Event-Driven Memberships: What Association Professionals
Need to Know
Suzanne Carawan Vice President, Global Marketing
Events Moving into Minds of Marketers
• Marketers’ dream: • Content • Demographics, psychographics • Transactions • Isolated population to study • Multichannel opportunities • Actionable • Measurable • Multi-touchpoint
Events are Pink Hot for Engagement
• Increases as a marketing and sales tool are on the rise and projections just getting bigger
• Social media & access to information increases demand for face to face
• Emphasis of SoLoMo (Social, Local, Mobile) increases the number of events
From MPI
What’s New About Events?
• EVERYTHING!
• Formats (virtual vs. f2f, one2one, speed networking, slow vs fast, pecha kucha, hybrid, pods…)
• Technology
• Focused on experience
• Blending of worlds (SXSW….)
Enter the Power of Virtual Events
• Webinars & Webinar Archives
• Livestream & Video Archives
• Virtual Tradeshows
• Virtual Learning Centers
• Tweet Ups/Tweetchats
• Google Hangouts
• Private Social Network Events
• Event Parties/Pods
What’s Great About Virtual Events?
• Elicit emotion for upcoming f2f
• Topic Continuity
• Time/place for follow-up conversation following reflection
• Create more content that can be easily packaged and used for additional marketing
The Big Question
• If your organization ceased to exist tomorrow, what would happen? Would anyone notice?
Scary Answer
• No one may notice
Why ?
• Traditional View: Associations have treated publications, events & membership packages as the product
• Innovative View: Treat information as the product
What’s Really New About Events?
• Starting to be run like a marketing campaign
• Longer periods of time to measure
• Multiple events within an “event campaign”
• Changing metrics for ROI
Is This You?
Publications
Advocacy/ Government
Relations
Events
Membership
Component Relations
Marketing & Communications
Self-Check
• Does your organization have a CMO?
• Are publication, event, advocacy etc conversations joined by the marketing staff?
• Does marketing set pricing on events? Membership? Publications?
Marketing-Driven Worldview
• Marketing is a core competency
• Marketing is in the C-Suite
• Marketing follows the “pure path” & different from Communications
Marketing-Centered
Product Marketing Strategy
GTM: Events
Prospect
Members
Loyal Members
Product Marketing-Driven Association
• Identify the market need
• Identify the buyer persona
• Identify the differentiators of the product
• Identify how to communicate/reach the targeted buyers
• Measure & change offering over time
Demand Creation 101
• Identify what people don’t have or need
• Make them want what you have/believe that you have what they need
• Partially fulfill their need or fulfill the need and create a new one
Product Differentiation Statement
• Our organization is the only association that can provide _(information)______ to _(what set of people)_____ to create the _______(differentiator)_________.
Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategies
• Based on demand creation
• Create demand by:
• Connecting with an emotion
• Fulfilling a need with your product
• Delivering more than buyer expected
GTM Strategy: The All Powerful Event
Q: What does this have to do with events?
A: Events are the perfect petri dish for association product marketers!
GTM Strategy: The All Powerful Event
Q: How powerful are events?
A: Developing sub-specialty of marketing evolving called “Event Marketing”
Why Are Events So Powerful for Associations?
• If your product is information and the way to collect/distribute information is people, well…..
• Getting people together to exchange information is the key!
Events vs. Virtual Communities: Member Perspective
• People are human. Humans can only take being virtual for so long.
• Social media has connected us.
• At some point, want to take connection up a notch and be face-to-face
Events vs. Virtual Communities: Marketer Perspective
• People are human. Humans do things. We can observe action and capture behavior.
• Social media gives us new insight.
• Events give us more insight.
• At some point, we will construct a comprehensive profile on each member or groups to allow us to predict behavior.
What Do Association Marketers & Communication Profs Need to Know on
Events?
• How to use the event as the petri dish to get the rich data on members!
Event-Level Data: Badge Level Data or Persona-Level Data?
• Are you collecting this?
• What are you doing with the data?
• Are you thinking past logistics?
• Are you creating new programs that create more member-level data ?
Extreme Networking Mini Events
Events Give Total Person Data
• Demographics • Psychographics • Firmographics
Association Marketers
• Focus on providing the right information to the specific member’s needs