8 Award-Winning Success Stories from Super Forum 2018
Associations, Corporations, Customer Stories // At Super Forum we present our Floyd Awards, to recognize our customers for their outstanding work in community and marketing automation.
Jenna FrantzEvery Super Forum, we present our Floyd Awards to recognize our customers for their outstanding work in community. This year, we’re extra excited to include awards for success in online community and marketing automation.
We’re sharing these winning customers’ stories because A) they’re great, and B) everyone can learn from what they’ve done well.
Congrats to our 2018 winners! Check out their stories and why they won below.
1. Most Successful Online Community: American Association for Clinical Chemistry, AACC Artery
Led by Community Manager, Simona Ciampi, the American Association for Clinical Chemistry’s community, AACC Artery, encourages interactions among members with diverse scientific backgrounds, which fosters consistent new collaborations and fruitful discussions. Clinical laboratorians from across the globe engage with each other on topics such as clinical guidelines and best practices for patient care, allowing them to both further their professional education and network with their peers.
Highlights
AACC Artery boasts:
- 300 new threads quarterly
- 1000 public messages quarterly
- An average of four replies per thread
- 89.4% Open Forum subscription rate
2. Most Successful Community Launch: American Occupational Therapy Association, AOTA CommunOT
The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) launched the AOTA CommunOT in June 2018 with an all-member Open Forum, which quickly grew into nine additional special interest sections. Time and time again, AOTA has received positive feedback about the community from their members. For example, one member referenced thinking about a specific post in the community during their work evaluation, and for one OT who works per diem without other therapists, AOTA CommunOT has been a marvelous resource.
Highlights
Within the first 3 months of launch, there were:
- 13,000+ members who agreed to terms
- 48,000+ total logins
- 3800 discussion posts
- 672 new threads
- 1500 unique discussion authors
- An average of 41 posts per day
- An average of 5.32 replies per thread
- 72% conversation rate for an unanswered thread automation rule email asking select members to respond to threads without replies in the community
3. Marketing Automation Masters: American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers
The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) used marketing automation to include dynamic renewal footers in emails and to run paid social media ads, along with launching a new welcome series.
Highlights
ASHRAE saw a 10-15 percent increase in renewals due to a renewal campaign through the Higher Logic Real Magnet platform, and decreased membership cancellations by seven percent since the launch of that campaign.
Here was ASHRAE’s renewal automation campaign process:
- Enrolled nine different membership grades
- Removed three membership grades when members become honorary, presidential, or lifetime
- Sent emails only Monday through Thursday when staff is in the office
- Included dynamic text, based on country, to include different messaging on how the ASHRAE handbook would be delivered
4. Best Community Manager: Jamie Chapman, The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi
Since the launch of Link (The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi’s online community) in 2015, Jamie Chapman has worked tirelessly to make it an engaging platform and valuable networking tool. She has created numerous communities within Link: Career Corner, Chapter Officers Open Forum, STEM Lab, The Quad, The Study Group, The Writer’s Block, and PKP Announcements. Her commitment to the success of these communities is shown in her ongoing training and work to add new features.
She goes back to work each year after Super Forum energized and full of ideas for new ways to increase participation, enhance promotion, and improve functionality of the communities. The executive team and board of directors appreciate all of Jamie’s hard work to add value to Phi Kappa Phi membership.
Highlights
To further advance member engagement, Jamie’s initiatives included:
- Enhancing capabilities: Jamie worked to add a Link-branded MemberCentric mobile app, an Expert Directory, a Renew Now widget, and a Career Center widget
- Introduced marketing automation, powered by Informz
- Improved gamification by expanding the collection of ribbons to recognize members for their contributions to the Link community
Jamie focuses on a few key tasks to ensure quality in her work:
- Providing strong customer service
- Ensuring that Link is woven into the marketing calendar and strategy
- Creating quarterly engagement reports (which show a steady climb in member usage!)
- Reviewing posts, prompting responses when needed, assisting community members, and keeping threads organized
5. Best Community Site Design: International Society for Technology in Education
The International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) site is attractive, mobile-friendly, and accessible, but most impressive is the new dashboard members see when they login. This is the first complete overhaul since their launch in 2014. They worked with eConverse to do their Higher Logic redesign.
Highlights
The dashboard adapts over time as a new member becomes more engaged. A new member will be asked to add a profile photo and make their first post, for instance, while a veteran member will have quicker access to more advanced features. The goal is to meet and anticipate the needs of all members, making the site grow with them.
6. Best Email Campaign Design: North American Veterinary Community
The North American Veterinary Community (NAVC) consistently delivers well-designed mailings that connect with the subscriber professionally by using strong imagery, direct calls to action, and brand consistency.
Highlights
Their execution relays relevant content in consumable-sized chunks and leverages clear buttons that drive traffic to their website for more information and additional engagement. Using their brand colors, logos, and fonts, the mailings feature strong contrast, making them easy to read on any device while supporting brand recognition and building trust with their members.
7. Most Creative Use of Higher Logic Platform: The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan
The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan is one of the top alumni organizations serving over 100,000 members worldwide including over 1,000 volunteers and more than 100 alumni clubs and groups. Their mission is to nurture lifelong relationships with and among current and future Michigan alumni.
Highlights
One of the unique challenges of connecting alumni is the vast array of demographics they bring to the table, including:
- Various graduation years
- Areas of study and academic interests
- Professions, etc.
To accomplish the goal of having one Open Forum that would engage all alumni, The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan chose to become one of the first clients to implement personalization through the use of topic communities.
By leveraging the personalization functionality, alumni members can select areas of stated interest via a topic tag list on their profiles that are then used to generate a personalized digest. All new threads are required to have a topic tag, and a digest will only generate when a matching stated interest is selected.
Through thoughtful execution in the planning process, which included tag selection, user education, and site design, as well as a consistent focus with the end user in mind, The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan has been able to successfully launch a new approach to the Open Forum.
8. Most Innovative Way of Using the Higher Logic MA Platform: American Association of Airport Executives
The American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) has taken full advantage of the Higher Logic Informz Marketing Automation platform, often breaking new ground and finding innovative solutions to meet their organizational goals. They make regular use of all the marketing automation tools including scoring, personas, web tracking, and campaigns to gain insight and communicate with their membership.
Highlights
In a recent effort, AAAE leveraged web tracking to identify members that showed interest in a Certification program based on website behavior. To do this, they:
- Filtered members that recently visited a certification page into an automated nurture campaign to encourage certification registration
- Prioritized messages and monitored email volume by creating a “check, hold, and release” process within the campaign that acted as a virtual traffic controller to any other automated campaigns that were in play
This approach strengthened campaign communications and effectively allowed AAAE to target specific behaviors, maintain strong conversion rates, and reduce risk of “email fatigue.”
And Last, But Not Least….
We’re so glad we’ve got a chance to award these superstar clients for their hard work and various successes using our Community and Communications software.
But the best part of it is? Every client we have is amazing. We want to give a huge shout-out to all our clients and your amazing work. You are our favorite part of what we do!
Manager of Strategic Services
