However, we know many associations freak out at the thought of receiving negative feedback. But, addressing negative feedback can be a positive way to express your brand (who you are and what you stand for).

If there are issues within the organization, take a page out of Domino’s book. When faced with negative feedback, the President of the company addressed the comments head on. In YouTube videos and TV commercials the President tells consumers how Domino’s is listening to what they have to say and how they are going to make a change.

Its quite uncommon in the association world, where everyone tries to hide the dirt under the rug, to see this kind of transparency. They think that by keeping negative comments close and internal members won’t talk about it. But, members are already talking about those issues and communication like this can make members feel like….well, members, instead of random consumers.

To gather feedback from members about the conference and association, but to never address it is very disrespectful to them. And, it’s only a matter of time before they realize they are not being heard, which will cause them to loose trust in you and decrease your credibility.

Stop worrying about what members might be saying and instead practice honesty and courage in addressing whatever feedback you receive from them. That is what will drive retention and conference attendance.

Curious how Domino’s handled the disgruntled customer in their recent commercial?

These essential truths will keep your organization on target for fulfilling your mission and goals – while navigating trends, social media, economic changes and cultural shifts. Here are two bonus principles to prep you for the others to follow:

We should adapt our marketing plan based on past history, current needs and future goals.

We value impact and success over tradition. We will develop new means to work within industry trends and cultural shifts to remain relevant and vision-focused.

Trends come and go, cultural shifts occur, communication methods evolve and the economy is in a delicate place. With so much change happening in our day-to-day life, how can the same marketing plan from last year (or five years ago!) be relevant and effective?

Yet, we know many associations that execute marketing plans that were developed in previous years. Some try to “keep up with the times” by slapping on a Facebook page or  a text messaging campaign to the plan.

That strategy will guarantee the only thing in the world that won’t change is the continual decline in conference attendance.

So, what do you do?

Will you expand beyond your current membership base by purchasing an email list, sending out an email and hoping for a 2% open rate? Or, launching a Facebook page that is updated once or twice a week?

No, that’s not going to cut it. You’re wrong to think that you are the only, or the first association to think of that. You have competition. You are challenged with wooing potential attendees, and that is only going to happen if you learn to adapt your marketing plan each year.

Tips:

• Talk to potential attendees as people first (professionals/members second). People who change from year to year and have different needs over time.
• Listen to your target audience before acting.

We will have a vision of growth for conference attendance and commit the energy to implement necessary changes.

We will not accept excuses or utter the word “can’t” when faced with a challenge. Instead we will be flexible towards change and open to learning for the sake of growth and success of every single conference.

Keep up motivation and energy throughout the entire marketing campaign. As soon as you get in a rut, the look and feel of your marketing pieces change and the members can sense that vibe.

So, what do you do?

Be positive about your event. It is the largest, in-person gathering of your members. It has the potential to be the living representation of your mission. You should express that at every chance you get.

Tips:

• Review our previous newsletter about positioning your conference for greater attendance.

That sense of motion creates a much stronger impact than still images alone. When executed properly, it conveys information simply and seamlessly, especially for people who don’t have the time or inclination to read big blocks of text.
In fact, we believe every offer should include video or motion graphics.

These moving elements make your offer feel current and relevant. With the popularity of YouTube.com, it’s easy to distribute viral videos through your website and social media channels. And programs like Dragon Stop Motion simplify the process of creating high-quality animation. These graphics can then be incorporated into a variety of marketing pieces, including email campaigns, web pages, and in-person advertisements.

Videos and motion graphics are a highly effective way to distribute information. In fact, a recent study conducted by comScore and VideoEgg found that rich media video ads were more engaging and more successful at tipping the sales needle than traditional banner ads. No surprise there, but it’s interesting to note that the study also found that this was true regardless of the context in which the ads was displayed.

However, the old adage “less is more” certainly applies to motion graphics. Try to do too much in a single motion graphic and it can detract from your main message, creating confusion. With each motion graphic, we focus on what that graphic should achieve. Will it entice? Educate? Or complement and enhance the surrounding text?

We predict that motion graphics will become even more prevelent as part of marketing campaigns in the future.

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.

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

PURL’s
Personal URLs are perfect for potential attendees to interact with the marketing materials. For example, as you send out your save the date postcard, you can send along with it a PURL for the recipient to log on to. On their personal page, you can have them register early, fill out a questionnaire, or have them choose or suggest topics that they would like to have covered during the conference. By allowing the attendee to participate during the pre-conference stage, the conference value and attendance will increase.

