We’d liken white space to the gaps a composer uses to build suspense. When a musician follows the composer’s direction and observes the rests, those silences enrich the other notes to dramatic effect. Ever sat in a concert hall when the entire orchestra pauses in unison before the final chord? The audience holds its breath in anticipation, then explodes into applause after that last crucial note.

White space serves a similar purpose. Some clients want to cram as much information on a single webpage or a brochure as possible, but the result can be overwhelming to the audience. Look at the margins on this blog. If the text blended right into the images, then neither text nor images would be very effective (or visually pleasing). Similarly, if a logo doesn’t have a little breathing space, then it’s harder to process. Give it a little more space and suddenly it appears to jump right off the page (or screen).

But we’re not about to just insert white space for the sake of having white space. These voids should be used purposefully. They need to be part of the overall design concept and strategy. And since we’re all about helping associations and nonprofits improve their communication strategy, it’s only fitting that our WhiteSpace newsletter reflects this approach.

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.

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.

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!

Listen Now!

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To compliment our recent Whitespace Newsletter about conference marketing success by integrating direct mail and social media, we put together a few tips for our nonprofit friends who are slightly more interested in fundraising.

We’ve put together 4 easy tips to help nonprofits:

• Engage previous supporters
• Find new prospects
• Convert prospects to donors
• Raise more money without greatly increasing your budget

Tip #1

Let supporters know about your presence on social networking sites. In addition to finding supporters on Facebook and LinkedIn with your current email list, you can also inform them about connecting with the nonprofit through these channels with short blurbs on direct mail pieces, emails and the organization’s website.

Tip #2

Respond to feedback from social networking sites, and share it with supporters who are likely keeping up with the organization through direct mail or email. The nature of social networking is that it allows users to provide instant feedback – the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly. We’re not going to touch on how to handle the bad or the ugly, but we think you should sing the good feedback from the rooftops! Well, not exactly, but we do recommend you share it on direct mail pieces and emails, just like any other testimonial.

Tip #3

Integrate the campaign logo and theme across all mediums. Some organizations feel that their online marketing has to have a different “brand” than the rest of their marketing. This has potential to confuse the audience. We recommend using the same logo and theme for your fundraising campaign, despite how you are communicating with potential supporters. However, this does not mean you can use the exact same message, word-for-word on your direct mail piece as used on the nonprofit’s Facebook Fan page.

Tip #4

A popular trend (and useful tool) on Twitter is to tag posts with a hash tag (#), plus a keyword. This helps identify what the post is about, but also makes it easy to find when conducting searches. One of the most popular tags is #charitytuesday. This tag is used, you guessed it, on Tuesdays. Twitter users will post something about their favorite nonprofit and include this tag, hoping that the post will help raise awareness.

Alerting Twitter followers about upcoming direct mail pieces will peak their interest and let them know you need their help in raising awareness about the campaign. This is a great opportunity for nonprofits during a fundraising campaign with the potential to encourage matching gifts and referrals.

But, did you know that those are not your only options for creating social networks? Using commercial social networks is becoming more and more popular for nonprofits and associations. But, they may not always be the best fit. This is especially true if your members are really active within your social network.

The next step up for organizations is to create a house social network, which is not as difficult and technical as you might think thanks to the help of Ning.

What is Ning?

Ning is an online platform for people to create their own social networks. With little time investment organizations can set up their own house social network that can add an alternative way to engage with their members and fulfill their goals or mission.

In a recent survey, nonprofits answered questions about social networking, over three-quarters of the survey respondents indicated that the network is valuable asset to their communication efforts.

Popular Features of Ning

Ning has several features that allow members to easily share information with each other.

• Communicate with members through blogs, forums and videos.
• Members can also interact with each other through chat and sharing pictures.
• Communication is encouraged through the ability to form groups based on interests or geography.
• Nonprofits can increase fundraising efforts by installing widgets to collect donations.
• Increase event participation by posting information to your members.
• Export your social network member data to increase your list of contacts.

Enough Talk

We’ve done some research and found some quality house social networks from organizations to help give you a picture of how this tool can increase communication and engagement in your members. Check them out, then come back and leave us a comment on what you think.

ASPCA
American Library Association
Geographical Association Network (A network for geography teachers)
Bridge Builders

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.