davidpoulos.com

Category: Communications

  • Innovation – Does Your Management Style and Culture Foster or Hinder It?

    Innovation – Does Your Management Style and Culture Foster or Hinder It?

    Organizational culture is getting a lot of attention recently, as economic growth is tougher to come by and company profits even harder to generate. Where efficiency, productivity, and process used to get the attention of management gurus, the general impression is that those things aren’t sexy anymore, and that if you can create the “right culture” at your organization, it will be able to grow by leaps and bounds, leap tall buildings and take the market by storm, etc.

    Culture’s definition is often a bit diffuse, but for the sake of argument we’ll use this: The atmospheric environment within an organization created by the Senior executive and mirrored down the ladder to the rank and file, reflective of a set of values and preferences, and a vision conferred onto individual staff interactions that bleeds into their products and services and suffuses the brand. True, that still leaves much room for interpretation, but it gives you an idea of what the majority of workers are going for.

    But culture goes deeper in some cases than others. In almost all cases, it really starts at the top, with a communicated vision for what that senior executive wants that company to be, day in and day out. That vision is reflected in many aspects of daily life within the organization, from the physical plant layout, furnishings and decor, down to the paint on the walls in some cases, to the tone of the Employee Manual (or if there even IS one), memos and e-mails, the recording on the voice mail at the front desk, to how customer services treats customers,  and in nearly every other aspect of life in that hive every day. What holidays they celebrate and how many, how vacation time is viewed, how the management structure is coached, trained and their performance assessed are key to defining that corporation’s culture.

    But how does that culture affect the organization’s ability to innovate?

    I think it has the most to do with a sense of freedom borne of respect for the employees’ ability to work together for a common goal. That ability is derived through common and communal trust and a sense of obligation to the mission and to their co-workers. If you are trusted by your peers, and managers, and you trust your subordinates and direct reports to do the best they can all the time, to strive for continual improvement, and to work as hard as necessary to adhere to the goals and needs of the company as a whole, the table has been properly set to drive innovation around the current product or service offering, as part of that constant curiosity and need to improve the status quo.

    On the flip side, if management is constantly looking over the shoulder of direct reports, codifying each action and driving their efforts down a narrowly defined group of managed behaviors, that trust in and growth of their abilities doesn’t have much “elbow room” alongside the rest of the required actions, and innovation rarely occurs – they’re having too much trouble just getting through the day.

    Innovation comes from many quarters and from many unexpected directions, but somewhere down the line, it really stems from the freedom to be curious, to be able to find answers to the question “What if . . .?” If the answers to that question are never sought because there’s no value to exposing the answer, innovation will have a hard time taking hold and the organization won’t be able to nurture that spark into a meaningful flame of business brilliance.

    Don’t let your need for profitability smother creativity and innovation – five hours “wasted” finding out about a certain idea could be the best investment you ever make.

  • NEW STUDY RELEASED: SHOWS NON-PROFIT BRANDS HAVE MORE POWER THAN THEY THINK

    NEW STUDY RELEASED: SHOWS NON-PROFIT BRANDS HAVE MORE POWER THAN THEY THINK

    Granite Partners’ Study Shows Brand Power Underestimated, Suggests that Relevance Key to Engagement

    Sparks, MD – Non-profit member-driven organizations may have more brand power than they are aware of, and can potentially use that power to leverage the launch of new products and benefits to members, according to a new study released today in a white paper by Granite Partners, LLC, a Maryland-based marketing consulting firm.

    In a small study conducted among over 60 non-profit membership organizations, professional trade associations and professional societies, brand awareness, brand value and power among their constituencies was studied with respect to member engagement, with some surprising results. Such organizations have been struggling in recent years on the whole with finding and keeping members, and having a difficult time opening new member sectors or keeping them alive.

    This study, while too small to paint the industry with a broad brush, suggests that when these organizations fully engage their members, their brand has the viability and trust needed to successfully offer new products or benefits to their current members, and enough relevance to recruit and keep new members as well.

    “Based on our work with these groups over thirty years, we found that we had consistently asked them the same questions over time, and in looking at the answers, we noticed some significant differences between how these non-profits gauged their own brand awareness and power, and how their constituents and members gauged that same power. These organizations have been underestimating their own importance to members, and the level of trust they’ve built up over the years in their brand. Many of them can be leveraging that difference to recruit and retain new members, open new segments, “ notes David Poulos, principal of the firm and author of the study.

