Published by Melissa Madigan, Marketing Coordinator, ACGI
Yet another Thank You Thursday opportunity is here. This time, we’d like to thank Wes Trochlil, president of Effective Database Management, for sharing his insights on growing non-dues revenue during our latest webinar on Tuesday.
If you missed it, we recorded the webinar. You can access it here.
During the 60-minutes session, Dan Kasprow, ACGI’s CTO and Co-founder, joined Wes for a wide-ranging discussion, which explored the challenges associations face when adopting non-dues revenue generating programs, along with success stories, best practices and ideas for making effective use of technology to drive greater operational success.
Here’s a recap of some of Wes and Dan’s main points:
Risky Business. There are a lot of opportunities for growth when your association adopts non-dues revenue programs, but this is not without some risk.
Success comes from experimenting with and continually adapting programs to support growth of your organization’s mission and market.
Opportunity Knocks…with Sponsorships! “Any time the association is talking to members, there’s an opportunity to also have that communication sponsored.” –Wes Trochlil.
There are plenty of non-dues revenue opportunities involving sponsorship, from newsletters, webinars and website to events, the list goes on.
Success Factor: If sponsorship is all gain for the sponsor and offers little or no benefit for members, you might want to re-evaluate your sales strategy.
Is Your Event Trendy…I Mean Trending? This goes hand-in-hand with sponsorship. The important thing with events is to keep a watchful eye on what’s trending. Right now, conference apps are pretty much expected by attendees. They’re also useful for generating advertising revenue from your sponsors. And as a bonus, using a conference app can eliminate the need for (and expense of) printed materials you may have used in the past.
Success Factor: Don’t forget your breakout sessions and social events are all opportunities for generating additional sponsorship revenue.
Repurpose with a purpose. No matter what the source of the content is, Wes says, “We need to be asking ourselves where else can we use this?” A great example Wes gave of repurposing content at an event is guest speakers. Once they commit to a keynote, have them write a blog or article for your website, newsletter or magazine. And, don’t forget the video.
Success Factor: Repurpose content by bundling into “special offer” packages for members and other interested parties. Sponsored content can also be an effective way of generating revenue.
You’re a Certified What? Does your industry have a certification program? There’s a natural inclination to view people with certifications as more qualified and better informed. By offering certification programs, your association creates benefits for members and your industry –along with a potentially significant source of non-dues revenue.
Start, Evaluate and Optimize…
What to Do? That’s the real question isn’t it? To help make decisions about starting, stopping and evolving non-dues generating programs you need data. And, you need ways of analyzing data that support iterative thinking –enter business intelligence.
Wes emphasized the importance of using business intelligence tools for mining data associated with members’ interactions with your organization.
No programming required. “You no longer have to be a rocket scientist to use these tools effectively. With business intelligence tools, like those built into Association Anywhere, you can very quickly find out, of those members, who attended a specific event over the past three years, which ones also purchased specific event-related content, in response to which promotions, in a matter of minutes, instead of three days,” says Wes.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat. The process of gaining valuable insight from your data benefits from creative thinking and persistence.
“You get the answer to a particular question, and that begets the next question,” explained Dan Kasprow. “This facilitates a cycle of development, refinement and improvement, so you can answer the question, ‘are my programs successful or not and why.’ Having that information helps you understand how and why members and customers respond to marketing, products and services so you can make them more successful.”
To learn more about how Association Anywhere’s reporting and business intelligence tools can help you assess the value of your non-dues revenue programs, register now for our next Association Anywhere Overview webinar on October 9, 2013.
Miss the webinar with Wes, or want to share it with others?
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