event driven memberships
DESCRIPTION
Join etouches' own Suzanne Carawan as she leads a webinar that will touch upon this collision, and inform you on how Association Marketers and Communication Managers can use events to gain new customers and keep existing customer relationships fresh.TRANSCRIPT
Event-Driven Memberships: What Association Professionals
Need to Know
Suzanne Carawan Vice President, Global Marketing
Events Moving into Minds of Marketers
• Marketers’ dream: • Content • Demographics, psychographics • Transactions • Isolated population to study • Multichannel opportunities • Actionable • Measurable • Multi-touchpoint
Events are Pink Hot for Engagement
• Increases as a marketing and sales tool are on the rise and projections just getting bigger
• Social media & access to information increases demand for face to face
• Emphasis of SoLoMo (Social, Local, Mobile) increases the number of events
From MPI
What’s New About Events?
• EVERYTHING!
• Formats (virtual vs. f2f, one2one, speed networking, slow vs fast, pecha kucha, hybrid, pods…)
• Technology
• Focused on experience
• Blending of worlds (SXSW….)
Enter the Power of Virtual Events
• Webinars & Webinar Archives
• Livestream & Video Archives
• Virtual Tradeshows
• Virtual Learning Centers
• Tweet Ups/Tweetchats
• Google Hangouts
• Private Social Network Events
• Event Parties/Pods
What’s Great About Virtual Events?
• Elicit emotion for upcoming f2f
• Topic Continuity
• Time/place for follow-up conversation following reflection
• Create more content that can be easily packaged and used for additional marketing
The Big Question
• If your organization ceased to exist tomorrow, what would happen? Would anyone notice?
Scary Answer
• No one may notice
Why ?
• Traditional View: Associations have treated publications, events & membership packages as the product
• Innovative View: Treat information as the product
What’s Really New About Events?
• Starting to be run like a marketing campaign
• Longer periods of time to measure
• Multiple events within an “event campaign”
• Changing metrics for ROI
Is This You?
Publications
Advocacy/ Government
Relations
Events
Membership
Component Relations
Marketing & Communications
Self-Check
• Does your organization have a CMO?
• Are publication, event, advocacy etc conversations joined by the marketing staff?
• Does marketing set pricing on events? Membership? Publications?
Marketing-Driven Worldview
• Marketing is a core competency
• Marketing is in the C-Suite
• Marketing follows the “pure path” & different from Communications
Marketing-Centered
Product Marketing Strategy
GTM: Events
Prospect
Members
Loyal Members
Product Marketing-Driven Association
• Identify the market need
• Identify the buyer persona
• Identify the differentiators of the product
• Identify how to communicate/reach the targeted buyers
• Measure & change offering over time
Demand Creation 101
• Identify what people don’t have or need
• Make them want what you have/believe that you have what they need
• Partially fulfill their need or fulfill the need and create a new one
Product Differentiation Statement
• Our organization is the only association that can provide _(information)______ to _(what set of people)_____ to create the _______(differentiator)_________.
Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategies
• Based on demand creation
• Create demand by:
• Connecting with an emotion
• Fulfilling a need with your product
• Delivering more than buyer expected
GTM Strategy: The All Powerful Event
Q: What does this have to do with events?
A: Events are the perfect petri dish for association product marketers!
GTM Strategy: The All Powerful Event
Q: How powerful are events?
A: Developing sub-specialty of marketing evolving called “Event Marketing”
Why Are Events So Powerful for Associations?
• If your product is information and the way to collect/distribute information is people, well…..
• Getting people together to exchange information is the key!
Events vs. Virtual Communities: Member Perspective
• People are human. Humans can only take being virtual for so long.
• Social media has connected us.
• At some point, want to take connection up a notch and be face-to-face
Events vs. Virtual Communities: Marketer Perspective
• People are human. Humans do things. We can observe action and capture behavior.
• Social media gives us new insight.
• Events give us more insight.
• At some point, we will construct a comprehensive profile on each member or groups to allow us to predict behavior.
What Do Association Marketers & Communication Profs Need to Know on
Events?
• How to use the event as the petri dish to get the rich data on members!
Event-Level Data: Badge Level Data or Persona-Level Data?
• Are you collecting this?
• What are you doing with the data?
• Are you thinking past logistics?
• Are you creating new programs that create more member-level data ?
Extreme Networking Mini Events
Events Give Total Person Data
• Demographics • Psychographics • Firmographics
Association Marketers
• Focus on providing the right information to the specific member’s needs