DAMIAN HUTT

Associations NetworkExecutive Director

Opportunities and growth of Associations

Overview of Associations Network

• 15,000+ members & subscribers• Associations Congresses – x 3 per year• Association CEO Meetings x 5 per year• Education Forums x 10 per year• Association Awards x 2 per year• Online Training• Portal: www.associationsnetwork.org• Association Insights Magazine• Research Reports• #AskAssns

Challenges faced by associations

Your challenges

Your Challenges

• Write down your challenges• Discuss and synthesize• Identify top challenge• Review

Global Challenges

Challenges“How to attract more members who

can afford to attend our events”

“Creating engagement”

“Transition from an association to

a Community”

“How do you engageNew and Younger members”

“How we can remain relevant”

Challenges “How to provide tangible engagement

to our current and new members”

“How can we create a

sustainable association”

“How to attract and retain a diverse

membership & stay relevant”

“How can we deliver the right values to a new generation of members”

Challenges

“How can we address competition from

profit organisations”

“How can we secure income”

“How to become nimble despite having a board”

“How can we optimise and communicate our value proposition”

Challenges“How can we grow our events to create

new revenue streams”

“How can we evolve into an innovative organisation with a business environment”

“How to balance revenue and compliance”

“How can we retain and gain members

and delegates”

Review of issues raised• Little understanding of what members want• Engagement • Community Online• Revenue

“Future Pitfalls?”

• Keeping up with technology

• Regulation• Consolidation• Commercial

competition

Strategies for Growth

Tool up and Wise-up

Ask Members what they want

• Call them• Evaluate all products• Survey them• Network

Customer RelationshipManagement

• Customised member experience

• Know your membersbetter

Valuable offering

• Not enough that peoplewill just buy/attend

• Invest in research• Price to value• REFUTE:

associations = cheap

Learn from your Peers

= different sectors= different types= all size associations= USA / Europe / UK• Attend Association events• Engage online• Share best practice

Board & Executive

• Grow employed executives• Executives concentrate

on how• Board on long-term• Executives: ASK from

your board

Growth opportunities

Sources

Increase sales to community-Produce more relevant events-Market the benefits-Understandyour customersbetter

Grow your customer base-Examine new potential target groups-Grow current groups with better outreach

Develop Sponsors > Partners • Old: Unwelcome necessity• New: “You are welcome”• They become part

of the process• Main new

customer Source

Re-purpose what you have• Webcasts Events• Recordings of Events• Post-event publications• Knowledge bank

Create new products• Training courses & CPD• Online Training with your best

speakers and consultants• eLearning• Research reports• Industry

directories

Detailed informationwww.associationsnetwork.org

Marketing and promotion

#TweetWhileYouEat

#AskAssns Hour

What is it?• Themed discussions on

twitter at a set time• Driven by key association

figures and experts• Hosted by the association

Association

Involvement• Listen• Ask• Contribute

Questions/Comments: Add #Ask??? to TweetsFollow: Search #Ask???

How often?

Monthly > Weekly

Planning

• Set themes a month ahead

• Promote requests for topics

• Market it, and Request questions

• Phone members for questions

Who, Where and When?

• Invite very active guests

• One Expert, 2 practicioners

• Launch - Get them together

• Facilitator

Promote

• Website page/subsite• Live Twitter feed

• Schedule of events & topics

• Form to propose Issues, or questions for a Session

• Initial promotion• Explain who does this successfully

• Explain what you want this to be

• Invite them on the journey

Creating conversations

that sell

developed by John Scarrott

PUSH>

PULL

Some of the potential applications of the strategy

• Bringing new members to your association

• Getting your existing members to stay

• Getting delegates to attend events

• Increasing your Twitter followers

• Growing your LinkedIn group

• Livening up your Linked In group

• Creating positive media relationships

• Creating momentum behind a campaign message

• Raising the profile of your Association

The New Route

• Community-Influencers

• Content - Sharing stories

• Conversations - Stimulating discussion

Step 1: Community- Find your Influencers

• Innovators and early adopters• Identify by behaviour• Mission• BenefitEverett Rogers 1962

Step 2: Content- Find your Stories

Members are heroes.Sell them.They are Lights on the runway.

Step 3: Create your Conversations

• Bring people together

• LinkedIn discussions

• Generate light heat and energy

Step 3: Create your one-to-one Conversations

• Identify the ‘wavers’.

• Invite them to a conversation.

• Useful conversations.

Share your insights

• Community - Influencers

• Content - Stories

• Conversations – Stimulate discussions

Whole room discussion

• What do you think about the responses? Easy or difficult to answer?

• Did you hear new ideas or was it already known?

• Think about Next steps?