    The White Paper outlining the study results, “Customer Engagement: The Science of Getting From “I See it” to “I Want It”” was released today, and is available digitally upon request. To receive a copy of this informative paper, send a request to:  dpoulos@granite-part.com .

    David Poulos, has over thirty years of marketing experience, ranging from private enterprise, state and federal government, non-profit and charitable organizations. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing Communications from Northeastern University, Boston, MA, and has effectively served as Director of Membership Marketing for the National Grain and Feed Association, as Director of Marketing Communication for the National Printing Equipment Manufacturers Association (NPES), Director of Marketing for the National Court Reporters Association, and as a consultant to a host of other non-profit clients including: American Institute of Aeronautics and Aviation, Community Associations Institute, Electronic Retailing Association, Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association, National Assn. Retail Pharmacists, National Association of Wholesale Druggists, National Geographic Society, National Grain and Feed Association, National Information Corp., and the National Society of Professional Engineers.

    Mr. Poulos has published over 20 articles on a variety of marketing topics in nationally published magazines and websites, is the author of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes,” has published over four year’s worth of weekly blog articles on non-profit and commercial marketing, management and customer service best practice, has been quoted as an expert in articles appearing on Fox News Small Business and MSN Main Street Business websites, was featured in the Global Edition of Who’s Who of Marketing Executives, and is a former board member and President of the Sales and Marketing Executives international, and is a member of ASAE, DMAW.

    For more information on Granite Partners, visit www.granite-part.com , or

  • You’ve Worked Hard To Sign Up Those New Members . . . Now, Keep Them Around

    You’ve Worked Hard To Sign Up Those New Members . . . Now, Keep Them Around

    With the realities of the “new” economy intruding into everyone’s business and personal lives, and the recent political theater further adding to the uncertainty about the future, it’s more important than ever for non-profit organizations to focus on member retention, on devising and living up to that key value proposition that keeps members coming back year after year.

    Based on nearly 100 executive interviews over the last 10 years, we’ve compiled five core activities that seem to keep association members renewing their memberships time and again. Not all five are necessary, or even reasonable together, but by selecting elements that are true to their organization, non-profits can make all that member recruiting work pay off beyond the initial year.

    5) Remind them what they’ve received this year. Renewal notices that list the benefits which that particular member have partaken of during the year is a quick, but effective, way to show the value each has received when it comes time to write the dues check. For those with no transactions on record during the year, defaults could include participation by their voice in aggregate on industry-centric political or regulatory issues, or mention receipt of key information through their magazine or newsletter articles that helped them advance their knowledge or career.

    4) Communicate the message in the media and format they prefer. Hopefully in your member database there’s a field for “preferred communication method” that can be selected. If members have chosen to receive ALL communication from you electronically, make sure they receive at least one renewal notice electronically. As a matter of strategy, you should hit them from several different angles using several media, but make sure the preferred method is first and most prevalent.

    3) Make sure they are actively engaged as soon after enrollment as possible. Studies over the years have backed this assertion that the likelihood of a member renewing beyond the first year directly correlates to their speed and level of active engagement. Invite them to be on a committee, put them on an editorial review board, ask them to attend a seminar for free as an introduction to the organization, have a staffer  phone them and ask what they feel are the most important reasons to join – something to show you know they exist, and that they are welcome at the organization.

    2) Repeatedly restate and reinforce the strong, unique, value proposition your organization represents to them. Show each member how the benefits you offer directly affect their personal or professional life in a positive way. Make it easy for them to walk that renewal notice up the hall to the CFO’s office and show how the value received is worth the dues money you’re asking. Be specific, attach a dollar amount to each benefit if possible – just like when you were in school and were asked to “show your work,” you have to do the math for them, and it has to make sense.

    1) Have recent, solid, professionally-performed research on your particular members, to really know what benefits will resonate with them, and show how those were delivered over the past year. Telling members about benefits they don’t use or care about can actually work against you, making it appear that you are wasting funds on things that don’t matter to the members. This knowledge is critical to creating and implementing that unique value proposition as well as formulating a benefits package that will attract and keep good, loyal members.

