Technology vs. gravity

In this technological age, businesses and individuals alike suffer from advances that seem to be moving faster than light. Just as you buy an iPhone (the last big thing) a new one comes along; before you pay off the $1800 laptop an improved one is available for $600. As I catch up with tech purchases I’ve been behind on, my capitalist heart goes out to the companies that must struggle even more with the pricing: the manufacturers.

As friends know, I move in a circle of associations and nonprofits. Hence the title of this entry. In associations, it’s not usually tech vs. better tech, but how to move straight to rockets from the horse and buggy. Even the largest organizations with the biggest budgets operate with frugal constraints, and it can be hard to convince a volunteer board why it will cost XXX (often topping a million dollars) to create a new website that will enable dynamic order processing, event registration, member interaction, etc. Boards are active in their organization and don’t always think like the “average” member, so they don’t realize the scope of problems encountered by members navigating a site that has evolved organically from its 1995 origins. They don’t realize the encumbrance placed on an eager new member when they have to download a form, fill in a credit card, and fax it back, so a human can hand-capture the purchase. (Hint: the fax better be in a locked room to comply with bankcard requirements.) There are organizations that don’t even allow that ….you apply, and a staff member or committee decide how much you should pay, and then send you a bill, and then you send in the payment, maybe, or maybe you postpone that part until 3 or 5 months go by and you get the journal for free in the meantime perhaps, and then you decide not to pay, and then maybe someone takes you off the rolls but you probably still get the enewsletter because frankly, there isn’t enough staff or any updated management system to coordinate all these efforts.

Then someone calls me because the membership retention is down…

I think the hardest pill for association executives to swallow is believing that things can change, that a business case can be made for improving processes. Because Board members and other volunteers are an organization’s greatest evangelists, they deserve to envision their organization as the modern center of its field. Once in a while, at least once a year, help them overcome gravity by painting a picture of what it would look like…before a competing organization does.

With that in mind, look forward to the launch of the Social Networking and Media Association, which promises to set an example of just how far into the stratosphere associations will need to go in order to trump what the internet can do without them. Kudos to Andy Steggles for giving legs to the vision.

“Blog This Meeting”

Day 1 at the American Society of Association Executives’ Membership & Marketing Conference ended with a lot of energized and excited faces spilling into the halls. Ben Cross, Stephen Sye & I have been dividing the schedule to maximize our intake from dozens of speakers and panels…great case studies from some speakers I have not seen before, and rich content from some of the favorites that we need to hear again and again to realize the full value (folks like social networking guru Jeff deCagna of Principled Innovation).

I’ve been focused on the business of learning, networking, and sharing ideas and did not bring a computer to truly “blog the meeting”, but this is an opportunity that all associations have to meet one of their key challenges for marketing to the under-40 crowd. OK, I’m 52, so I’m being generous to my peers…even some of the 30s guys are just spinning up on social publishing.

The point is, every annual meeting, every training event a society offers there is an opp to market on the fly: Offer a scholarship (even a partial scholarship) with the condition of blogging the event. This gives you running publicity, word-of-mouth among a certain generation of peers, and even a chance to peep into the mind of your future members. 

When blogs first came out, associations hit the “terror barrier” immediately: what if someone said something negative about the society or (God forbid) offended a VIP? the past 3 years have been spent passing that dread question up and down the halls to determine how scary it really was. The truth is, the decision for blogging takes fearless leadership at its best.

Tip Kendall of American Association of Equine Practitioners shared the value of the AAEP blog, http://www.aaep.org/blogs/outofthestartinggate.html, a semimonthly entry by a young professional member in his/her first practice year: When other people studying, undergoing, or considering entry to the profession see this blog, which sometimes provokes readers to tears, they realize the great heart, wisdom, and grace it takes to manage…and even be willing to euthanize…these intelligent creatures. It is a bonding instrument for the profession, a glimpse into the rite of passage, and an inspiration to stay the course.

Associations also have to understand that negative press is out there. Transparency and candor are valued more by millenials than any pomp and circumstance, as is the ability to laugh at oneself. And if the boomer generation can’t take it…well, we shouldn’t have raised our kids this way! But we former hippies taught them to say it like it is, be true to themselves, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Now we have to listen to what they have to say.

Imagine the savings on research if your open blog allowed people to post the complaints about the organization as well as the testimonials. (We’re not immune; our clients and colleagues can chime right in here.)

Think risk vs. reward. Remember, online, we go to travel websites to find hotels, and there are 87 hotel ratings, some good or bad…we read them all and decide whether to take it. A smart hotel would read too, and change for the better, even post apologies and corrections! Associations spend a lot of time and money contemplating what people may like or be frustrated by, but they don’t open themselves to public remonstrance through a blog.

