Retain Your Members: Promote Your Chamber Successes & Benefits

Promoting your Chamber by telling your members what you do for them and touting your successes is imperative to the success of your Chamber.

As a Chamber of Commerce professional, you work hard to support your members and help grow your community. A lot of what you do is behind-the-scenes work, so your members never see it.

We’re pretty good about touting the successes of our members or clients. But when it comes to talking about our work, we forget to let people know what we are doing to support them.

If your members don’t know what you’re doing and the things that you have achieved, they just aren’t aware of how hard you are working for them. You have to show them all of the things that you do!

Try out some of these ideas for a little Chamber self-promotion:

Show Them the Benefits

Show your members or clients what you are working on. Talk about the successes you have achieved. Give them a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the work that you do.

While it might feel like self-promotion, it’s not bragging. It is conveying to your members the benefits of their membership by giving them concrete examples.

If you don’t remind your members what you do for them, they won’t feel supported and will let their membership lapse.

Chamber Self-Promotion: How to Promote Your Chamber Without Sounding Like You Are

Promoting your Chamber of Commerce doesn’t have to look like self-promotion. It can be as simple as reporting results or just sending a quick personal note after you do something.

This type of promotion is more about making your members feel seen, making them feel special because you took the time to do something for them. It’s what you do every single day – now let them know about it!

Here are a few simple ways you can inform your members about your work regularly:

Include statistics as infographics in your Chamber newsletter

Generally speaking, the overall goal of your member businesses is to make more money. How are you supporting them in doing this?

You are constantly working on website content, social media content, events, and more to encourage visitors and residents to spend their dollars at local restaurants, shops, and businesses.

Create some infographics that you can put in your newsletter each month that shows this work. Statistics like how many website visitors you had that month, how many people viewed your business directory, how many people interacted with your social media content, how many people viewed the local deals on your website, how many people attended a recent event, and more.

While you can’t translate this into actual dollars, your work translates into visibility and promotion of your membership and your community.

Publish an Annual Report for your Chamber of Commerce

An annual report for your Chamber of Commerce is a great way to highlight the many successes your Chamber has had throughout the year.

The annual report should focus on your members – what results did you get for them? What growth did your work show or contribute towards? It’s a great way to promote your Chamber to members by showing them direct results.

You might include statistics about

• Growth in visitors to your website
• Growth in retail businesses in the community
• Total number of events the Chamber hosted
• Number of ribbon cuttings
• Percent retention of Chamber members
• Number of new members (trend of member growth)
• Social media accounts growth
• Total number of activities dedicated to promoting your members
• Member participation in events
• Results of any ad campaigns
• Results of events (number of attendees, number of dollars spent)
• Awards and accolades the community received related to Chamber activities
• City sales tax revenues
• Actions that were taken to advocate for businesses in the Chamber
• Testimonials from members about how they benefit from Chamber membership

This report can be included in a packet that you send out to new members and even when recruiting potential members.

Promote your Chamber by Sending out Christmas Cards

Create and send out custom holiday cards that celebrate the Chamber’s major accomplishments with a thank you to members for their support.

Don’t crowd the card with a lot of numbers or information instead thank your members for a great year and for their support, then add in 3 to 5 bullet points of your top successes for the year. This is a great place to highlight awards, accolades, and certifications for your town and Chamber.

It’s a great reminder that you’re working FOR your members and that they are a part of your success and vice versa.

Promote Your Chamber by Emailing Members When You Do Something for Them

I know that some of you search online for deals, jobs, or other information about your member businesses to include on your social media and website. Nobody asks you to do this, it’s just second nature to you.

But your members will never know that you did it unless YOU TELL THEM.

It’s simple and can even help your members be more proactive about their own content. Just send out a quick email to let them know that you saw their item and added it to your marketing.

Something like:

“We found this special of yours online today and added it to our hot deals.” or “We saw your event and added it to our calendar.”

In the email, let them know you’d love for them to send your more information in the future and include the link to the place to submit it. You might even send them the link to the instructions on how to submit their information.

Example: “We don’t want to miss anything you’re doing, so please send us future events by submitting them here: “

A little Chamber self-promotion goes a long way with members.

Host a weekly Facebook LIVE just for Chamber Members

Want a great way to boost your engagement on Facebook AND show your members that you’re working hard for them? Then hosting a weekly member update as a Facebook LIVE is a great way to do this.

You can recap the work done that week, how things are progressing with your long-term goals and any information you want your members to know, as well as take questions from members directly so that you are cementing your relationship with them.

You can have members submit questions in advance or put them in the comments section at a particular time of the LIVE. By scheduling it at the same time each week, your members will know when to expect it.

Send thank-you notes to sponsors and donors

Businesses sponsor events to increase their visibility and strengthen their brand.

By sending a thank-you note that not only thanks them for their support but also features the results of the event, you are speaking directly to the benefits the business received by being a sponsor.

This should include the number of attendees, the demographics of attendees, and any other pertinent information that shows the value of their sponsorship.

Promoting Your Chamber is Imperative to its Success

We know how hard you work – now make sure everyone knows it.

I’ll say it again — promoting your Chamber by telling your members what you do for them and what your successes are is imperative to the success of your Chamber.

Only when businesses see that they are getting value from their Chamber membership will they continue to be a member. You have to tell them the value. So, use some of these methods to promote your Chamber.

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