    There are many different tactical schemes for boosting retention, at least temporarily, including rate discounts, waivers, hardship grants, and a host of other discounts or special deals, but the most powerful of all is delivering the desired value in a timely, engaging, and directed fashion, year after year. Find out what they want, and give it to them in spades – you members will be as loyal as can be.

    If you found this valuable, and would like to read more, subscribe to this blog, above. Also, don’t forget to pick up your copy of “The Marketing Doctor’s Survival Notes”

     

  • Consultant Saves 25% over In-House Cost for Member Research

     

    Cost Comparison between In-house and hiring a consultant for a typical member research project. Assumes In-Depth Interview method, with 20 Interviews, and recommendations report.
    consultant      inhouse

    Costs calculated based on 6-month project, utilizing 15% of three salaried employees’ time and costs. Consultant saves 25% overall.

    There are lots of reasons to hire a consultant: to drive additional revenue programs, add to your creative firepower, review your efforts with an outside, impartial perspective, add to your staff’s existing skill-set, and now there’s one more – saving money! Many executives have a perception that hiring a consultant is an additional expense, is very expensive, and a waste of money since they are already paying in-house staff.

    Not the case, as proven by the above graphics. By the time you add up all the expenses of using staff to do a given task, it turns out to be less expensive to outsource to a consultant in many cases. This doesn’t even account for the added expertise, and years of experience, which not only makes projects run more smoothly, but also gets them completed faster with fewer errors.

    Faster, better, cheaper, more in-depth – the right consultant can be a real asset to your organization’s growth!

    Would love to hear your opinion . . .

  • Sometimes, a Frontal Assault Loses The Sales Battle

    Sometimes, a Frontal Assault Loses The Sales Battle

    I was speaking with a top marketer and high-powered sales professional (yes, the two skills are not mutually exclusive), and the conversation drifted to how he made approaches to prospective clients and how HE liked to be approached. The two were the same, and clearly it’s lead him to experience fantastic success, based upon his story and current situation.

    He shared with me that “once I discovered this secret, I quit “selling” and just had a conversation.” He related how he had been approaching clients with qualifying questions, asking them about their business, and subsequently telling them and showing them how his expertise could provide solutions, how they had helped others in similar situations, and here were the reasons why. The is a common approach, one most sales people take to generated leads, warm calls, those they have no real personal relationship with prior to the initial conversation. It’s a frontal assault, based on the ABC (Always Be Closing) school of sales, which works great for high volume, turn-and-burn, broad-based consumer sales. It’s high-pressure, high speed, high-volume approach that will, with some minor tweaks, meet the numbers goal almost every time if enough approaches are made. But it doesn’t usually lead to the most loyal clients, or the most profitable, and certainly not the longest term clients, those who provide life-time value which is 10-20 times higher than the initial transaction value.

    For long-term, relationship-based, loyalty-rewarded business-to-business sales, this type of approach is less successful, and can be annoying and offensive to the executive to whom it is directed – it’s disrespectful to think that such an individual is going to make a quick, ill-considered purchasing decision, on his own, without due diligence, without internal consultation, right in front of the salesperson. Not happening.

    Sometimes a more subtle, staged approach is more appropriate – and more successful! This is not a style issue, it’s a functional reality. People want to do business with those they trust, and to come straight at someone without knowing anything substantive about them, and put pressure on them to make a purchasing decision, on what usually is a fairly high-ticket spend, does not inspire trust – someone worthy of my trust would know better . . .

    Now, for the secret my colleague imparted. His conversations don’t revolve around benefits, features, cost, product production schedules, arcane back-office technology, or even specific results. His conversations center around discovering the nature and often the source of the problem, the pain point the prospect is suffering from. Once that is established, no promises of a solution are made, but a commitment is asked of the prospect to explore a couple of ideas further, and see if the relationship is likely to work. That way they can both see that the steps recommended are sensible and effective, but also that each side has at least an emotional skin in the game, they’ve both committed to give TIME and EFFORT to solving the problem. Cost is not the central focus, indeed it may not even be mentioned.

    In a nutshell, the secret is to solve problems that both parties have agreed are problems and have agreed to work together to solve. It’s a common path, not a push-down strategy, and it works to “knock down walls” and reduce resistance, and craft a reasonable, fair and honest business relationship.

