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Posts Tagged ‘Conference Marketing Plan’

The Adult Version of Rock’em Sock’em

Monday, July 13th, 2009

When it comes to meeting conference attendance goals or fundraising goals, we know that sometimes you feel like the champ, but there are also times when you’ve taken a hard hit.

The competition can be tough as you battle for your audience’s attention and commitment. Many associations are finding that marketing plans that have worked in the past are now producing poor results.

Remember the classic game Rock’em Sock’em? The hours of fun spent knocking off the block of your tough opponents? And, the strategy that went into moving your red or blue robot into position, throwing punches at the perfect time – and most importantly, to try again after defeat.

Association marketing can often feel like today’s adult version of Rock’em Sock’em. You take those hard-blowing punches when e-mail blasts give less-than-desired results, or few members are jumping on board for early-registration.

It’s times like these that you simply have to pick yourself up, and keep swinging. Think on your feet and keep an open mind to new possibilities. If the same old punches aren’t working anymore, learn some new ones. Strengthen the impact of your conference marketing with a finely tuned logo. Improve membership retention with better communication through social media. Re-think your event marketing plan.

Keep rockin’ and sockin’ to discover those block-buster punches, and celebrate with that beloved gotcha victory cry!

Tags: association conference, associations, conference, Conference Marketing Plan, Increase Conference Attendance, Marketing a Conference, member feedback, member growth, member retention, Membership Marketing, Non-Profit, nonprofits, strategic thinking
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What is social media marketing?

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Fairly soon your lives will be enriched with another edition of our newsletter, White Space. This month’s topic is on integrating social media marketing and direct mail – safely and effectively! But, we thought it might be best to have a quick and dirty lesson on social media marketing.

Let’s start with seeing what Wikipedia has to say:

“Social media marketing is an engagement with online communities to generate exposure, opportunity and sales. The number-one advantage is generating exposure for the business, followed by increasing traffic and building new business partnerships. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.”

Social media marketing is…

A conversation. Brands/companies/organizations talk to consumers, consumers talk about, – most importantly consumers talk to each other.
Word of mouth advertising.
A chance to hear what people are saying about you, because whether or not you join the conversation – they are still going to talk about you.

Social media marketing is not…

A trend. It’s a shift in how we communicate.
Simply joining Facebook. You have to participate.
Going to ruin your reputation (if you are wise about it).
Controlling online conversations. It is about listening and engaging.

Tags: associations, Conference Marketing Plan, facebook, LinkedIn, social media, social media tools, strategic thinking, twitter
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A Primer on Millennials

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

There isn’t a precise consensus on which birth years mark the entrance of the Millennials, but you know who they are. They include the newest employees in the office and they can often be found giving technology tutorials to Baby Boomers.

In recent years there has been an increase in talk about generations mixing in the workplace. Many offices are a combination of Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers and Millennials (or Gen Y) trying to figure out how to work alongside each other in productive, efficient and enjoyable ways. What have you learned about the Millennials when trying to figure out how to manage your office? What can those lessons teach you about how to communicate with members in your association of that same age?

In our latest issue of White Space we covered tips for conferencing marketing to Millennials. Our tips are based on what we know about these young whippersnappers.

Marketing 101: Get to Know Your Target Audience

They have advertisers bending over backwards trying to figure out how to communicate to this group. They don’t respond to traditional marketing efforts like previous generations.
Millennials have grown up with technology. Cell phones and the Internet have affected the way they communicate, but also, how Millennials use technology has affected the development of many products and services.
They are team-oriented. They enjoy acting as resources and mentors for each other.
They have perfected the art of multi-tasking. On average they consume up to 20 hours of media a day, but accomplish it within only seven hours of actual clock time by using multiple media platforms at the same time. It’s not uncommon for them to be watching TV while uploading music to their iPod, texting friends, instant messaging friends, and checking in on their social networks all at the same time.
They expect recognition. They grew up receiving awards and trophies not only for winning, but simply for participating.
They believe they can make the world a better place. They will give time and money to causes, and in some ways are more charitable than other generations.
How an organization cares for the environment and gives back to the community is equally – if not more important than the quality and price of whatever product or service they are offering.
They are new to the professional workplace and need mentoring. Besides enjoying the personal attention of mentoring, they respect positions and titles and want a relationship with their boss and other authority figures.
They have grown up playing video games. But we aren’t simply talking about Mario Brothers. As teenagers Millennials started playing Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG), which allowed them to form online teams with players all around the world and collaborate to complete complicated tasks. This reinforces the idea that Millennials are team-oriented, but it also shows that they have developed the necessary skills for complex, fast-paced team problem solving.

