Stop Talking About Yourself: Enhancing Your Association’s Storytelling for Better Member Outcomes

And when your audience sees themselves reflected in your story, your chances of seizing attention and converting increase. Let’s break it down.

First, why the trap of “we” and “our” is so common

Around the agency, we throw around the phrase “curse of knowledge” quite a bit. Basically, the curse of knowledge posits that once you know something, it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to not know that thing.

Association teams—from marketing associates to CEOs—spend 40 hours a week thinking about the organization. You’re thinking about your webinars, advocacy, fundraising, membership campaigns, and annual conference. Your whole framework revolves around what you do.

It makes perfect sense that your default would be to start lots of sentences with “we” and “our.”

But I like to remind clients that audiences only think about them for 40 minutes a year. At best. That means your audiences aren’t immersed in your jargon. Your value isn’t obvious to them. And the way they talk about you is not the way you talk about yourself.

For members—both current and prospective—it’s not about what you do. The big question on their minds is usually, “What’s in it for me?”

Solving for “we” and “our”

Take a look at some of your recent emails or key landing pages, e.g., event page, benefits page, homepage, etc. Identify any copy that starts with “we” or “our.” Paste it into a separate document.

Revise these passages around “you” and “your.” This seemingly simple switch to the second person POV immediately makes your copy sound like it’s speaking directly to the reader.

Here are some examples.

• You’ve written: We’ve invited some of the industry’s top thought leaders to speak at our annual conference.

• You revise it to: You’ll hear from some of the industry’s top thought leaders at the annual conference.

• You’ve written: Our certification is trusted by employers as a mark of credibility.

• You revise it to: Prove your credibility to employers with a trusted certification.

The time and place for “we” and “our”

There’s a time and a place for “we” and “our.” For example, sometimes a royal “we” can be used as an appeal to enlist a reader’s support. If your association does any advocacy or philanthropic work, “we” and “our” might make sense.

For example, say a professional association for nurse practitioners has a policy advocacy team. They launch a campaign to raise awareness about a proposed bill that will limit a nurse practitioner’s ability to prescribe medication. A campaign message might read like this: “We can’t let this proposed policy pass and diminish our ability to treat patients.”

The thin line between features and benefits

This is a distinction that every brand has struggled with in the modern era, from cars to shoes to SaaS products. In essence, features are what a product is or has (technical specs, ingredients, functions). Benefits are what the user gets out of it (value, solutions to problems, emotional outcomes).

Here are some examples to illustrate the distinction:

• A downloadable recruitment campaign template is a feature. Easier planning and tracking are its benefits.

• Your association’s professional certification is a feature. Improved credibility and confidence are its benefits.

There’s a time and a place for associations to detail the features of their offerings. But, largely, people don’t buy features; they buy benefits, and they buy into a brand. When there are multiple organizations that offer essentially the same thing, the way you talk about your benefits can be a deciding factor. And the more relatably you paint a picture of your audience’s future self enjoying those benefits, the more likely they are to choose you.

Solving for features vs. benefits

A great place to start is on any of your product/service landing pages or your events pages. Whenever I chip in on association website design projects, these are the pages where I most often see the problem. It’s usually in the form of lots of bulleted lists of things without much in the way of outcomes.

The fix for this is a simple formula.

Feature + “so you can” = benefit

Let’s try it on a few examples.

Webinar example: This webinar explores the latest applications of AI in our industry (feature) + so you can = Gain the insights, knowledge, and confidence to implement AI in your workplace.

You could use that benefit statement as an H1 or H2 on a webinar landing page.

Advocacy initiative: We’re lobbying on Capitol Hill against proposed reforms that threaten your job (feature) + so you can = Continue to feel secure in a career you love.

You could use a variation of that benefit statement in an email subject line, like this: Your job security is under attack. Let’s fight back.

Becoming is a journey with a “messy middle”

As with any story, “becoming” is not a one-time transformation. It’s a plot that unfolds. It’s an ongoing series of challenges. It’s many small moments of transformation that add up to a broader journey. Certifications must be renewed. Conferences explore new and emerging topics. Your membership service offerings evolve, expand, or go away altogether.

This means you have to constantly appeal to your audience. You must build and maintain momentum with a steady cadence of communication that continually makes a compelling case for engagement.

Why is momentum so important? To avoid the pitfalls of what Google calls the “messy middle.”

The messy middle is a concept the search giant developed based on the unfathomable amount of user behavior data they’ve collected over the years. Unlike the linear marketing funnel, the messy middle focuses on the looping interplay between a customer’s exploration and evaluation.

So what’s the pitfall? Assuming you already have good brand awareness (exposure), the loop is where members can get stuck. They can get mired in the muck of analysis paralysis—forever circling exploration and evaluation and never making a final decision to move forward with their membership.

If you’re seeing strong marketing metrics—engagement, reach, open rates, etc.— but your membership numbers are stagnant or shrinking, your members might be stuck.

Solving for the messy middle

To prevent prospects from getting stuck in the exploration-evaluation loop, associations must strategically balance their storytelling to drive commitment. Here are some tactics.

• You can be aspirational, but you must always be specific. That means you must always pair your aspirational, mission-driven story with stats and/or language that speaks to your audience. For example, “Become a better nurse practitioner and get access to continuing education ” is too general. “Become a nurse practitioner who patients love, doctors respect, and earns 15% more on average” is more specific and relevant.

• Reduce decision fatigue by offering clear, time-based pathways, e.g., “If you only have 1 hour a month, subscribe to our industry roundup newsletter to stay up to date.” “All you need is 3-5 hours a week for 4 weeks to complete our certification.”

• Show what other members have already become on social and other platforms with testimonials.

• Treat annual renewal as a personalized narrative that shows the year’s accumulated momentum, e.g., “This year, you attended 3 chapter meetings, downloaded 4 legal guides, and saved $500 on CEUs. Let’s keep your momentum going for next year.”

The power of becoming, realized

I get it. The work your association does often feels intangible. But the outcomes for members are real. The shift in focus from “what we do” to “what you become” is more than a simple copywriting exercise—it’s a fundamental change in your organization’s perspective and strategy.

Ultimately, outcomes-based storytelling doesn’t just transform your marketing; it solidifies the essential relationship between your association and the professional who is striving to become something more. This is the power of becoming.

Is your association ready to become a more outcomes-based storyteller? Reach out.