acquisition, grow your social media following, or drive revenue. Let’s get started!

Why Analyzing Marketing Data Is Important

As GivingDNA’s guide to data analytics for nonprofits explains, tracking your organization’s metrics involves “collecting data and analyzing it to uncover trends, patterns, and insights that will help guide fundraising strategies.” In other words, you’ll understand your donors and each campaign’s strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to create a roadmap to marketing success.

Tracking and analyzing your marketing metrics is a critically important step, since it allows you to:

• Get a 360-degree view of your marketing efforts. Use your data to follow donor journeys, see which strategies are most effective, identify gaps that lead to abandoned donation forms, and more.
• Refine your strategy to enhance campaign outcomes. By tracking progress during the campaign, you can alter your approach to yield better end results.
• Establish benchmarks. This will help you accurately predict the results of future campaigns.
• Efficiently allocate resources. For example, spend more on the channels that generate the most conversions.

As you collect this data, remember to effectively manage your donors’ information. Integrate your technology to eliminate data silos and house all information on one platform. Additionally, protect any sensitive donor data, such as payment information, by limiting access to your database, leveraging data encryption, and requiring two-factor authentication to log into the software.

4 Types of Marketing Data

There are many different types of key performance indicators (KPIs) that your nonprofit may choose to track to gauge its progress. Select these metrics based on your goals for the campaign and which communication channels you’re using. For example, if your goal is to increase donations, it’s more important to focus on conversion metrics and total fundraising dollars than social media follows.

Here are four common types of KPIs to help you get started:

Engagement Metrics

Engagement metrics indicate how and when users interacted with your campaign. They reveal how well-aligned your content is with the audience’s interests and preferences.

This category can encompass many different metrics across a variety of communication channels, but some common examples include:

• Click-through rate, which indicates whether a supporter clicked on the link in your marketing messages. For example, if you use digital donation cards, you would track the number of clicks from the card to your donation form.
• Time spent on page, which reveals how long a user engages with the campaign landing page after clicking through. The longer they spend, the more interested they are in your content.
• Donation form abandonment rate, which shows what percentage of those who click through to your form abandoned the page before completing their donation. Ideally, this metric should be as low as possible to indicate that most of your supporters are donating once they land on the page.

Your nonprofit should carefully track these metrics as soon as your campaign launches. Just remember that high engagement does not always equate to more conversions (e.g., donating).

Audience Metrics

These metrics demonstrate who is interacting with your marketing messages and how far your campaign is spreading. Some of the key metrics related to your audience will include:

• Reach, which refers to the total number of unique users who were exposed to your campaign in some way.
• Frequency indicates how many times those users see your ad. For example, each person might see a post an average of three times, making your frequency three.
• Impressions denote the number of times your campaign was displayed. Impressions are typically higher than reach because one user could have multiple impressions. If you reach 10 users and have a frequency of three, impressions would equal 300.

Tracking demographic data such as the user’s age, gender, location, occupation, and other socioeconomic factors can also be helpful, especially if your campaign taps into new audiences. Learning about these new audiences can help you cultivate deeper relationships with them by tailoring your communications from the very first thank-you message or welcome email.

Platform-Specific Metrics

While some marketing metrics are relatively general—or even considered to be universal across all communication channels—some are hyper-specific to certain platforms. As more digital and social media platforms are established, this list will likely grow.

For example, the following digital platforms each have unique metrics you’ll need to understand and analyze to chart your campaign’s performance:

• Social media: Most social media platforms measure engagement through metrics like views, likes, comments, shares, saves, and follows. Some have unique actions that count toward engagement—think of TikTok’s Stitch feature or reposting on X (formerly Twitter).
• Email: Measure your email campaign’s performance with metrics like delivery and open rates to see how many of your messages reach their intended recipients.
• Website: See how many visitors your site receives from your campaign, as well as the quality of those visitors. Monitor total website traffic, number of sessions, page views, time spent on page, bounce rate, and more.

Additionally, confirm that your organization is tracking data from its fundraising tools. This important information can sometimes fall through the cracks, particularly if you’re using a more niche tool like silent auction software or a gift card fundraiser platform.

Conversion Metrics

A conversion happens when a user interacts with your campaign and takes the intended next action. The way you measure the number of conversions depends on your campaign’s goal. For example, a user might convert by:

• Donating
• Subscribing to your email newsletter or direct mail list
• Following your social media accounts
• Purchasing merchandise to support your mission
• Joining your sustainer program
• Apply to be a volunteer

Your conversion rate is then calculated by dividing the total number of conversions that occurred during the campaign by the number of clicks or visits to your website. Aim to boost conversions as much as you can, but don’t stress about reaching an unattainable number. For instance, the average online donation conversion rate for nonprofits in 2023 was 16% for desktop users and 10% for mobile. Using these figures as a benchmark, you can determine what’s feasible for your nonprofit and start there.