Check out our latest edition of White Space to learn how to take this information about Millennials and use it to better your communication with them.

Tags: conference, Conference Marketing Plan, Connect with a Younger Crowd, facebook, Increase Conference Attendance, Increase Member Retention, member engagement, member growth, member retention, Membership Marketing, millennials, social media tools, strategic thinking
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A Lesson in Using Google Analytics to Optimize Web Performance

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

One of the most sophisticated, safe, and user-friendly web analytics programs just happens to also be free for anyone to use, regardless of site size or amount of traffic. For many web developers, marketers and site owners, Google Analytics seems like a gift too good to be true. It performs just as well (if not better) than costly, high-end web analytics programs.

Google Analytics is enabled by including a tracking code in the template of your website. This code allows Google to see every page of your site and then give you information about the traffic you’re receiving.

We use Google Analytics to track the performance of our website by observing how visitors interact with our online content. On a regular basis we review our Google Analytics stats to evaluate which pages of our site are getting the most traffic, where those visitors are coming from, and how they are interacting with our site once they arrive.

This is invaluable information for any site owner who desires to make their website a powerful means of communication. The data provided to use from Google Analytics allows us to transform our website from being a one-way piece of communication, into a conversation with our visitors. Without this data, we would just be spewing information onto the web then sitting back hoping that the right people would find us, and that hopefully we’ve lived up to their expectations. But, through the magic of Google Analytics we discover how and why visitors come to our site, if they found what they were looking for, and how often they return. Then we respond in the conversation, by taking this information and tailoring our online content to better meet the needs of our visitors.

Most recently we identified a page on our site that was receiving a high amount of traffic compared to other pages on our site. Assisting associations with conference marketing is a popular service we offer our clients, but it was still pleasantly surprising to see the amount of traffic generated by a recent White Space (our monthly newsletter) edition on the topic. This simple page was where we dumped the newsletter after sending it out to our subscribers.

Our Google Analytics told us that visitors were coming to this page when searching for:

Conference Marketing Plan
Increase Conference Attendance
Marketing A Conference Steps Deciding On The Content
Conference Attendance Down
Marketing Plan + Annual Conference

This clued us in on what our visitors are expecting when coming to this page: they want to see tips, information and resources about annual conference marketing. As you can tell, this is not rocket science.

With this information in mind we decided to improve this page of our site in hopes of better meeting our visitors’ expectations.

First, we added a link to our blog – a place that we update regularly with tips and resources that can be useful to associations planning a conference.
Second, we added a blurb about who we are and what we do to give the user an idea of who they are taking advice from.
And lastly, we added a link to our digital portfolio, which is a great opportunity for visitors to get an idea of how our ideas translate to strategy and practical pieces of visual communication.

Now when visitors come to this page, they have easy access to more information on the topic of their interest, they get a better idea of who we are and our capabilities, and they generally have a more enjoyable user experience.

With the help of our Google Analytics data we have quickly and easily transformed a high-trafficked page of our site into a stronger means of communicating with prospects. Associations and nonprofits have very different goals for their websites than we have for ours, but this lesson in optimizing web performance can easily translate to your site. The data provided to you through Google Analytics can boost your website’s ability to capture the interest of potential members or sponsors and inspire current members for specific actions such as renewal or purchasing a product.

Tags: association members, associations, Conference Marketing Plan, Google Analytics, Increase Conference Attendance, Increase Member Retention, Marketing a Conference, member feedback, Membership Marketing, Non-Profit, nonprofits, Rottman Creative Group, strategic thinking
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The Adult Version of Rock’em Sock’em

A Lesson in Using Google Analytics to Optimize Web Performance

Posts Tagged ‘Conference Marketing Plan’

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