    Try this with your next solid prospect, and see what the results are. We all have to give to get, and with this simple secret, you get both.

  • And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor . . .

    And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor . . .

    Are you really getting as much value from your sponsorship activity as you were lead to believe when you entered into the agreement? Have you ever tried to measure the gains, results, or revenue generated from a sponsorship opportunity?

    It’s tough, isn’t it? It’s difficult because there were no metrics or measurement tools built into the sponsorship, and likely no real activation point with which to leverage the value of that sponsorship into more sales opportunities. Sounds like gobbledegook, but there’s a fundamental truth buried in all that jargon: You can’t elicit or assess value if you don’t have a way to measure the return, and you can’t take advantage of visibility unless you find a way to make it turn into action by the viewer.

    Let’s take the activation portion first.

    Creating activation for a sponsorship, be it a meeting, a sporting event, a team, a radio program or other media opportunity is not easy, and it’s often not just a one-step process. Companies who’ve had success with sponsorship have found ways to really turn that awareness generated by this type of activity into action on the part of the viewer.

    Modern technology can help. The QR code is one way, the photo submission contest is another, with cell phone cameras being nearly ubiquitous in the US. The idea is to give event attendees or viewers a reason not only to interact with your brand, but to extend that interaction beyond the context within which it started to outside the venue, to incorporate it into their daily activities. Technology helps you give viewers a channel through which to interact with the brand that is new and fun and engaging, and if you do it correctly, they will become evangelists for your brand and pass their experience along to the others in their personal network, extending your reach even further.

    Now with modern technology, viewers have a method to engage, but you still have to provide a motive. They’ve got to WANT to interact with your brand, hopefully in a positive way. Motivating emotions for sponsorships tend to be the need for individuality (only people who attended in person get this shirt), aspiration to be an early adopter (be the first on your block to have one), greed (something for nothing), and the need for attention (winner gets his picture on our product box) these can take many forms in terms of the offer and the audience.

    Clearly, the brand/venue/activity/audience match-up is critical to making the most of your sponsorship, always has been, and technology hasn’t changed that much. Making smart selections based on your brand character, and your goals for the sponsorship are still critical exercises. But the need to engage, not just raise visibility for a short time, is higher than ever as message clutter has risen and attention spans have shortened.

    Now, on to measurement. Not coincidentally, engagement and measurement go hand in hand. The more actively engaged your audience is with your sponsorship activity, the more easily measured it is. Engagement involves action, and actions can be recorded, measured and assessed. If you put up a banner in a sporting arena as part of a sponsorship, that doesn’t inspire much engagement. But if you put that banner at eye-level in front of the entrance to a famous venue gate, and ask people to take a picture in front of the gate and send them in to your website for a prize, now you have engagement. The more photos you receive, and the wackier they are, the higher the engagement and the more value you get from the sponsorship.

    More sophisticated measurements can be taken if you have the need and the use for the data. There is tracking technology, built into ticket stubs, bracelets, and the like that can track attendee movement and dwell within a venue passively, over time. The readouts in aggregate can show you roughly how much exposure your physical representations got that day or that week, and give you a target number to benchmark against for future events in that venue. Connect the two methods, and you set up a sort of Where’s Waldo scenario that can lead to an avalanche of engagement, at least within the venue, for more bang for your buck.

    However you choose to do it, the basics are the same: Give them a reason and a way to interact with your brand in a positive way, and then measure the activity and benchmark it against the cost and the value of the sponsorship to assess ROI and renewal decisions. With a little extra effort, you can reap huge benefits from your sponsorship opportunity.

  • The Best “Big Data” is The Invisible Kind

    The Best “Big Data” is The Invisible Kind

    Anyone who hasn’t listed their domicile as “rock, lower level” in the last five years knows that the biggest mega-trend in marketing is “Big Data.” As with most of these media-dubbed monickers, this means different things to different people, but in general, “Big Data” refers to the use of customer information, some of it public, some of it mined from social media, some from transactions, appending services and overlays, to market more effectively to those customers. We’ll use that loose definition here as a basis for discussion.

