Here at HighRoad, we’re passionate about helping associations select the right tools for their marketing technology stacks. Choosing the right marketing automation platform and email marketing system is a crucial step toward growing, engaging, and retaining members and customers. However, utility of these tools can be limited if the data isn't at the helm. If data within your digital platform isn't integrated with the data held in your Association Management System (AMS), then your platform output will fall short.
Marrying this data on an ongoing basis is what tells the full story about each individual. It's what makes a marketer truly data-driven and goal-tied. As such, today, we’re diving into our flagship integration product―our Plus Connector.
When we talk about “a sync,” we're talking about the process of syncing data from one database to another. Namely, from your AMS to your email marketing system or marketing automation platform. Our Plus Connector, integrates demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data from your AMS to your chosen digital marketing platform so that you can easily segment or filter that data to send relevant information to specific lists. This also saves you time by eliminating the need to manually upload lists or update contacts.
The Plus Connector includes four types of syncs, so let’s break those down:
1―All Customer Sync
This is the primary contact sync for the Plus Connector. The All Customer sync imports all contacts you want to communicate with from your AMS to the marketing platform. This sync includes all the fields you’ll need to create and deliver personalized, automated messages to segmented lists of members and customers. The sync runs nightly, meaning no more manual updates of contact information into your marketing database. Not only does this save you time, but it also creates a single source for your data, ensuring accuracy and efficiency.
2―Pre-Segmentation Sync
The Pre-Segmentation sync, otherwise known as commonly used lists, creates ready-to-use lists in your marketing platform so that your team only needs to select the list or group in order to send targeted messages. Consider this sync your one-stop click for operational efficiency.
We’ve found this sync to be particularly helpful for fields like:
- Member Type
- State
- Age Range
- Career Level
- Job Function
And for creating lists like:
-
- Event Registration
- Product Purchases
- Committee Participation
- Call for Papers
3―Query Sync
The Query sync leverages your AMS’ native query (or view) mechanism to create custom lists in the AMS. Most of our clients find that 80-90% of their data is accounted for in the previous two syncs, but for organizations where the tech team manages the data more than the marketing team, the query sync may prove as the better option.
4―Transactional Sync (available for Adestra and HubSpot)
This integration allows you to associate multiple layers of transactional history (event reg, orders, webinars, etc.) with one contact record. Organizations use this integration for invoicing purposes, and other hyper personalized communications with parent/child relational data.
5―Add-on Syncs
Lifecycle Connector Sync
This sync is useful in tracking conversion data. It's designed to capture when someone has converted on one of your campaigns so that they're not sent into subsequent buyer journeys after they've converted or consumed your content.
Reporting Plus Sync
In addition to syncing data from your AMS to your digital marketing platform, HighRoad offers a write-back sync from your digital marketing platform to your AMS (or your data warehouse). Using the Reporting Plus add-on sync, you can start to identify both individualized and aggregate data patterns that will help you segment in the now and predict behaviors in the future.
Let's take a look at how this all comes together
Association X is using an AMS to track its member data, a digital marketing platform to automate and track its communication efforts, and HighRoad’s Plus Connector and Reporting Plus technologies to integrate all of these pieces.
John Smith is a member of Association X. Association X inputs and stores relevant data about John in its AMS. Through the Plus Connector, that data is synced to the digital marketing platform so that John receives timely, personalized content based on his demographic details.
The digital marketing platform tracks which emails John opens and clicks on, which conferences he registers for, what content he downloads, etc. And then, using the Reporting Plus add-on, a portion of those analytics are synced back to the AMS. So, when the association membership team goes into the AMS to look at John’s details, not only do they see his up-to-date contact information, they also see the types of communications that are most interesting and useful to him based on his engagement metrics.
Or, alternatively, let's say some of these reporting metrics are getting written back to Association X's data-warehouse. Association X is then able to use these aggregate metrics to forecast what new audiences and trends may impact their organization in the future.
This integrated solution enables associations to create more personalized, targeted journeys, and it provides them with a seamless reporting mechanism to track campaign successes.
So, how can all of this benefit your association? Let’s break it down:
- Streamlined data - Rather than spending hours manually uploading lists from your AMS to your marketing platform, all of your member and customer data will be available for you to quickly create targeted, segmented lists.
- Automated processes - Because our syncs run nightly, you’ll know that you’re using the most up-to-date data without having to do manual updates.
- Individualized experiences - By leveraging all of your available data, you’ll be able to serve up content, programs, and communications that truly customize your member and customers' experiences with your organization.
Want to hear more about integrating your platforms?
We're happy to talk to you about it more specifically as it relates to your organization. Book some time with us.
