WIRED magazine contributing editor Jeff Howe coined the term “crowdsourcing” in the magazine in 2006, and the concept has been picking up steam ever since. “Unconferences,” where the conference agenda is driven entirely by attendees, are one example of crowdsourcing in action.

Even if your association isn’t ready to completely hand off the reins, you can still use crowdsourcing to collect suggestions and get members excited. The thing to remember is that crowdsourcing needs to tap into passion. If people are passionate about what they’re being asked to contribute, whether it’s a new product idea, a catchy slogan, or a user-generated video, then they’ll do it.

Healthy competition can help your association. When members see colleagues brainstorming or creating, they’ll want to get involved, too. However, prizes or incentives needn’t be expensive. Think about something of value you already have as an offer. Maybe it’s recognition at your conference or a cool new product from one of your sponsors.

Here are a few ways your conference can tap into crowdsourcing:

• Create a virtual conference room where people can brainstorm. This could be a forum on the conference website that allows visitors to vote on topics for panels or suggest ways to improve the conference experience.
• Set up a physical space at your conference where attendees can exchange ideas. It could be prototypes for new products, designs for a new logo, or something else entirely. However, remember that it’s not really about creating products, it’s about exchanging ideas.
• Use Twitter to solicit questions for panelists. Audience Q & A’s are an old school form of crowdsourcing, but now users can contribute without even being in the room.

The great thing about crowdsourcing is that it allows you to create a better conference than you might otherwise have. And when members are engaged and excited, they’re more likely to attend your conference again and keep renewing their membership.

• Keep non-attendees informed on conference happenings.
• Keep attendees better informed about the day’s schedule.
• See the conference from a different perspective.
• Inspire non-attendees to attend next year.
• Stay connected to members.

(If you don’t remember, or you’re a new reader check out our newsletter.)

Now we’ve found a very cool, and easy-to-use tool for sharing all of those tweets. TwitterFountain is a Twitter application that pulls together tweets that contain a chosen keyword or hashtag. It also pulls in images from Flickr with a chosen tag.

If we ditch the geek-speak, this means you can have a constantly updating application on your website or blog that shows all tweets and Flickr images related to a certain topic….such as your annual conference.

Here is a TwitterFountain we quickly set up to show tweets containing the phrase “charitytuesday”, and Flickr images tagged “conference attendees”:

In just a few minutes we’ve created a communication tool with real-time updates. Imagine how useful (and fun) this could be for your annual conference.

Here are four tools that can help you gather info that will be helpful in making future decisions about event planning, marketing, and publications.

1. SuggestionBox.com

Suggestion Box is an easy-to-use, web-based service that can allow you to ask for ideas from your audience. It is a great tool for implementing some of the tips we shared in our newsletter about crowdsourcing. (Link to November newsletter.)

It starts with a widget that can be added to your organization’s website that directs website visitors to your suggestion box. Once in your “suggestion box” visitors can post ideas and rate the ideas of others.

Association staff can be given access to rate the suggestions internally and send messages to each other about the suggestions privately. You can also automatically notify consumers when one of their ideas has been implemented.

2. YackTrack.com

YackTrack is a free-to-use search engine. Focused on online conversations, YackTrack searches Twitter, Technorati, Google Blog Search, Flickr, Mixx, delicious, Identica and more. After completing a search, you can subscribe to an RSS feed to read new chatter about your search topic as it is posted.

3. GetSatisfaction.com

GetSatisfaction is more tailored for businesses, but it can still be useful to organizations. The website allows individuals to report problems or complaints with a product or service. Setting up a free account could provide a great space for conference attendees to be honest about their experience at your most recent conference. Association staff members can then respond over the site.

4. SurveyMonkey.com

SurveyMonkey is an online survey tool, that allows you to plug in your own set of questions, pick your industry, set your parameters and then get instant results. The service is free for up to 100 survey responses.

Fueled by the fact that it’s getting easier and cheaper to produce quality videos, and that consumers like watching videos. We recently read that in July of 2008, 134 million Americans watched 11.4 billion videos. That’s two videos per user, per day.

Even with today’s economic situation and shrinking budgets, online marketing campaigns still include video, because it’s working.

A video is the closest that we can get to actually touching and holding a product, or experiencing a service.

