Proven Techniques for Associations to Strengthen Their Brand Equity

1. Engage Your Audience

Whether it’s current members and sponsors or prospects and potential employers, connecting with your target audience is one of the most effective ways to boost the way people perceive your association.
It helps you measure your existing brand equity and determine the best strategies to grow it. Options for audience engagement include:

• Dedicating an email address for receiving feedback
• Sending feedback forms (include incentive for responding)
• Enlisting customer service agents
• Reviewing your online data (for example, search volume and social media metrics)

2. Create Brand Awareness

Promoting higher brand equity is possible when your audience better knows the brand, also known as brand awareness. Fostering brand awareness results in higher consumer trust and strong brand relevance.
Increasing audience awareness of your association is a multi-step process that includes:

• Establishing a brand identity
• Adopting brand values
• Interacting with members and prospects
• Offering free services (for example, a free certification course)
• Conducting satisfaction surveys
• Creating special discounts

3. Provide Positive Experiences

Investing in member experience is a powerful tool for strengthening the brand equity of your association. Creating positive experiences improves loyalty, attracts more prospects, and generates higher revenue.
An easy way to do so is by researching existing pitfalls in the industry and similar associations, and then building a member experience that resolves them.
Figuring out what members need and providing solutions to fulfill those needs makes them feel valued, leading to higher loyalty and better brand resonance.

4. Share Brand Story

Finding a way to communicate your association’s values enables you to establish authentic relationships with members, which significantly contributes to positive brand equity.
The basic technique is to tell your association’s story on your website. You can also incorporate parts of your story into your emails, social media posts, brochures, and so on.

5. Develop Regular Brand Equity Agendas

To remain focused on the association’s goals of strengthening its brand equity, drafting a brand equity report regularly is a must. It’s what powerful brands do to avoid getting sidetracked along the way.
A brand equity agenda typically includes an outline of the association’s philosophy, current happenings, acceptable uses for resources, and audit results. You can issue a report to association executives monthly, quarterly, or yearly.

6. Establish Strategic Partnerships

Leveraging partnerships with companies, businesses, and organizations that can benefit your members is an effective technique to:

• Spread the word about your association
• Build member trust
• Boost your brand’s reputation

Final Thoughts

The heart of brand equity is member experience. As such, equity-strengthening techniques revolve around fostering human relationships and growing trust by creating brand awareness, addressing members’ needs, and encouraging communication.