Remember that data insights will only be as accurate as the file you’re pulling them from. This is why it’s so important to practice data hygiene and ensure that your data attribution is correct and up-to-date. A nonprofit marketing agency can help you analyze, understand, and protect the quality of your data to promote continuous improvements and take your campaigns to the next level.

When you first start a nonprofit, constituent relationship management (CRM) software likely isn’t your top priority. You’ve got tax forms to file, donors to find, and countless other important steps to take to get your new organization up and running. At the time, using spreadsheets to keep track of data is the simplest solution at your disposal. Once your nonprofit starts to grow, however, you may run into issues.

Spreadsheets can only do so much for a growing nonprofit with hundreds or thousands of supporters to keep track of. Moving to an advanced, scalable CRM allows you to easily house, organize, and analyze all of your data in one place—leading to better insights and more efficient staff.

If you’re ready to move to a system that will increase your organization’s capacity to further its mission, we’ll cover four steps you can take:

1. Evaluate Your Budget and Choose a CRM
2. Partner with a Nonprofit Tech Consultant
3. Organize Your Data for Migration
4. Train Your Team to Use the New System

Switching to any new technology can feel daunting, especially when there’s valuable data involved. Let’s walk through what you can do to feel prepared for the change.

1. Evaluate Your Budget and Choose a CRM

First, determine your organization’s budget for a CRM. This will require input from your board and leadership team, so be sure to loop them in early on in the process. As you create your budget, don’t forget to account for additional costs beyond the sticker price of the software itself, such as user licenses, consulting services, and implementation costs.

With a clear budget in mind, you can start researching the top fundraising CRMs to find the best fit for your organization. Evaluate options based on factors like:

• Scalability. How much data can you store in the CRM? Will it be able to easily scale with your nonprofit’s needs?
• Nonprofit-specific features. Choosing a system that was designed with nonprofits’ needs and goals in mind will provide you with all the most relevant, useful features.
• Ease of use. If you don’t have tech experts on your team, choosing an intuitive platform that doesn’t require too much customization or training is key.
• Availability of add-ons and integrations. Do you already have an event platform or marketing automation tool that you use? Check to see if they can integrate with the CRM.

Once you have a shortlist of options, schedule product demos and discuss the pros and cons of each CRM with your team. If you find that you don’t have enough room in your budget to invest in your top choice, Getting Attention suggests seeking out a technology grant from a corporation or foundation to cover some of the costs.

2. Partner with a Nonprofit Tech Consultant

Next, partner with a nonprofit technology consultant who can guide you through the remainder of the implementation and migration processes.

Ideally, you should find a partner who has experience with the CRM you chose in the former step. For example, if you’re interested in moving to Salesforce for Nonprofits, look for an expert who offers specialized Salesforce nonprofit consulting services. That way, they can educate you on exactly how your data needs to be formatted for the move and help you strategically leverage the platform of your choice.

Beyond that, Redpath’s nonprofit CRM implementation guide explains that the right partner can help your organization with every aspect of the process, including:

• CRM implementation
• Functionality testing and fixes
• Data migration
• Team training

While guiding you through the implementation process, a qualified consultant can also look at your current data management practices and explain how to use your new system to improve them.

3. Organize Your Data for Migration

The only way to successfully migrate your data from spreadsheets to a CRM is to ensure that your data is formatted consistently and correctly for the new system. 

Spreadsheets can be haphazard and disorganized, with different team members inputting information in different ways. Where one person might only add “yes” or “no” in a column tracking conversations with donor prospects, for example, someone else may leave long comments about what they discussed in each conversation.

Your consultant should be able to help you understand exactly how your data needs to be formatted for the specific CRM you’re implementing, including which fields need to match up and how to verify that everything is organized correctly. But before you reformat your data, it’s your responsibility to ensure that it’s clean and up to date.

Clean up your data now by going through your spreadsheets and removing or updating:

• Outdated information like old phone numbers, email addresses, or mail addresses.
• Duplicate data, where the exact same information appears in multiple places.
• Any information you used to collect but no longer use, such as participant information for a program that ended years ago.

From here, your consultant can make a detailed data migration plan for moving all of the data you’ve identified to your new system and mitigating the risk of data loss. They’ll perform the migration and let you know what your role is in the process.

4. Train Your Team to Use the New System

Finally, work with your consultant to find the best training resources, then schedule training for relevant team members to learn the ropes of your new CRM.

Since you’re moving to an entirely new, more advanced system to house your data, the training process will understandably take time. Be sure to communicate openly with your team throughout implementation and training, and provide them with any additional support they may need to navigate this change.

While you’re devoting time to training, this is also a good time to implement some new policies based on data hygiene best practices to ensure your data stays accurate and usable going forward. This might include adding rules that standardize how team members input data and handle issues that arise. For example, clarify that addresses should always use abbreviations like “St.” and “Ave.” rather than spelling them out.

With a new, advanced CRM at your fingertips, your nonprofit’s team will be better equipped to use fundraising, marketing, and donor data to raise more for your mission. As you start using your new platform, note any features or data analysis strategies that prove especially valuable so your team can keep improving.