How Thriving Associations are Embracing Innovation and Blazing a New Trail to Relevance

The following is based on a webinar I attended, moderated by Michael Hoffman, with Gather Voices, on the subject of the title of this post.

For a copy of Mary Byers and Harrison Carver's book on Race for Relevance go HERE.
 
They started out by talking about communication styles during the pandemic.  Do you know the preferred ways of communication for your members?  If not, ask your members how they want to be communicated with.
 
Generations play a role in how each want to be spoken to and how they will engage with your organization.
 
They discussed the idea of going back vs moving forward with how we communicate with our members based on in-person or virtual meetings.  You need a separate virtual strategy, not just streaming a live event.
 
Younger members are not engaging like the older members.  Are your membership business models changing?  Do you have a non-member revenue strategy?  It’s about building influence in your industry or community.  Mary asked the question, “do these folks need to be members?”
 
They pivoted to having a discussion on organization boards.  Does your board represent the different generations in your membership and community?
 
Think about how you are selecting new board members.  The old model of the volunteer journey may be over.  The thought of it taking 10-15 years to get that board invite after you’ve participated in other activities within the organization are over, or they should be!
 
Do you have a designated board slot for the Gen Z group?
 
They went on to talk about how innovation plays a role in our organizations – things they’ve seen: creating a strategy, set aside money to experiment, list possibilities and then prioritize and finally test.  Corporate America has been doing this for years.
 
It’s important to focus on what’s working (think delivering value to your members) and getting rid of sacred cows.  For a blog post on killing sacred cows go HERE.
 
“Keys to innovation is abandonment” – what a great quote.  How are you evaluating your program of work to decide what you should be focused on doing?  Is your program of work mission specific, do members participate, do you make money on these programs?  You must look at your resources and capacity to deliver a great product.

I did a previous post on the Hedgehog Theory which goes into more depth on the idea of the previous paragraph, for that post go HERE.
 
Use data to make these decisions and be consistent in whatever questions or metrics you want to use to decide what programs you will maintain and those that you will shutter.
 
Create a matrix and use it to evaluate each of your programs. That way you’re comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges.
 
Remember, nonprofit doesn’t mean don’t make a profit.  Run your chamber like a business.  You are a business organization, right?
 
Fail forward and fail fast.  That too is a part of innovation. Launch your new program and see if your members react.  Did they engage, attend, buy?  If not, tweak and try again, or drop it and move on to the next idea!
 
For a copy of an updated version of the Race for Relevance book go HERE.

Top Digital Marketing Trends and Opportunities

I recently attended a webinar on the title of this post moderated by Kevin Taylor, Communicate by Design.

Speaker Bill Shaheen, Vice President, MultiView, highlighted eight trends based on an association leadership study they recently conducted.  For a copy of their 2021 Digital Marketing Trends & Opportunities report go HERE.

He made the general statement that the biggest pain points for organizations to do better in their digital marketing are lack of time, resources and knowledge.

 

Here are my notes based on his presentation:

 

Digital Content Consumption – prior to Covid, people would spend on average 3 hours and 17 minutes consuming digital content, post Covid that jumped to 6 hours and 59 minutes per day.

 

E-Learning Has Skyrocketed – Google searches increased by 100% for online courses.

 

Connected TV (CTV) – using the Internet for TV programming, not your cable company.  Think Netflix, HULU, Apple, etc.

 

Video is the Most Popular – YouTube is right behind Google (parent company).  93% of brands acquire new customers because of video on social media.

 

Digital Ads – remains strong.  The younger generations consume through social media while the older generations consume through TV.

 

Contextual Ads Perform Best – these are ads that are related to the content you’re looking at on the Internet in real-time.  It’s not a static ad on a landing page.

 

Marketing Personalization is Mandatory Not Optional – give your members what they want when they want it.  Today’s databases easily allow this to happen.

 

Virtual Events Are Here to Stay – at least for 2022 and part of 2023.  Once people feel comfortable with in-person events, they will come back strong.  We’re already seeing this now.

 

Bill then pivoted to talk about digital marketing opportunities and suggested the following three things you should be doing: 1) increase your digital investment; 2) spend more on digital vs print; and 3) spend 5-6% of annual revenue on marketing each year.

 

He went on to talk about the top three places to invest your digital dollars: 1) website; 2) social media; and 3) email marketing.


Other areas he mentioned were search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing.  When it comes to social media, find out where your members are consuming their digital content.

 

Final suggestions:

 

  • Target your communications to your different audiences within your membership.
  • Video marketing through testimonials and e-learning promotion.
  • And don’t forget to make it personal.  You want to speak to them as you really know them, based on their past participation with your organization.