These days, outbound advertisements are becoming a thing of the past. Between the DVR and e-zines, advertisements don't hold as much weight in our everyday media.
It's much more difficult to grasp someone's attention with something that's valuable to them. Associations are recognizing the same trends happening within their industry — retention rates and new-member inquiries are decreasing — because, quite frankly, "ain't nobody got time for that."
That said, there is a way for associations to get back into the game. The answer? Content marketing is all the rage. They can cut through the clutter and use a content marketing initiative to truly gain the readership needed.
Greenfield Service surveyed 173 Canadian association leaders and found that they "consistently identify membership growth and retention as top priorities. But they lack the resources and strategy to run integrated member retention campaigns, or to deliver and demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) that would give members a compelling reason to renew."
This is where content marketing will be the star of the show.
"Content marketing is the discipline of creating quality branded editorial content across all media channels and platforms to deliver engaging relationships, consumer value and measurable success for brands," according to the Content Marketing Association.
The ultimate goal is to become of value to members with continuous engagement. Content can be in the form of newsletters, blogs, news articles, videos, infographics or direct email pieces, but should always be valuable to members. Members need the trust instilled within them from their association.
In order for any content marketing initiative grab hold, a plan needs to be developed. Know why you're starting the initiative, how to create and build relationships and then measure your success.
To break down the relationships in more detail, here are five tactics in order to better gain the attention of current and new members.
1. Get personal. Curating content to personally reach out to each and every member will be beneficial. Each person is different, so make sure you have content that covers all bases of perception.
2. Create value. Information is already gathered when a new member joins an association, but research is needed in order to gain more. Finding out what is interesting and helpful to potential members is essential. Having that knowledge will help build lasting relationships since there are commonalities. Including current members will allow relevance of content and help the audience relate better toward the association.
3. Be different. Think outside the box when it comes to your members. What are they used to seeing in regard to associations? How can your initiative separate you from the competition?
4. Consistency is key. With any content marketing initiative, it's imperative that it's consistent. With all of the different forms of content available to create, it's key to make sure they're all along the same brand, motive, mission, etc. Members don't want to read one thing they find value in and then a statement about the opposite on a later date.
5. Accessibility must be simple. Have various points to direct members to all of the content and the association — whether it be listed on your website, newsletters, magazine, blog or social media. With this initiative, associations will be creating value to both current and potential members. Accessibility is a must in order to gain more knowledge of what is and is not working. Always be available to members and always engage for feedback.
In short, you're building relationships in order to identify topics, trends, needs and interests of your target audience — ultimately generating new members within the association.