The same is true for conference marketing. Using videos in your marketing efforts is the closest you will get to letting potential attendees experience your event before registering.

And, the stats show that they enjoy watching and sharing videos. About 75% of the US internet population watches videos online daily, or every other day. And, 98% of all connected desktops have Flash Player installed, meaning they are equipped and ready to watch videos online.

2010 Video Usage Stats

Video usage is only going to increase in 2010. Here are some stats we discovered projecting usage in the next year:

1. In 2010, there will be 176 million online video viewers.
2. In 2010, 86% of internet users will watch videos online daily.
3. Video is expected to continue to grow at a 40% year-over-year increase.

Just as online marketers are using video to boost sales, you can use video in conference marketing. Videos reviewing last year’s break out sessions, interviews with previous attendees, or short talk from the main speaker can help interested attendees get a feel for the conference.

Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Keep your videos simple with short talking points – no more than 2 minutes.
2. Test out the theory by creating videos for one or two products, or offers and see how they perform to other registration offers.
3. Look for user generated content. It could be that some of your previous attendees or members have created videos about their experience, or would be open to creating their own videos about the event.

A video gives people something that direct mail and e-marketing can not. If done right, you can connect with people in a more personal way and increase your chances of eliciting an emotional response. A video allows you to speak to potential attendees with a “human voice”, instead of the marketing speak that is on most collateral pieces. That is a powerful tool that you can use to increase conference registration.

References for stats:

Adobe Scene 7

eMarketer

Universal McCann

“We cannot adjust the wind… but we can adjust the sails.”  Unknown

This marketing plan package equips association and non-profit executives with the tools and knowledge to fill the empty seats. This package is especially designed for:

• Associations and non-profits with a limited staff
• Organizations not meeting their attendance goals
• Organizations with an In-house marketing team that needs a fresh set of eyes to review currents strategies

We are only offering this special package in the first quarter of 2010. If you want to reach your conference attendance goals for next year, then check out the details and special price for the workday sessions and remote guidance provided in our exclusive Marketing Planning Package.

For the first time, we are offering a special Marketing Planning Package that is designed to equip organizations fill empty seats at their next conference. Listen in as Gary explains the workday sessions and remote guidance provided in this package, in addition to what types of organizations can benefit from this offer.

LISTEN NOW

Here’s a list of pricing tactics that have been working for associations so far this year:

1. Offering quarterly dues payment
2. Promoting a “dues relief” program
3. Discounting registration rates to their annual meeting
4. “Two for one” dues payments
5. Local resident discounts to the annual meeting
6. Increasing travel grants for members to attend conferences
7. Providing free conference registration when attendees pay travel expenses and stay at HQ hotels
8. Offering conference attendees a payment plan

Each of these benefits will appeal to a specific group of potential attendees, and of course, when it comes to pricing you are appealing to something that they care about.

Conference Marketing to Younger Members
A Field Guide to the Millennials.

How do you market a conference to a generation that has been bombarded with advertising their whole life and grown immune to hyped sales pitches? Millennials are a difficult group to reach with traditional marketing techniques. Follow along with Gary as he walks through some effective tips for personalizing and segmenting your conference marketing campaign to get better results.

“Um, so?” may be what’s on your mind right now, but status tagging is a great feature that can help your fans promote your Facebook Fan page. Facebook users update their status to let friends know all sorts of things about how they are doing, what they are doing, and things they like. Now, with status tagging they can reference who or what they are talking about.

For instance, when a Facebook user says they are going to volunteer with their favorite nonprofit, they can use the “@” symbol to reference that nonprofit’s Fan Page. Or, when a Facebook user just registered for an upcoming conference they can reference the association’s page or event. Those updates will show up in the news feeds of all their friends, and on the pages of the organizations they referenced.

Facebook posted instructions on how to tag friends and fan pages in status updates on their blog:

“Now, when you are writing a status update and want to add a friend’s name to something you are posting, just include the “@” symbol beforehand. As you type the name of what you would like to reference, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and Pages. Soon, you’ll be able to tag friends from applications as well. The “@” symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post after you’ve added your tags.”

Start testing the status tagging and see how it can enhance the connections with your friends and fans. It can be a useful tool for referencing other organizations or businesses you want to help promote on Facebook, as well.

