Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Quit Fishing and Look for the Dancing Bear

My goal here is not to continue an endless cycle of linking to blogs which link to blogs, I wanted to post my thoughts on something that Jamie Notter said in his blog which references this video.

This video is amazing proof that, as Jamie puts it, "our brains have limited bandwidth when it comes to paying attention". However, I wanted to take this a bit further.

I often times remind my sales team to go and look on our 200+ Members (corporate members) websites and blogs to find out what they are doing in their service area. I ask them to keep up on the technologies that they are using, the employees that are retiring, the community events they are involved in, etc. It seems that many times, in our marketing plans, we have specific products and services that we choose to promote throughout the year. Many times, in determining what to promote, we must "fish" for ideas and think of what our Members would like to see the Association do within the industry. As many of you can attest, this is not always successful and the ROI is minimal.

This video is a perfect example of why we should turn the tables. Instead of "fishing" for ideas, let our Members tell us what they would like to see promoted, discussed, and accomplished within their association. All the time in the world can be spent on promoting the ideas originally planned, but that can cause us to loose track of what our Members want and need. We must be flexible in our marketing pushes, looking consistently at what our Members are doing in the industry and forming our plans around them.

This is, in fact, the benefit of being a part of any association. Members pay to join an association that conforms to their needs, that listens to problems and successes, that pays attention to the wants and needs, and as a result, an association that benefits them in more than one aspect.

And for those of you who are wondering what happens to all the time placed into creating a marketing plan for specific product and service pushes, I think that it will be will justified with the increase in Member retention and increased ROI on your marketing efforts.

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