Know your members better

Adopting Customer Relationship Management

45

Transactional systems vs CRM Member-centricity

Finance

Website

triggers

Billing

MarketingRelationship

Managers

Call

Centr

e

Stor

esMember

Putting your contacts at the middle of your world

• Membership systems tend to be transaction-based• They centre on membership pricing and renewals, items sold, etc• They have contacts bolted on to this, and commsmethods bolted on to

contacts • CRM systems are contact-and organisation-based

• They centre on contacts grouped into organisations• Membership level pricing and renewals, orders taken, etc are linked to the

contact• As are campaigns, service calls, all correspondence of all types, plus large

amounts of other data • CRM systems hold lots of contact-centric information that

can be segmented

A quick test….transaction-or member-centric?

Transaction-centric• Products, services and

communications standardized

• Members indistinguishable

• Talk at members• Success = getting more

members

Member-centric• Products, services and

communications are mass customized

• Members treated as individuals

• Talk with Members and remember

• Success = better service so keeping& growingmembers

Not a Substitute for Traditional Marketing A Performance Improver!

Understanding members & customers

Managing member & customer service

Managing experience and engagement

Understanding the market

Understanding competitors

Managing sales operations

Managing marketing campaigns

Communications

How should CRM assist?

Product & price

Product development through evaluation of product preferences or requirement

e.g. CPD interests

Identification of ‘holes’ in the offering

What do we NOT offer

Opportunities for packaged offerings

What combinations or sequences are followed

Geographical/demographic trends

Pricing policies

How should CRM assist?

Promotion• Segmentation & clustering• Proposition - up-sell / cross-sell / retention marketing• Strategic communications• Management of touch points and engagement• Relationship building• Segmented research – a constant finger on the pulse

Place

Where is business NOT coming from?

- Geography

- Profile

Direction for investment in marketing

Direction for partnerships

How should CRM assist?

Positive Representation

Negative Representation

People

Much of how members rate the experience hinges on the person delivering it

• Staff will need to (appear to) have a good level of knowledge of the member in order to fully engage

• Access to information about the member improves professionalism, courtesy, empathy, discretion and tact

People are key in the collection of valid, quality data

• Training

• Skills

How should CRM assist?

Process• Marketing process and

workflows to manage:• Membership journeys• Nurturing of prospective

members• Members getting the same

answer to an enquiry from anyone in the organisation

• Performance driven tactics• Response handling• Renewals

Enquiry

New ContactLook up Capture qualifyingdata into database

YES

Look at CustomerInformation on

database

NO

Fulfill enquiryPrepare and send

information

Follow up +3 days

Iterative

Create survey letterto investigate why

BUY/NO BUY

NOProduce and send

documentationYES

How should CRM assist?

How should CRM assist?

Performance

Setting and measuring achievement of goals and KPIs

‘Potted’ and ad hoc reporting

Tailored views of performance

by department, user, interest

Dashboards

Touchpoints of a CRM

RENEWALS

DATABASE

MEMBERSHIP

EVENTSBRANCHES &

SIGs

ACCOUNTSTRAINING

SALES

OTHER TOUCH POINTS

SURVEYS

CPD RETURNS

WEBSITE

MAGAZINE /NEWSLETTER RESPONSES

ENQUIRIES/HELP LINE

Basic Strucutre

CRM systems

• CRM infrastructure by large multinationals• Partners develop environment within it to suit

associations• Traditional membership systems come from much

smaller players• Two main CRM platforms –

Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Saleforce.com• Others –

Zoho, Sage, etc• Integrate smoothly with may tools:

- Email, Survey, Event apps, file management- Invoicing, Publishing, Education

Can you get a Single View, and thus Member Insight?• Membership systems do not often hold all the info

you need• Difficulty in customisation means this is hard to change

• Resulting silos of data in multiple sources means no single view of the vendor

• Integration is not well supported

• CRM systems can be customised to hold all you need

• A good partner will customise your CRM system to hold specific data key to your needs

Can you get a Single View, and thus Member Insight?

• But some of it will exist elsewhere so you may need to integrate to accounts systems, your web site, document management etc

• CRM systems can be integrated to pull data from in other systems, and push out

• The aim is for ALL relevant data to hang from the member / stakeholder record

• …..now you can start to SEGMENT and ANALYSE

Do you see data, or get information and trends?

• So one comparison with CRM is one of storage vs analysis• CRM systems allow understanding Membership

behaviour

• Grouping similar behaviours

• What campaigns work?

• What courses are interesting?

Do you see data, or get information and trends?

• CRM systems have powerful reporting and analytics tools• Closed loop campaign response tracking

• Full service call history

• Full communication history

• BI/Analytics, to help you understand graphs & trends

Do you see data, or get information and trends?

Can you treat different members differently?

Can you interact with your marketplace?

• Good CRM systems will also give you• Customer surveys with information captured directly for

analysis• Tracked emails to group support or marketing

conversations• Web site visitor capture and creation in CRM• Social media• Events and conferences• Multi-stage email support with selective paragraphing• Closed loop marketing feedback

Recap

• Traditional membership systems are not member-centric and are inflexible

• CRM systems are customisable• CRM systems are excellent at integrations (with

the right partner)• CRM systems allow you to store all relevant data

in a Single View• You can then segment and analyse that data• You can use processes to take action on that data• You can use the system to drive your business

strategy

Q&A