About Missouri Veterinary Medical Association (MVMA): MVMA represents veterinarians, veterinary students, practice staff, and industry professionals across Missouri. The association’s mission is to support the veterinary community through various initiatives, including an annual convention, continuing education opportunities, networking events, and legislative advocacy.
We Spoke To: Lizzie Benke, the Digital Communications and Program Coordinator at MVMA. Her role encompasses the planning of district meetings, maintaining social media presence, keeping the website and app up to date, and coordinating newsletters.

The Challenge: Slow Event Communication

The Pre-MobileUp Scenario: Before adopting MobileUp, MVMA faced significant challenges in communicating last-minute changes and updates to attendees during their events. Beyond that, they found email to be a lackluster source of member communication, with members missing key emails and falling out of the loop on a membership they pay for. 

Pain Points:

• Communication Inefficiency: Difficulty in relaying real-time updates about presentation and speaker changes to all attendees.
• Outdated Information: Printed materials like magazines, posters, and signs quickly became obsolete if and when event details changed.
• Limited Member Engagement: Lack of immediate communication channels with members outside of email.

The Solution: A MobileUp App with Up-to-Date Info

Choosing MobileUp: MVMA evaluated several companies before selecting MobileUp. They were won over by MobileUp’s outstanding customer service, which they say has remained excellent long after the initial commitment. 

The event app has now been in use at conventions for the past 5-6 years. Benke’s individual experience with MobileUp over the past three years has been overwhelmingly positive.

Convention Management: The app has significantly improved MVMA’s ability to manage their annual convention, which features 6-7 sessions per hour. It allows for real-time updates on speakers, room location changes and other critical information. Members always know the app is the most up-to-date source of information.

Member Communication: In addition to the event app solution, MVMA started using the member app in their 5th year with MobileUp. It lets them share the latest news articles and updates with members instantly. This has been particularly impactful with members who don’t regularly check their emails.

Outstanding Customer Support: MVMA raved about the MobileUp support team, who has been consistently responsive, with excellent training and resources to offer. They proactively reach out during critical times like conventions and quickly address any issues that arise.

Time-Saving: The intuitive user interface makes it easy to update the app whenever needed. Specifically, the ability to replicate event structures has reduced the time spent on convention setup.

Member Satisfaction: Members appreciate the real-time updates, especially during conventions. It has reduced frustration and confusion and keeps everyone informed and aligned.

Useful Integrations: MVMA’s YourMembership database is full of thousands of members ranging from DVMs, college students, clinics, associate industry partners, and more. “Tackling the process in-house of merging our members into the app would have been too much for our office. MobileUp made it look so easy. We met with the team to discuss their YM integration process and which groups we needed to merge to the app. Then, we met one more time after the job was complete to make sure every group we needed in there was merged. The MobileUp team made it so simple and quick and had great communication throughout.”

Key Features Utilized

• Push Notifications: Essential for immediate communication with attendees and members during events.
• In-App Updates: Keeps members informed about the latest industry and association news.

MVMA’s Message to Other Associations Considering a MobileUp App: 

“I would definitely recommend it. It might sound intimidating for non-tech-savvy people, but MobileUp has made it so user-friendly, and they offer so many great resources that make it easy to implement and maintain.”

MVMA’s experience with MobileUp demonstrates how a well-implemented mobile app can transform event management and member communication for professional associations. By addressing key pain points in real-time information sharing and member engagement, MobileUp has helped MVMA enhance its service delivery and strengthen member relationships.