I spoke at the sold-out ASAE Membership & Marketing Conference last week and these are the smartest things I heard.
- “The rise of the curator class has created a new generation of social and creative directors and editors.” –John Winsor, founder of Victors & Spoils,the world’s first ad agency built on crowdsourcing.
- Offer a chance to win something—1 of 3 things—for paying dues early. Saves the cost of having to remind members to renew and avoids the anxiety of a single renewal day. –Karen Noldan, director, membership, American Dietetic Association
- “I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” –Thomas Edison
- Segment your database so that you don’t inundate members with email, polls, etc. Come up with a plan that makes sense and follow through on it. Avoid the temptation to send everyone everything. They don’t all need to see everything and will eventually switch you off, either by ignoring what you send or not renewing.
- Have a monthly call with the current president and the incoming president and then synopsize those conversations for the board. This avoids a change in direction or a raft of new initiatives every time a new president comes in. “Those things will have surfaced along the way in those calls.” –Tom Morrison, CEO, Metal Treating Institute
- Are your members working “in” the business or “on” the business? If they’re working “in” the business, they’re calling on client, seeing patients, waiting on customers and, therefore, are not sitting at a desk. Those members are going to need mobile applications or other innovative ways of communicating.
- If you have your own social network, do not make it an exit from your website. Once they log in, their network profile should become their home page and all information is an exit off that. Enable the network so that they can add industry RSS feeds and then everything they have will be in one place and your site will be their daily destination.