    Most consumers see evidence of big data in use either in their mailbox or their e-mail inbox. Personalized postcards, membership cards, letters, e-mail messages etc. are visible evidence that big data is in use. For better or worse, this type of evidence is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to data, and can indicate a less desirable and more clumsy approach to data use. We contend that the best use of data like this should be virtually invisible. It’s like the movies – if you can see how the special effects are done, the movie becomes about them and not about the story. Poor usage draws attention to the mechanics and diverts interest from the bigger message.

    Big data can be an incredibly useful and effective tool for creating an outstanding customer experience, as we’ve seen with companies like Amazon or Zappos. The use of transactional and preference data to enact an algorithm to “suggest” logical and related purchases the customer might find of interest is a tremendous customer retention tool. If I know that my transactional data is being saved and used for this purpose, I’m comfortable with that, knowing that they can only really use the information I give them. Plus, if there is a problem, I know they have a vested interest in keeping that data for longer periods of time, and keeping it accurately and privately. I can reference an order and have a really good chance of them being able to access their records, see what the problem is, and correct it immediately – the data and it’s access empowers their customer service staff to solve problems quickly and completely.

    For outreach marketing, lead generation, membership recruiting and the like, the use of big data gets trickier. You may or may not have any transactional data to use, so often the underfunded marketer falls back on extensive and repeated use of the data they have, by over-personalizing their outreach materials. It’s like the insecure guy trying to prove how smart they are to the pretty girl, it looks obvious and a little desperate. If I receive a piece of correspondence with my name or address liberally sprinkled throughout the piece, I get the feeling they don’t know me and are trying to fake it.

    Brilliant use of big data is unseen by the recipient. Big data is behind the fact that you are receiving the message at all. But that’s just the beginning. Modern computing power is such that each message can be customized to the recipient in a vast array of ways, either printed or digital. Keying photographs, imagery, copy, messaging, offer and other elements to appended data makes for a powerful and effective marketing punch that gets results. Outreach marketing is about triggering an emotional response, and one thing we know reaches our emotional triggers is things we’re familiar with and comfortable with. Seeing an ad served to you on your favorite social media platform from a site you recently did some shopping with shows the marketer’s hand, but is effective because you’re familiar with the shopping site and know how it happened. A personalized postcard for a national swimwear marketer with my name all over it, featuring beach clad models sent to an address in Minnesota announcing a sale in February is not likely to resonate as well. The data could have been used to swap out the image for one of Eskimoes in swimwear, and change the headline to “Coming Soon. . . ” just based on the zip code and the date. Let us know you at least gave us a moment’s thought . . .

    The best bet is to put yourself in the shoes of the recipient as effectively as possible, for as long as possible, and to use the data to effect the outcome, not to show you have the data. Use that data you have cleverly and wisely, rather than show how much data you have. Show us you thought about us, not that you know about us. Invisible data speaks the loudest, and contributes the most to the bottom line.

  • 3 Ways NOT To Fall for a Clever Headline

    3 Ways NOT To Fall for a Clever Headline

    In a routine scan of my e-mail inbox, the discussion pages of my 40-some LinkedIn groups, various news sites and marketing sites, I counted over 100 headlines like the one above, promising everything from business lead generation to building up my profile, to keeping my windows from sticking, to where to go in Ocean City. All tempt the reader with a memorable number of simple solutions, neatly encapsulated in a short, easily digestible list, suggesting that if you compile enough lists about all the elements of your life, you’ll have all the answers and your life will run smoothly.

    Is this what content marketing practice has distilled itself down to, a clever headline offering quick easy solutions to life’s tough problems? I certainly hope not, because if your life is like mine and those of my colleagues here, it’s never that clean and neatly arranged – life is just plain messy!

    Marketing is a difficult, complex and widespread discipline, vastly misunderstood by the rank and file and by many of it’s practitioners. It takes YEARS of experience to master even the rudimentary elements in a coherent fashion, to be able to apply them in some fashion to a company or organization’s challenges, to identify and isolate the problem, and devise a strategy to combat it with well-thought-out tactics that do more good than harm, won’t break the budget and will return many times their cost. That’s a tall order for any single discipline, but marketing covers roughly 20 different disciplines within it, all of which can and should be considered when assessing and formulating a plan of action. If you can fit that in a list, I’d love to see it.

