Table of Contents:

• Welcome – from Bruce Lovett
• The Persuasive Web Site – C. David Gammel, CAE
• Promoting Successful Members with Social Media – C David Gammel, CAE
• Case Study: Virginia Association of Realtors Uses Social Media to Promote Conference – Ben Martin, CAE
• You Gotta Have Growth – Tony Rossell
• The Avectra Academy Reading List
• Avectra Academy Updates

Welcome

By Bruce Lovett, VP of Marketing, Avectra

Welcome to our first issue of the Avectra Academy E-newsletter. As you may be aware, we recently launched the Academy as a learning community dedicated to exploring best practices for member-based organizations. Our mantra is information that is practical, measurable and filled with real life examples so we can help each other move our organizations forward in challenging times!

Our first webinar – Social Media 101: What every membership executive needs to know about the latest wave of innovation online – had an overwhelming response as we all listened to an engaging presentation about social media.

And now, we continue the discussion with this inaugural newsletter taking on subjects that surround one of the most important topics facing association professionals today – How to Accelerate Membership Growth in a Down Economy. This month, we are pleased to offer insight from industry experts C. David Gammel, Ben Martin and Tony Rossell that all address this issue from their learned perspectives as association executives, consultants and industry partners. This is a discussion that is taking place around water coolers everywhere and their comments will provide ideas and thoughts for you to respond.

Last but not least, thank you for being our partner in this journey. We invite you to be a part of our ongoing learning community and value your involvement. Look for the list of upcoming events later in this newsletter and feel free to share what you find with your colleagues. And as always, should you have feedback or suggestions please send us your thoughts at academy@avectra.com.

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The Persuasive Web Site

By C. David Gammel, CAE

The Web site is a critical marketing and sales tool for almost any membership organization. Whether registering for an event, joining, renewing membership, or buying products, it is an important element for almost any portion of the organization.

All of these activities require convincing your site visitors to take specific actions. How can you be more effective in persuading them to take the next desired step in your process? Robert Cialdini provides some ideas we can adapt to the Web.

In Cialdini’s classic book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he explores six different factors that aid in ethically persuading people to act in a desired way. Let’s explore a few of those and how they might apply to your Web site.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity refers to your desired customer being indebted to you after being giving something of value for free. Examples of how you might do this online could include:

• Free reports or information
• Free 1-month trial online membership
• Other free content
The trick to this approach is that you have to follow-up with a request after the gift has been made. If you give a free report or one-month membership, you need to follow-up soon with an offer to purchase another product or membership to benefit from the effect.

Social Proof

Cialdini says that one way people use to determine what is right is to look at what other people think is right. This social proof leads to the power of testimonials from trusted people. For your web site, you might consider:

• A video testimonial from a member that is displayed on your join page
• Photos and written testimonials from others who have benefited from the organization
• Blog posts from members discussing the value of your organization and their participation with it
Membership organizations have always used social proof for effective marketing. Make sure your web site uses the same valuable technique.

Authority

People tend to believe authority figures, says Cialdini. Consider who the authority figures are in your field and industry – and how you can connect your association with them. Often, the leadership of an organization may be these very same authority figures. Highlighting them in strategic positions in your site or in appeals for registration, renewal or joining could add extra oomph to your conversion rate.

Scarcity

Opportunities appear more valuable when availability seems limited. One simple example of this on the Web is Amazon.com. Often they will show an “only 5 left in stock” message for items. I am sure this is true but it may also be the case they only carry five in inventory at any one time. Either way, they create the appearance of scarcity, further incenting someone to buy, according to Cialdini’s work.

For your own site you can use the technique when you have only limited spots in a program available, only so many products left, etc. You can do this manually by editing your site and e-mail blasts or do it systematically as Amazon does with their inventory.

Conclusion

You don’t have to use each of these approaches on every page but you should test them out and see which get the best response for your audience and the offers you are making to them. Persuading members to take advantage of the deep value offered by associations is a noble – and perfectly ethical – activity. Go forth and persuade online!

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Promoting Successful Members with Social Media

By C. David Gammel, CAE

In tough economic times, it can always be helpful to promote members who are thriving despite or because of the downturn. They can serve as powerful examples for other members and give valuable lessons.

Social media can be a great tool when you want to quickly get these messages out to your audience. Here are a few quick ideas:

• Develop a podcast series of recorded telephone interviews with successful members, exploring how they did it. These can be extra powerful when paired with print pieces that show up later on in your newsletter or magazine.
• Guest blog authors. Invite members to post about their lessons learned in thriving in this economy. You can also invite expert advisors and consultants in your industry to contribute as well.
• Use a wiki for a member task force to quickly collate ideas and practices that can benefit your members in their specific industry, profession or trade.

Social media is a very nimble and cost effective tool for collaboration, content development and dissemination. Consider adding it your mix of activities in providing value to your members.

C. David Gammel, CAE, is president of High Context Consulting, LLC. David helps his clients maximize the value of their people, processes and technology. You may reach David at david@highcontext.com.

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Case Study: Virginia Association of Realtors Uses Social Media to Promote Conference

By Ben Martin, CAE

There's a lot of talk about using social media as a means to engage members. And it's not just talk. If you read research from ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership (if you don't, you really should) you know these three facts:

1. Social media is a potent way to engage members
2. The extent to which a member is engaged in their membership association is tightly correlated to their likelihood to renew their membership and to talk to friends and colleagues about their association
3. The number one way that members first learn about their membership association is from another member

All of these are great reasons to embrace social media and can certainly stand on their own. But sometimes association leaders are looking for a more direct effect. And seriously, who can blame them? I mean, who doesn't want to see some honest-to-goodness cash flow in these challenging economic times? It can be done.

