September 5, 2008

The Hard News About Associations

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I’ve always been frustrated by the dearth of objective news reporting about the association sector. There’s a lot of content available for association executives in the form of case studies and commentary — national and regional magazines, websites, listserves, even blogs — but actual news reporting about association-specific activities is much more limited.

I subscribe to and read Association Trends, and find it occasionally interesting (sometimes I get a kick out of Jill Cornish’s editorials), but it is thin and tends to lean toward the press release. I read it online while the print version (which seems to arrive rather randomly) is sometimes passed around and sometimes simply thrown away — so I wish they would offer an online-only subscription option (it doesn’t even have to cost less). (UPDATE: Trends tells me they actually run four online issues and one print issue each month, and mail the print issue. I did not realize that this is how they ran their publication schedule and probably explains why I thought the print delivery seemed random.)

The revamped CEO Update has fleshed out its coverage and partially filled the vacuum. While it contains the expected personality profiles, it also fills out its news section with articles on association activities that are a little more in-depth than the usual fare. But they too seem very wedded to their business model of “print newsletter of job listings” and I believe they would find it to their advantage to offer a monthly online subscription option.

And there are all sorts of publications and websites that take a news approach to covering the meetings industry — but it’s not the same thing.

Most of us associations are very familiar with trade press, because we either work closely with trade press in our own membership sectors, or, in some cases, we are the trade press in our own membership sectors. But associations themselves lack significant trade coverage.

I wonder why. Is it because we’re too close-knit, too closely-guarded, too interested in our members’ industries to be much interested in our own? Is it too hard to build a business case for an association trade newspaper? Or are association executives just not that interested?

August 29, 2008

The Biggest Myth About Online Publishing

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No, I don’t mean those myths you can debunk on snopes.com. I mean one of the most common myths that I hear, often from otherwise very smart people.

It’s this: “People aren’t willing to pay for content on the Internet.” I have no idea why this myth is still propagated when it’s so obviously untrue.

Just a few examples:

• CooksIllustrated.com has over 150,000 online subscribers at around 20 bucks a year — that’s $3 million for essentially recycled, “repurposed” magazine content.
• Consumer Reports has over 3 million online-only subscribers paying either annually or monthly.
• MarketingSherpa sells access to thousands of reports, surveys, case studies and samples for a little under $400 a year. Couldn’t find a number of subscribers but they’ve been going strong for years (with events, publications, workshops, even a certification program, they are similar to a lot of associations except slightly more useful than some).
• Speaking of MarketingSherpa, yesterday they reported that consumer review site Angieslist.com has 330,000 paid members (the site lists fees ranging from around $9/mo or $82/year plus signup fees).
• Lynda.com offers online training on a huge number of subjects, mostly related to software and technology, for fees ranging from $25/mo basic memberships to $375/year premium memberships. They claim “tens of thousands of subscribers” and have been around for 13 years.

What we’ve learned in online media during the last several years is that big “general interest” websites of any kind — those aimed at huge consumer audiences, like newspapers, networks, etc. — are not able (or at least have not been able) to charge successfully for content. But more targeted, niche websites can be very successful in charging for different types of content aimed at a specialized audience — and even small subscriber bases can be very profitable.

The good thing is that associations are the definition of niche. Are you taking advantage of that fact?

August 27, 2008

Back to Basics: The Elevator Speech

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The “elevator speech” is a cliche among professionals of all stripes, including association executives — you know, how can you explain what it is you do in 30 seconds or less? The purpose is not really to spring it on unsuspecting people riding down with you to the parking garage, of course, but to help focus your marketing and communications efforts on the things that really matter.

Though it’s a well-known concept, many associations get it wrong — let’s face it, many of us do a LOT of things for a lot of different constituent groups within the markets we serve. This form of feature-creep can actually be crippling in our marketing, especially when we focus that marketing on what it is we DO. Many associations, when asked what they DO, will spout off a few vague concepts that really mean little to those who aren’t already in the fold — things like education, promoting the industry/profession, or worse, words like “advocacy” or “networking.”