    Don’t get me wrong, lists of reminders can be very helpful and useful as a memory joggers of the various rough spots and pitfalls that can befall the forgetful. But I think the use (and overuse) of the catchy tip-laden headline is the lazy way to go. If our business attention span, our ability to learn new concepts, to absorb data and information, has sunk to the level where lists of tips guide your operative day, we are truly in a crisis. From the outreach side, they are a crutch for the lazy man, a cry for attention in the digital wilderness, where solid, impactful and dense information are traded away for quick thrills and easy clicks, screaming “Hey, look at my stuff, not that guy from the learned institute over there, I’m faster and easier.” They are the cliff -notes of a practice and a discipline that takes time and effort to learn, trial and error to master, and guts and determination and discipline to apply.

    Next time you see a list headline with 10 tips on anything, see if you can guess what at least five of them are before you open it. If you’re right, skip the list and it’s author and move on. I’m off to write the next entry, “10 Ways to Be Labeled an Old Curmudgeon Without Really Trying.”

  • Engagement Turns Your Members Into Cheerleaders

    Engagement Turns Your Members Into Cheerleaders

    Under the traditional membership model employed by the majority of non-profit trade and professional groups, membership in the organization offers you benefits, but doesn’t necessarily deliver them directly to the member. That doesn’t refer to third party affinity programs or insurance underwriters – it refers to the fact that the interaction with the organization is typically voluntary and one-sided. The member has to reach out to take advantage of the particular benefit directly, the organization typically doesn’t drive the benefit to the member. As a result, what often happens is that many of the potential benefits of membership are either unknown, or unused, and as a result, there is not sufficient member engagement to really live up to the value proposition that the initial membership offer proposed.

    Studies have shown that if a member is actively engaged in the activities of the organization, either through staff or another member, their chances of lasting longer than the initial year as a member skyrocket, rising by over 400%. Given the lifetime value of a member to the organization, it would seem a smart investment to craft an engagement program to reach out and grab those new members, get them involved, give them a sense of mission, of empowerment, and of belonging, that will help retain them for years to come.

    Those organizations who do put in the time and effort find they reap fairly substantial rewards at renewal time. Renewal rates above 94% are not uncommon in those organizations we’ve studied, and the members not only rejoin, they go out and recruit as well. That’s a double win for any organization, in an era where time starvation and economic uncertainty make membership a low priority for most professionals. And it doesn’t have to be complicated or automated to show strong returns.

    Sometimes a simple welcome phone call, from a prominent member, Board member, or staffer, to introduce themselves, welcome the new member to the organization, ask some questions, including what they expect to get out of their membership. Not only does that keep staff in touch with members on a programmatic basis, but provides a constant source of research data on the value of offered benefits, and their popularity among the membership, in real time. Not a bad bonus for making a few calls a week.

    Sometimes the effort can be more formal, such as an invitation to join a committee, or to provide feedback on a new product or service prior to it’s introduction to the general membership. Sometimes it’s a request for support for a cause, lobbying effort or legislative initiative. The key is to do it early, and in a systematic way so that no one falls between the cracks. More elaborate efforts will incorporate timing features, automated systems to reach out to certain sectors on a rotating basis with a specific focus, and other bells and whistles, but those automated systems tend to dilute the impact of the effort, to depersonalize it and distance the group from the new member, the exact opposite effect of what you were seeking. The simplest and most effective is the most honest and direct method, a personal phone call or letter from an known member of prominence, welcoming them to the organization, asking what they need or expect, and helping them take direct advantage of the benefits the group offers.

    Engagement can take many forms, and the right form is different for each individual, as different as their real reason for joining. Once such a program is in place in your organization, you’ll be amazed at the increase in retention, engagement, and connectivity of your members. They wanted to be a part of a group for a good, real, reason. Tap into that need, and you’ll have a group of lifetime members who closely affiliate and identify with your mission – they become cheerleaders, and that’s where the gold is!

  • Win With A Member-Focused Value Proposition

    Win With A Member-Focused Value Proposition

    Readers – Melynn and Carol have really laid it out for us so well I felt no need to add anything beyond “kudos” – we’ve been telling our association clients to research their members’ needs and desires to drive creation of effective benefits, and generate a reasonable value proposition for acquisition and retention for years – clearly these two marketers “get it” –  let me know what you think.