Twitter
During the pre-conference stage, you can begin to setup #hashtags for your conference on Twitter. Invite possible attendees to follow your conference twitter account to receive instant updates about the conference and to begin conversations about what they would like to see at the conference and to start networking with other attendees.

Twitter can be used during the conference as well to let attendees provide their own personal views on subjects and to strike up hot topics throughout the conference. Have the speakers setup their own accounts so they can get involved with conversations through twitter.

For more information, check out our newsletter on Twittering your Annual Conference.

Facebook
Setting up a group on Facebook for your conference is a great tool. As you add friends to the group, you can gauge the potential for attendees at your conference. Utilizing the upcoming events tool, the group will be notified about key dates for the conference.

Check out this blog post about using Facebook for your organization.

Registration Offers
Who does not like a discount or special offer? Why not offer a discount for early registration using PURL’s? Provide special offers to your Facebook Fans who participate in discussions. Conduct contests through Twitter during the conference where you provide information or clues only seen through your Twitter updates.  Providing more options for early registration and participation in pre and post conference sessions will encourage members to take advantage of the situation and in turn it will help with conference attendance and late registration because we know “it’s not just a trend, it’s a fact.”

By incorporating these personalization tools, you will help with the overall value of the conference, but more importantly it will help increase your attendance.

“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.

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.

Tweepz

• Search for people based on their name, bio, location and keywords.

Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book

• A great guide for helping new and experienced Twitter users learn how to get the most out of the service.

Twellow

• The Twitter Yellow Pages

Twellowhood

• Provided by Twello, Twellowhood allows you to see how many Twitter users are in a country, state or city – and to also see who those users are.

LocalTweeps

• Directory to help you find Twitter users in your zip code.

Twubble

• Expand your Twitter bubble. Twubble searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow

WeFollow

• Popular Twitter user directory, which you can use to add yourself or find people to follow.

Twitterel

• Find Twitter users with related interests.

NearbyTweets

Happn.in

• Shows you what people are twittering about in your city. Here’s a peak at what people are all atwitter about in our city, DC.

Tweetdeck

• Tweetdeck is one of the more popular desktop clients for Twitter that allows you to easily manager your Twitter conversations.

Also, be sure to check us out on twitter at http://twitter.com/rottmancreative!

Facebook’s popularity is still growing at exponential rate. Is your nonprofit taking advantage of this gold mine?

Here are three key features that can help your organization get the most out of Facebook:

Key Feature #1: Pages

Facebook has introduced Fan Pages for businesses and organizations, whereas, profiles are meant for individuals. From your Facebook Fan Page you can build community and increase communication with your members by posting updates, sharing pictures, blogging and interacting with your fans. It can also be helpful in recruiting volunteers, raising money and essential networking. It is free to set up a Facebook Fan Page. The only commitment your organization will have to make is one of committing time to create the page and keep it active.

Key Feature #2: Causes

Facebook has a diverse group of users who want to use their Facebook for various reasons. To help users get just what they want out of the social networking site, Facebook has allowed other companies (or web geeks) to create Applications which users can download to their profile. These thousands of applications include games, ways to share music or pictures, quizzes, polls, and lots more. The one that nonprofits need to be aware of is Causes. Instead of us telling you what they do, here’s a snippet from their website:

“Causes offers nonprofit organizations of every budget size, staff capacity, and issue area access to Facebook and MySpace, which between them have over 400 million monthly unique visitors. Facebook, the world’s “stickiest” site, sees over 100 million people log in on a daily basis. Beyond the sheer reach of these social networks, Causes provides nonprofits with specialized tools for spreading awareness, building community, fundraising, circulating petitions, and promoting other actions. Whether you want to reach out to a new supporter demographic, expand your donor base, engage and mobilize existing supporters, or spread the word about your incredible work, Causes is a platform for efficiently and effectively achieving those goals.”

The Causes website has a wealth of information for nonprofits interested in using their platform, including everything you need to know to get started, success stories from other nonprofits, and information on corporate and foundation matching grants.

Key Feature #3: Events

Besides allowing users to manage their contacts and multimedia, Facebook has a feature which allows users to create events and invite guests. You can customize the event, edit its privacy settings, invite members (you can also invite members not on Facebook through email) and add pictures or video. After creating the event, you can send reminder messages to your guests, monitor RSVPs, and interact with guests via a comment section.