Here's a case study from my association on how we used social media to get new attendees at our annual convention. And keep in mind, our convention was sited outside the state we represent and our members are Realtors (and the real estate market is a little tough out there, if you haven't heard).

In a nutshell, here's how we did it.

1. Personally invite members who use social media themselves. We keep watch for new bloggers within our constituency by subscribing to Google Alerts about our industry. When we learn of a new blog, we leave a comment, e-mail or call to ask them to come to our next major event.
2. Use social networking sites. About a year ago we set up a Facebook group for our membership. Over time, the group has grown to about 300 participants. We messaged everyone in our Facebook group to let them know about convention sessions that would be relevant to them, as people using social networking sites like Facebook. We also have a number of members using Twitter, and used that medium to spread the word about our convention. Through Twitter, we were actually able to recruit people who weren't in our target market to attend the convention, although it should be noted that credit for the recruiting should be assigned to volunteers who willingly recruited those non members to attend.
3. Give them stuff to do that screams social media. We invited a number of members to contribute to our convention blog, scheduled a conference session specifically for bloggers, and worked with volunteers to arrange an unofficial after-party for anyone who wanted to attend, regardless of whether they had registered for the convention. Two keynote addresses were delivered by authors who believe in the virtues of social media, and we even streamed Twitter posts tagged with a special keyword (which we announced in advance) into our convention website, so that anyone could publish to it from their cell phone or laptop. The same tag was used to tag photos of the convention uploaded by members to Flickr. And we immediately displayed the posts of any blog that linked to our convention website. The on-site internet cafe presented this dynamic conference website to all who approached.

Hard results? Well, how about 15-20 attendees who never would have thought about attending our convention before we started our social media initiative? Here's a Twitter post from a member who attended: "I am glad I am an agent in Virginia. The other associations should be jealous."

Think he'll come back to our association's events in the future or tell others about them? He already has.

Ben Martin, CAE, is the Director of Communications and New Media for the Virginia Association of REALTORS and the author of the very popular Certified Association Executive blog at http://caeexam.blogspot.com. You may reach Ben at bkmcae@gmail.com.

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You Gotta Have Growth

By Tony Rossell

Lack of growth seems to be a virus that has infected the non-profit association sector. And the current economy is shining even more light on this challenge.

Tom Hood provided some compelling statistics that highlight this trend in his chapter in ASAE and The Center’s book, Membership Essentials.

“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average annual growth rate for associations was 3.8% – barely above the 3.2% real growth in the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the 10-year period between 1992 and 2002.”

He also noted that “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Survey on the Future of the Competitive Association found that 62% of associations actually performed below the average GDP rate, with a total growth rate below 20% for the same 10-year period. Yet the for-profit commercial sector grew by more than 52% during the same time frame.”

Tom concluded by saying, “While a few fast-growing nonprofit organizations are exceptions to this rule, most are struggling to maintain flat or slightly declining memberships.”1

On a more micro level, this lack of growth has been played out time and again with many organizations. For example, as I wrote on my blog (Membership Marketing Blog in May, I read a post by Mike Van Alstine, the Growth Coordinator for The National Exchange Club (NEC) on the ASAE listserv. He shared, “For the past 20 years the NEC has been on a consistent downward trend in membership of significant size, on average 1,000 members a year. So, if you follow that back to 1987, our membership was a little over 48K.” NEC membership now stands at 26,000 members.

Fortunately, for NEC, Mike reported that he had arrested this decline in membership. But I have no doubt that it was a painful ride down to that point.

Ultimately, cost cutting or simply "Managing your size is not the solution to competitive pressure. Growth is. It is the magic elixir that cures almost every business ill. No other kind of 'fix' delivers its transformative power”2

So how should a non-profit initiate growth?

One helpful perspective comes from the business philosopher, Peter Senge. In his seminal book, The Fifth Discipline, one of his major themes is, “Don’t Push Growth; Remove the Factors Limiting Growth.”

I liken Senge’s concept to the garden with tomato and pepper plants I planted this spring. My experience is that if I have properly prepared the soil and then water, weed, and fertilize the plants, then they will grow. However, if I neglect any of these, I will impede the growth or even kill my garden.

What is holding back your association? Do you truly understand the needs of your market? Do you understand your value proposition? Do you lack marketing expertise?

For 2009, why not set a goal to identify and remove the impediments that are holding back your organization?

Tony Rossell serves as the senior vice president of Marketing General, Inc., in Alexandria, Virginia. A frequent writer and speaker on marketing topics, he is a contributing author to two books, Membership Marketing (ASAE 2000) and Membership Essentials (ASAE 2008). You may reach Tony at Tony@MarketingGeneral.com.

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The Avectra Academy Reading List

Snippets and links to blog posts and other things we have been reading

• Twitter for Marketing 101
  Leading association blogger Maddie Grant (Diary of a Reluctant Blogger) recaps a session she attended on Twitter with a bonus link to the presentation.
• What should be in your association’s social media plan?
  Lindy Dreyer (Association Marketing Springboard) lays out a road map for associations looking to to create a social media program.
• Confront the Brutal Facts
  Frank Fortin comments on how associations can weather the current financial situation
• Social Media in an Economic Downturn
  Non-profit consultant and blogger Beth Kanter comments on how non-profits may benefit from the use of social media in today’s economic environment

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