3 considerations for your membership organisation’s digital transformation

If your membership organisation is facing an outdated website or a platform with an unfriendly user experience, it’s probably time to undergo a digital refresh. This can be a daunting task, but with the right partner, your expectations can be achieved with minimal roadblocks.

To have a successful outcome, organisations must ensure that they understand the services they will require, outline a detailed plan and collaborate with an experienced development team to make their vision come to life. A sustainable and future-proof website is just 3 steps away:

1. Understand your current position with a digital business analysis

The first step to overcoming your problems is understanding them. You must first define the challenges your organisation is currently facing that are blocking you from achieving your goals. Here are a few analyses your organisation should be considering:

• Platform analysis A platform analysis compares selected relevant digital platforms based on your business needs and criteria to ensure that the best one is used for your organisation. This analysis provides a solid foundation to make a decision regarding which platform is suitable for your needs.
• Business case To ensure the project is financially profitable, your team should be mapping out the business case to ensure transparency and traceability across the board. An appropriate business case includes both the ambitions and business goals of the organisation, as well as the concrete deliverables expected of the project.
• GAP analysis A GAP analysis will minimise the risk of radical changes within the business by carrying out an analysis of the current business processes, user flows and the system landscape. This allows for the team to build a bridge between the current and the future system.

2. Roadmapping is essential

After conducting a business analysis, you now have a solid base to build a roadmap from. Roadmaps allow your organisation to define milestones, timelines, budgets and resources to ensure your project continues to stay on track. Here are a few roadmapping exercises your business should be conducting:

• Customer journey mapping The most effective way to achieve your goals is by first understanding your members. Customer journey mapping is an exercise of creating a visual storyline of your members’ interactions with your brand or service to understand their experience with your offering. With this information you can build out a new system that suits their needs.
• Digital roadmap Building a digital roadmap gives you initiatives and a timeline to work with as you build out your digital presence. It first involves identifying a strategy and understanding the current situation. From there, you will conduct a sales and marketing performance review, a future analysis and design roadmap of initiatives that serves as an action plan for your initiatives.
• Digital channel strategy With a digital channel strategy, you can prioritise your efforts in various customer-facing contact points. Creating a digital strategy involves answering questions like what is required in terms of resources, technology and interactions between the channels? As well as what are the KPIs in implementing new technology?

3. Be flexible in your approach

In the world of tech, decision-making can often be centred around the “next best thing” – but when approaching the implementation of a new system, organisations should remain open and adaptable. Explore your options, keep an open mind, and don’t reinvent the wheel.

• Technology agnostic The latest technology can be tempting to try out, but it’s not always necessary to build something complex and new just because you can. Optimising your business does not always require the most advanced solution – technology should be the tool, not the goal. Ensure that you are partnered with developers that align on doing the right thing, rather than the new
• Engage the team Too many cooks in the kitchen are never a good thing, but getting input from essential members of the organisation can be the piece missing in your puzzle. Engage your stakeholders to ensure that their opinions are heard and counted. Plus, getting an outside opinion could your eyes to necessary features you did not foresee.

With the right team and plan, your website will be up and running with greater performance and more clients. Turning your clicks into conversions requires a skilled build, but with a development partner that understands your pain points, your business’s vision can come to life with ease. At Novicell, we have a team of digital consultants ready to design and build a web presence that performs for your business’s needs.