    By: Melynn Sight and Carol Weinrich Helse

    Summary: Develop a strategy based on your members’ wants and needs, and your association will deliver the most relevant suite of products and services to them, leading to higher membership numbers and greater engagement.

    While most association board members think they know what association members want, there tends to be an unintentional disconnect between what the board members believe they know and what association members actually want. Volunteer leaders and executives tend to focus on membership benefits, not the value proposition. In doing so, the association loses an important opportunity to articulate what is really important to members and what will ensure that those dues checks keep coming.

    Thinking about value from the outside in—starting with what members worry most about—will help leaders begin to think, plan for, talk about, deliver, and promote the most relevant portfolio of services.

    What is a Value Proposition?

    10 Steps to Develop and Launch a Value Proposition
    1. Gain approval. When leadership considers this a strategic initiative, it will fuel the process from development through implementation.2. Determine if you’ll do the project yourself or if you’ll hire a third party.3. Do your research. Assemble a diverse task force of members to help plan with “the voice of the member” in mind.

    4. Identify up to three important member audiences.

    5. Determine the biggest concerns and needs of these three member audiences.

    6. Create a draft of your value proposition based on how your association currently answers the biggest needs of these three segments.

    7. Present drafts (or recommendations) to your board for approval. Finalize the value proposition and proof points that support it.

    8. Develop a communications and launch plan for your value proposition. Use the value proposition in association marketing materials, on the website, and in your CEO’s talking points. In other words, make it visible.

    9. Execute on your value proposition. Consider how to incorporate the value proposition into strategic planning, committee work, and staff operations.

    10. Survey and ask members for feedback to determine if you are making progress. Report measurements back to the board along the way.

    A value proposition offers members a clear, sound rationale for joining, belonging, contributing, and taking advantage of what your association offers them—starting with what they think is valuable. It differentiates why a member chooses to belong to your organization, a competing organization, or none at all.

    Developing a value proposition is a multi-step process that will aide in organizational planning and membership growth and loyalty. The outcome is a clear, direct claim that is relevant to your important audiences and represents what your association does well today. The written proposition is a statement that helps tell your story of relevance in a concise messaging platform that becomes the basis for all your association’s communications.

    What’s Your Problem?

    Early in the process, be clear about the reason why you need a value proposition in the first place. Some associations say they need one to unify their staff; others know how much they offer members but need a clear, simple way to articulate it. With the specific motivation for your work, you can keep your focus on the goal throughout the process.

    Leaders are increasingly seeing value propositions as the most meaningful step toward building and sustaining association membership. A well-researched and crafted proposition guides strategic planning, staff communications, and gives a purposeful approach to committee work.

    Recognizing your members’ needs first and then purposefully feeding those needs into your association’s strategic work can be a radical shift in thinking. This change in perspective can help organizations rethink how they plan, organize, and set goals.

    Invest in the Process

    A value-proposition project is not a simple one. Ideally it includes a task force composed of a diverse group of members who will devote a significant amount of time to the process. Task force members must clearly understand their role as well as the definition of a value proposition. The association’s executive director should be involved in facilitating board awareness before, during, and after the project.

    The most relevant value proposition projects begin with a member survey to uncover issues members worry most about, what members value, and how satisfied they are about the areas that are most important to them. Satisfaction with the wrong offerings is an unproductive way to run an association.

    The value proposition process requires investment. Whether you do it yourself or outsource it, you must invest manpower, energy, and money to develop the proposition and collateral to communicate it. Then it takes energy and focus to communicate and sustain your claims if you want to affect change.

    A Change in View

    A clear, concise value proposition will change the way your association approaches its business. A credible value proposition forces you to evaluate your services and communications with members with a benchmark that is set by them. It also pushes you to make internal decisions from the members’ point of view. This is a significant shift for many organizations and one that can create some meaningful dialog about current and new services. Are the services and activities that you offer today clearly ones that mean the most to your members? This can create conflict with programs that are sacred cows. Embrace the new view and overcome the conflict, and your value proposition will lead to stronger programs, more effective committee outcomes, and higher member satisfaction.

    Now is the time to begin this process so that you’ll have more members writing next year’s membership checks.