So, you have this great product. Maybe it’s a conference, or a book, or an educational series, or a website, or a magazine. It gets great reviews. Your core members love it. It makes money. Terrific!
So, you have this great product. Other people will think it’s great, too. Certainly the other people in your industry or profession (maybe non-members, maybe non-participants who have similar demographics as participants) will think it’s great. So you come up with some smart marketing materials to promote this great product to these other people who are sure to think it’s great. Terrific!
So, you have this great product. The members and core market love it. But it’s kind of tapped out and there are people on the top floor who want to see growth. So … there are other sorts of people — outside your core market — who will think it’s great, too, right? People who work in fields that are similar but not the same, or are on the outskirts of your industry, or are customers of your core members, or are somehow someway maybe possibly interested in similar sorts of things. So you come up with some smart marketing materials to promote this great product to these other people who surely must agree that it’s great … even though you don’t really know them … and they don’t really know you … but, hey it’s a great product … so you just know they’re going to love it, right? … so, um … terrific. I think.
Wait. Let’s start again.
So, you have this great market. And you come up with this great product. Maybe it’s a conference, or a book, or an educational series, or a website, or a magazine. It gets great reviews. Your core market loves it. It makes money. And then you come up with another great product — maybe related to the first great product, maybe completely different — but also aimed at this same great market that you know so well, and which knows you. And they love it.
And then you come up with another one, and then another one, and then another one … and then maybe that first great product starts being not-so-great, maybe a little long in the tooth, maybe no longer relevant … but that’s okay, because you’ve already created so many other great products and have lots more on the way, and retiring not-so-great products is just second nature to you now …
Terrific!
Associations have a market. Not a product.
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Good point. The marketing process starts with the Market (answering the question, who?) moves to the product (answering the question, what?), then designs a promotional strategy (how?), and finally analyzes the economics (why?). The mistake made by some is to start out with the product or with the promotion. Tony
Kevin, thanks for posting this great thought–I couldn’t agree more. Associations exist to serve markets (and market segments), not to pump out a product based on someone’s personal interests.
In my experience, however, I find IMOs, like my association, often tend to think that their role in life is to support the personal interests of volunteers. These (often energetic and dedicated) volunteers organize themselves into groups of common interest, where they happily engage in activities (including producing products) based on their personal interests. They tend to think and act as if the rest of the world will be interested in what they, themselves, are interested in.
My observation is this is the primary reason IMOs evolve into silos, and pump out products that may have little or nothing to do with the current or future markets. This is why I wrote my article on membership in the January Associations Now.
My association is engaged in a formal voice of the customer process to see what our customers tell us they need and want. From the information we hope to be as knowledgable about our customer’s interests as we are about our volunteer’s interests.
That brings up the issue of the tension between enterprise interests (based on customers) as opposed to volunteer interests (based on active volunteers). But that’s another story for another time.
Thanks for your good post.
Virgil, that is an excellent point. I have been exploring this conundrum slightly in some other recent posts (using “committee” as a metaphor for volunteers) but you hit the nail on the head with more brevity and wisdom. The interests of volunteers are not necessarily the interests of members.
This seems to be one of those truths about associations that “everybody knows” but few try to deal with in any systematic way. Most associations have far fewer volunteers than members, so right away we know that non-volunteers are typical and volunteers are atypical. Yet projects (and products) are often undertaken for little more reason than the fact that a particular segment of volunteer leaders (whether a committee, council, chapter, section, sig or other sort of “silo” as you mention) thinks it’s a good idea.
Part of this stems from what I would call “the cult of the volunteer” but that is definitely a story for another day.
I haven’t had a chance to read your article yet, but will do so as soon as I can. Thanks for the great comment!
Kevin – Amen, brother!