Tara Ternes is the Executive Director of the Alberta Electrical Alliance (AEA). She recently sat down with us to talk about her experiences in building Member value and engagement for the AEA.
Tell me about AEA – what is your purpose?
The AEA is a provincial, non for profit, electrical association. Our Members, both corporate and individuals, are from everywhere in the electrical industry, from manufacturers, to contractors, to wholesalers, to utilities, schools, colleges, maintenance, inspectors and more.
They join the AEA to benefit from networking, educational opportunities, industry seminars and tradeshows, scholarships, golf events and other fundraisers our Members work hard to support.
We are very focused on what our Members want.
You offer your Members a lot of value for the membership. What were you looking for in a rewards program to add to the mix in 2018?
We have a very diverse group of Members – they work in different segments of the industry, hold a range of positions within their companies and fall within different age groups. Each of them find value in different areas within our association, and we wanted to bring even more value to our Members. Not everyone is able to attend a seminar or take part in an event, however, as a Member of AEA, they would benefit from us adding a rewards program to the mix.
Our work as an Association isn’t to locate and provide discounts, our goal is to strengthen and educate our industry. We decided we would look for a rewards program that would include as much variety as possible for our Members.
Like our Members, we needed a program that would be very comprehensive and include 'something for everyone’, no matter what demographic they fit into or what location they were in. The rewards program would need to have unique offers or promotions from all types of retailers – both locally and nationally.
What made you decide to work with BOOM Group?
With the BOOM Rewards Program, we offer a multitude of savings to our Members at well known retailers – in industries like entertainment, travel, health and wellness products and services to food and beverage. Members get great discounts at well over 100 retailers.
Our Members find all the promotions on the platform – and it’s available either on mobile and/or desktop.
The whole program is designed to be easy to use for our Members and for our organization. We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel, build a website and a member portal, contact all the retailers, design all the materials – BOOM does it all. And, it’s seamless.
By partnering with BOOM, the AEA was able to immediately add significant benefits for our Members – and BOOM does all the work. It’s a one stop shop. They source out all the retailers, like top hotels, restaurants, auto services, electronics, and the system makes it easy and convenient for our Members to find what they are looking for.
AEA Members don’t need to pre buy, or save up points, they just buy what they want and save right away. There is no work in it for the AEA. BOOM even emails Members once a week to remind them of the great deals and sends us collateral material to include on our website or newsletter where we can.
We found that, by working with BOOM, we could check all the required boxes for our rewards program.
How has your experience been working with BOOM?
BOOM Group is collaborative, they work with us providing the tools we require to get our Members engaged. They’ve been amazing, friendly and helpful and, most importantly, very willing to experiment with different marketing ideas so we all find success.
Their monthly reporting on engagement stats, weekly emails to our Members along with the great offers are all part of why we are so happy with BOOM. There is plenty of opportunities for feedback – checks and balances
We’ve learned you need to work together to make it happen. With the valuable reporting and feedback from BOOM, we can ensure we are working towards getting everyone engaged. If one thing isn’t working you can easily pivot to another approach that may work better.
We always thought ‘you can’t please everyone’ – this program shows we can. We check all the boxes with the BOOM platform. It's giving our Members a bonus, a ‘thank you’ that is meaningful and has a multitude of uses for everyone in our group. There is something in the platform everyone would find interesting. Oil changes, food and beverages, hotels, car rentals, family fun, even eye glasses, fitness and vitamins are in there!
It’s been awesome. Everyone is great, friendly and super helpful. Any questions that we or our Members have, BOOM responds to quickly - no issues. The way that they are so willing to work with us to provide different avenues to promote the program to our Members has been so good.
And, we can always call them up and speak with to a real person!
Is your organization looking for a solution to increase engagement, loyalty and retention?
To learn more about how BOOM can help your company deliver the very best rewards to your group, CLICK HERE. #CaseStudy #TheBOOMSolution #MemberRewards #Engagement #AssociationRewards
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