Data drives nearly every industry today, and association management is no exception. Member information—from demographics to engagement metrics to financial transactions—guides critical decisions about the future.
Maintaining accurate, relevant member data is essential for keeping associations relevant and financially healthy. But outdated, cluttered databases make this challenging. When data becomes overwhelming to clean, associations need the right tools.
re:Members’ AMS software makes maintaining good data hygiene straightforward and manageable.
The Importance of Data Hygiene
When data becomes outdated or corrupted—sometimes called “dirty”—it stops being helpful and becomes actively harmful. Poor data hygiene costs the U.S. economy an estimated $3.1 trillion annually.
Data hygiene is especially crucial for associations because:
1
Building Member Satisfaction and Trust
Association members are individuals with unique goals, needs, and motivations. Clean, accurate data enables personalized experiences that acknowledge interests, needs, and past participation.
Inaccurate data leads to inconsistent member experiences. Clean data creates resonant experiences keeping members engaged.
2
Facilitating Accurate Reporting and Decision-Making
64% of top companies use data driving innovation, experiencing 25% faster innovation cycles through data analytics. Clean data drives informed decisions. But associations face common challenges:
Accumulating outdated or inaccurate data: Everything tends toward disorder, including data sets. Whether dealing with inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, or duplicate data, improving quality should be top priority.
Administrative burdens creating errors: Overwhelmed leaders make mistakes. Simple entry errors or tasks outside expertise windows contribute to corrupted data.
3
re:Members' Approach to Data Hygiene
re:Members’ user-friendly data management interface ensures accessible, reliable, accurate data. Built-in features ensure ongoing integrity and prevent duplication. Easy-to-use tools let members edit and remove outdated information themselves. Benefits of real-time member updates include:
Saving administrator time and lowering workload
Eliminating update backlogs
Empowering member data control
Decreasing administrative error opportunities
Three Key Benefits of Improved Data Hygiene
Enhanced Member Engagement and Retention
Accurate, accessible reporting empowers targeted member engagement, proving association value and maintaining long-term investment.
Example: Teladoc Health found personalized, automated “health nudges” improved member engagement. Leveraging billions of data points, predictive models identified at-risk members and provided resources leading to better outcomes.
Only impeccable data hygiene enables such success. Good data hygiene brings similar insight power to associations.
Increased Operational Efficiency and Reduced Costs
Bad data is costly—potentially $14.2 million yearly per organization, with U.S. economic costs exceeding $3 trillion annually.
This doesn’t account for time saved when staff don’t constantly update, confirm, or clean data. While poor quality causes expensive rabbit holes from failed campaigns to misguided engagement, good hygiene saves time and money.
Better Compliance with Data Protection
Strong privacy laws benefit everyone, but ensuring GDPR compliance is challenging. Violations can result in fines up to 4% of global revenue or 20 million euros, whichever is higher.
re:Members AMS ensures GDPR compliance, meeting highest standards. Enjoy cleaner data, pristine reporting, and peace of mind knowing compliance is maintained.
Implementing re:Members AMS
Planning and Executing Transition
Working together, re:Members assists planning and executing full Implementation Life Cycles including:
Project kickoff meetings
Weekly status calls
Website configuration and customization help
Database migration
Training Staff and Members
re:Members provides live train-the-trainer sessions with Product Specialists, ensuring comfort using software and awareness of capabilities for knowledge transfer.
Ongoing support from designated representatives continues through transition and beyond. Continuous technical support and regular update training ensures never struggling alone.
Take Action
Data hygiene importance for associations cannot be overstated:
Poor interoperability between systems creates operational chaos throughout the organization. Hidden costs compound daily—from lost productivity to missed revenue—while fragmented...
Staying with the wrong AMS creates daily costs through hidden expenses, operational inefficiencies, and missed opportunities. These aren't future risks—they're...
Low adoption rates undermine ROI and organizational efficiency, but understanding why adoption fails—and how to ensure it succeeds—can transform this...
Patrick Dorsey is Senior Vice President of Marketing at re:Members, where he leads brand and marketing for the company's association management software solutions.