You can read the article below:

Stop Selling Like It’s 1995
Is your online store more like an old-fashioned emporium than Amazon.com? Try these innovative techniques to enhance the shopping experience while using web analytics to track your sales performance.
By Gary Rottman

If your association has an online store, you probably realize that the more effort you put into selling your publications there, the more likely your potential customers are to discover their value. Simply using a small picture of a publication cover does two things for you:

1. Makes you seem stuck in 1995.
2. Gives the impression that since you haven’t learned how to make the shopping experience innovative, you probably aren’t capable of producing innovative publications, either.

If that’s the reputation you want, you can stop reading now and continue to use your tiny picture. But if it’s not how you’d like your members to view your products, I’ve put together a few tips to help you examine how you’re marketing your publications and identify new ways to increase revenue.

Note: These are not tips on how to improve your publications. I trust that you already know what your members want and are creating targeted, valuable products. Instead, I’ll offer advice on how to better market your publications and entice potential customers to pull out their credit cards.

Enhance the shopping experience

People shop online because they are looking for the best deal, don’t have time to go to the store; or want to buy something that’s not easily accessible to them. However, even with all the advances in online shopping, people still prefer going to an actual store. They want to see and hold the product they’re about to purchase. They want to weigh its value against the money they’re about to spend.

You may not be able to let members finger the texture of your publications’ paper. But you can give them a feel for the product’s value so they’ll make a purchase.

There are many ways to bring your publications to life and increase sales. Consider Amazon.com—one of the largest booksellers on the Internet. Amazon gives potential customers a quality experience before they purchase. The experience includes:

• Detailed page views of a book’s cover, table of contents, first few pages, and index
• Detailed summary with quotes
• Suggestions for other books that might be of interest
• Reader reviews and ratings

If setting up these features in your own store seems a bit daunting, start with the most straightforward: the detailed page views and a thorough, enticingly written summary of each publication. Then study all your offerings and provide links to related books, products, and even conferences and webinars.

Coming up with reader reviews can be somewhat more labor-intensive. Begin by posing questions to your audience via social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Then collect the responses and post them alongside the summary of each publication.

You can generate more buzz by taking advantage of other social media techniques. The following methods will provide key product information whether potential buyers prefer to read about your offerings, listen to a podcast, watch a video, or receive recommendations from like-minded professionals.

• Create videos of association members talking candidly about the publication’s highlights and what they valued about it. Then post these testimonials on YouTube or other social media sites.
• On the day your publication launches, conduct a webinar hosted by either key staff members or board members. Discuss how and why this publication was created; summarize key points, value, and purchase information; and then be sure to close with a strong call to action. Afterward, turn the webinar into a podcast and post it on your website for future visitors to discover.

Find out how engaging your store is

Before determining how to best promote your publication sales, it would be useful to know how you’re currently performing. Many tools are available for analyzing the publications part of your website, but I recommend Google Analytics. http://www.google.com/analytics/ Besides being free, the service is comprehensive and easy to use.

After a quick primer at Google Analytics (or whatever tool you use), you will become familiar with terms such as pageviews, bounce rate, time on site, and new visitors. You can interpret the new knowledge, trends, and data you gain to meet your goals, including identifying who is coming to your site, how they’re getting there, and what they do once they arrive.

This information provides you with a wealth of opportunity. For example, you can develop great cross-promotional relationships with websites that are directing traffic to your site. Also, you can identify which keywords are bringing users to your site and build a strategy around those keywords.

But the big picture is that a web analytics can provide clues about (1) what visitors expect to see when they visit your website and (2) whether you satisfy their curiosity or fail to meet expectations. For any website that sells products, this information is vital.

• To increase the performance of your publications page, use the information you derive through web analytics to:
• Tailor popular landing pages to entice visitors to stay on your site longer
• Identify pages that need a stronger call to action to turn potential customers into buyers
• Easily track average-order total and number of products sold to help you establish goals
• Track how long customers are on site before they place an order

Check out my blog post, “A Lesson in Using Google Analytics to Optimize Web Performance,” to see how my firm used web analytics stats to improve the performance of one of our site’s most popular pages. By adopting the same principles, you can learn to translate information about high-trafficked parts of your store into happier shoppers—and better publications sales.