Here’s a better way to do it: When someone asks “So, what does your organization do?” (or when you are attempting to craft a marketing piece as if the recipient had asked such a question), you should actually answer a completely different question, which is: “What challenges do you solve?”

On one of the ASAE listserves today, Vinay Kumar offered a similar take on this concept, complete with a lengthy example, which he agreed to let me reprint as follows:

For example, let’s say I am an association that represents chiropractors and one of the versions of my elevator speeches can go something like:

“We work with overwhelmed chiropractors who are sick and tired of not having enough clients. Every time payroll comes around, they are worried if they’ll able to meet along with their other expenses. Our association, The Association for Successful Chiropractors” develops and provides ABC solutions that help our chiropractic members double their revenue, allowing them to easily make money and have the life they dreamed of when they first became chiropractors.”

Of course, if the person is interested, then they will ask “Geez, how do you do that?”. Then there is another set of conversation that can take place but we won’t go there for now. All I can say is that still don’t go into what you do. Instead turn the conversation around ask about their situation and learn about their issues. If you ask, they’ll tell you and that’s very valuable information.

What you DO should not be your focus. Instead show how you solve the real challenges of your market and help members and customers reach their individual goals.

August 27, 2008

The Emotional Connection

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Suffice to say that I am not a Democrat, however, I watched the first part of Hillary Clinton’s speech at the convention last night, including the tribute video that they played as her introduction, narrated by her daughter. I have to say it was a very effective introduction, and I can only imagine that, at the event, on the big screen, it must have made a powerful connection.

It was an excellent example for associations of an effective “opening” — of a conference, of a general session, of a chairman’s term, of a speech — because of the way it combined substance (the video leaves no doubt as to what Hillary believes about several issues) with humor and emotion to make a genuine connection with the audience and put them in the right mood for what’s coming next. Since many of us witnessed a not-so-good example recently, I thought perhaps it would be nice to emphasize a good example.

You don’t have to use video in your conference intros, of course; there are any number of ways to set the stage for a good experience, as long as you remember the point is to excite, to make people laugh, to make that emotional connection. Walking up to the podium and saying, “Good morning,” is definitely not one of those ways.

August 22, 2008

More of the Same

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The “secret session” at ASAE: a bold social media experiment about a new way of doing business and getting buzz, or just plain old-fashioned hyperbolic marketing using slightly different tools? As usual, Cindy Butts nails it.

August 22, 2008

ASAE Post-Mortem: Top Ten, Split in Half

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God, I am still on California time and can’t get to sleep so might as well go ahead and write this post. Here are two top fives, five good and five not-so-good:

5 Little Things About the ASAE Conference I Liked (And May Steal):

• Loved the Toronto Imaginarium — only ducked in once, but it was a very fun concept.
• The “Stop!” signs inside the booths of conference sponsors.
• The little map things with the neck straps given out at the opening and closing parties.
• The many ways in which next year’s conference was promoted so heavily (see Imaginarium above) — I realize a lot of this was to do with the efforts of the Toronto CVB and associated properties, which isn’t really something applicable to other associations, but I believe each year’s event functions as a commercial for the next, and picked up a lot of ideas for expanding on this.
• The yellow padfolio things with the plastic sleeve organizers were kind of useful.

Now, the 5 Little Things About the ASAE Conference I Could Really Do Without in Future Years:

• Political agendas masquerading as “education.”
• People who believe that just because something is important or valuable to them, it must be objectively important or valuable.
• Consultants leading workshops who casually mention what they have to sell every third or fourth slide in their presentation.
• People who say things like, “Associations must [DO THIS THING I LIKE OR SELL] or they won’t survive.” (Actually, the only thing any association has to do to “survive” is make more money than it spends. Everything else will vary from market to market, and culture to culture.)
• Three days of exhibit hours — love the expo, love all the exhibitors, and I know how hard it is to balance exhibitor and attendee needs (and the importance of doing so) … but as an attendee, I have to say, two days is enough (or cut back the time per day to two hours rather than three, or break up the time more throughout the day).