But an association blog is a resident columnist first; it is only second the subject of peeved letters to a nonexistent editor. Experiment with a trusted columnist and a members-only writing policy, and…as is the intended nature of social publishing…find out what the “association”–the MEMBERSHIP–has to say. Chances are they will aim to strengthen and fortify one another, as they have done on listservs for years. With so many tools to make a trial instantaneous, and just as easy to discontinue, you have nothing to fear but fear itself!

All my best,

Leigh Slayden
President & Fearless Leader
Bigger Better Marketing

It’s all about the benefits, baby

With apologies to Puff Daddy, in any business but especially associations and nonprofits…it’s all about the benefits.

I think on the association membership side we “know” this, yet a great many of the materials and websites we see are not truly benefit-oriented. We need to remember that the first step to joining is that membership (or any product) solves a problem or provides pleasure–we need or want it.

I know, marketing 101 you’ll say. But what have you mailed lately? Does your copy talk about how big and authoritative the society is? How much it has accomplished? How cited the journal is? Then it may not be spinning these as benefits to the member. The most “selling” word in advertising is NOT “free”, as many claim….it is “you”.

YOU are connected to over 15,000 colleagues…YOU have the benefit of our achievements in advocacy…YOU can trust this authoritative journal. You could be just a few turns of a phrase away from higher response rates.

Many organizations mistakenly present themselves in the same compartmentalization by which they manage operations. Trust me, for the customer there is only one organization.

When is the last time you called a service company and were sent to another department, and another? Or searched in the grocery store aisles for a product you knew was there but they categorized it differently than you do? (My favorite examples for this are canned milk, B&M brown bread, and Crosse&Blackwell mincemeat…try it some time for a laugh.)

This happens to members all the time. It doesn’t help that nonprofit administration varies from company to company, so anyone who is a member of multiple organizations does not inherently have an easier time knowing who is in charge of their member record or how to find out about upcoming calls for papers.

So for the time period that you are thinking about your member value proposition, you need to leave the silos behind and think like a stranger. What are all the benefits you would enjoy if only you were a member? Would you hear about educational and grant opportunities first? Even if these are not member-only benefits, shouldn’t that connection get the information out to members earlier? Of course it should. So that is another benefit.

This is why I recommend that before you feel you must add more benefits, you review, with fresh eyes and some neutral friends, how you currently present the ones you have.

On the fundraising side, whether you have a donor/member model or your association has a foundation that members may donate to, you are still going to have to present some benefits. As generous as Bill Gates may be, he’s still going to look at getting the most bang for his buck.

And that means more than a tax deduction.

This is where the accomplishments of your organization or foundation really can turn into benefits for the donor:

45 new wells were dug in rural Africa with our donor’s help last year.

5,453 adults began the road to literacy last year, and another 3,000 mastered their GED after years in the program.

Lives are saved…changed…enriched.

With many foundations, the security of a profession is a benefit. Scholarships ensure that 300 high school students will explore chemistry in a real lab this summer…this matters to passionate chemistry professionals.

But the benefits of a donation have to be emotionally important, important enough to become a priority for my limited charitable dollars.

A blog for big ideas

As you probably know, my title is Fearless Leader for Bigger Better Marketing. But the blog is titled Bigger Better Marketer, because the kind of people we work with are the ones who are always pushing the envelope to think even bigger, be more creative, get better response.  Now they have their own blog.

We’re constantly sharing ideas with others in our network of non-profit marketers, so it seemed like time to open the virtual floor so more folks could dance together on it. As a side benefit, with social networking and collaborative tools being a topic of interest, this also gives the digital immigrants amongst us a chance to get their feet wet. Our feet wet, I should say.

I’m 52, and distinctly remember the day I threw my body over my manual typewriter as a young copywriter, because someone wanted to give me an IBM Selectric. (Remember those? Imagine paying $1,000 for a typewriter… in the 1970s.) OK, IBM got wise and got into computers, and I got wise and got Web 2.0.

To launch this ideashare, I’m posting a shot of a great piece by Bigger Better Marketer Nancy Olson and her team at Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International.  You’d have to hear her story of the multiple sources of inspiration, but the result is a clever way to be in front of your members all year:

1. The calendar delivers in a CD case, enabling it to stand up and display the current month along with an artful industry image.
2. The back of each sheet has a coupon good only during that month. What a great concept!
3. The member receives the good feeling of getting something for nothing from your organization…and wow, coupons too. That is the kind of halo effect that lasts a long time and can impact retention.

This is a high-class piece all around. Thanks for sharing it, Nancy!

If you have tales of renewal & retention premiums and tests, share them with colleagues here.

All my best,

Leigh