This is a guest blog post by Adam Higgins, Director of Technology, at HighRoad Solutions.

Data-based marketing is nothing new. All marketing is based on some data. Before you reach out to any audience, you have to know a little about what makes them tick.

And everything you know counts as data. Their likes, their dislikes, their needs, their preferences. Their goals and the obstacles to their goals. All of these are data points that will help you produce a targeted, effective method.

The only thing that’s changed is that there’s a lot more data around these days. We know what people read on our website, we know if they open our emails, we even know if they put something in their e-commerce shopping cart but didn’t click the Buy Now button.

All of that data can help associations to meet their marketing goals, whether that means recruiting new faces, or strengthening bonds with existing members. Here’s how to turn association data into conversions.

Establish your goals

Before you get started, think about what you’re trying to achieve. Your objectives will define your strategy and help you decide which data to focus on. Common goals for associations include:

• Recruitment: Acquiring new members, especially those who are new to the profession, such as recent graduates.
• Retention: Encouraging current members to renew their membership by communicating the value of the association.
• Engagement: Helping members to find relevant programming, thereby strengthening their relationship with the association.
• Data gathering: Learning about current members and potential future members, as well as the general industry trends that may shape your future plans.

You’ll also need to establish accountability for achieving these goals. Ask questions like:

• Who will own the data in terms of reaching objectives?
• Who will analyze and make recommendations about the data?
• Who will own the integrity of the data?
• Who will organize the data in a way that supports the execution of marketing plans?

Knowing your goals is important at every stage in this process, but especially at the end. When you’ve got your marketing campaign up and running, you’ll compare your outcomes to your goals and see if you’re where you need to be.

Understand your data

Most associations have a ton of member data available to help guide marketing projects. But before you can use it, you have to understand it. Association data falls into four primary categories:

• Demographic data: This is basic descriptive information that relates to an individual, such as their job title, location, age, gender, and educational background. Demographic data can often be found on application forms, such as membership applications, and conference registrations.
• Firmographic data: This data is similar to demographic data, except it relates to the individual’s employer or firm. Firmographic data includes the number of employees, annual turnover, office locations, and management structure. This data can be found on the same application forms that provide demographic data. Most of it will also be publicly available, either from the company website or local business registries.
• Psychographic data: This kind of data digs a little deeper and tells you about what makes the person tick. What are their goals? What obstacles do they face? What are their motivators when making a decision? Some of this information can be revealed with sophisticated data analytics. But you can also obtain psychographic data the old-fashioned way—by talking to people. Surveys, interviews, discussion groups, and face-to-face conversations are the best way to obtain this kind of qualitative data. All of this can be collected while building your personas.
• Behavioral data: Finally, behavioral data reveals how people interact with your programming. What documents do they download? What videos do they watch? Do they read your emails and click on the link? What kind of conferences or webinars do they attend? You can obtain this kind of information using digital tools like email automation, marketing automation, and web tools.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that demographic data is the be-all and end-all of data analytics. It’s certainly important, but all relevant information is needed to help you better understand your members.

Integrate your data sources

You might have great data, but your project will struggle if it’s not all in the same place. Data integration is the process of harmonizing all of your data across multiple sources.

For associations, the main pillar of the data infrastructure is often the AMS (Association Management System). This system hosts much of the data about individual members, and it can collect information from other systems, such as Event Management Systems, Learning Management Systems, and e-commerce portals.

Other systems will hold other types of data. For example, your marketing automation and email automation platforms will have rich behavioral information related to any interaction or activity. Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System, often integrated with your marketing automation platform, will track any interactions related to sales or customer service.

To achieve full integration, you need a full-stack audit of all available data systems. Often, you’ll need to bring in an experienced consultant to help manage this. The important questions in any integration are:

• What data do we have?
• Where is that data stored?
• Are there clashing versions of data across multiple systems? If so, how are conflicts resolved?
• Do analysts have access to a complete and recent version of all relevant data?

Think of data like water. You need the right pipes to ensure that the data flows from one place to another, providing a constant stream of fresh information.

Build a segmentation strategy

Your audience contains identifiable sub-groups or segments. If you understand your segments, you’ll understand the people within those segments.

For example, imagine you identify an audience segment based on existing data. This segment is:

• Mid-career marketing managers
• 10-15 years’ experience
• Works for a large firm
• Aspires to become VP of Marketing
• Relies on the association for conferences, networking opportunities, and chances to volunteer

From now on, when you make contact with someone who fits this description, you know what they need. You know that they have big career goals, and you know what kind of programming they’re looking for.

This is the basis of your segmentation strategy. A full segmentation plan looks like this:

• Create a member matrix: Analyze the data and build a set of personas that describes your members. These personas form a matrix, which should cover the majority of your member base.
• Segment by persona: Use data techniques to match individuals to their relevant persona. If you’re working with new leads, you can use progressive profiling techniques to build a picture of the individual and ensure they’re matched to the correct persona.
• Map relevant content: Find the content that will interest and delight each persona. What topics are they interested in? Do they need education? Certification? Networking opportunities? How can the association create value for them?
• Build a personalized journey: The actual sales journey can be mechanized with a good digital automation platform. This software will make sure the leads get the right message at the right time. But you still have to plan the structures of these journeys with care. Think about emails, content, goals, and consider branching options for dynamic sales journeys.

Remember, every single journey is a chance to gather more data. Even if a lead fails to convert, you’ve still learned something that can help you get it over the line next time. Marketing automation needs to be an ongoing, iterative process that responds to new data as it emerges.

Measure your success

 Now it’s time to compare your results to those objectives from the start. To do this, you’ll need some metrics. In analytics, these metrics are often referred to as Key Performance Indicators or KPIs.

Common association KPIs include:

• Conversions made, such as new member signups
• Survey scores
• Evaluation results
• AMS Engagement Scoring
• Community interaction, both digital and in-person
• Website interaction
• Campaign interaction
• Customer experience interaction
• Social media interaction
• Quality of leads, according to lead scoring

Ideally, you should define your KPIs at the beginning. For example, if your goal is recruitment, then decide whether to look at gross or net new members, and whether you’re focusing on a particular demographic. If your outcomes match your goals, you’re on the right track.

Keep gathering data

Remember, every interaction is a chance to gather precious data. If you use the right automation software, you can collect information while implementing high-value campaigns.

There are two key automation platforms that associations use: marketing automation and email automation. They can each gather data in the following ways:

Marketing automation:

• Awareness campaigns
• Lead generation campaigns
• Influencer campaigns
• Campaigns converting customers to members
• Sales-enabled campaigns
• Insights campaigns

Email automation:

• Member onboarding communications
• Renewal communications
• Promotion of relevant programs as part of member promise
• Member newsletters
• Sponsored communications

All of these campaigns have clear outcomes that benefit the association. They also involve marketing communication with leads and potential new members. Each interaction will provide you new information about what your audience wants, what it doesn’t want, and what it wishes you would do differently.

Want to hear more about leveraging data for growth?

Watch our On-Demand Session for Follow the Yellow Brick Road – Data as the New Gold.

The post Activating Your Data to Deliver Results appeared first on Personify.

Whether you’re a fan of Ice Cube’s work as a solo artist, his contributions to N.W.A or are just here to learn about making technology purchases for your association, you know the importance of gaining a single source of truth…for your members, their interactions and your organization.

As a member-focused organization, your association management technology is the heart of your business. A good association management system (AMS) allows you to manage your organization’s data within a single platform, empowering your organization with the insights and tools to work smarter and focus resources on your mission, not your technology.  

With that being said, the process for evaluating and selecting the right technology can be daunting. Whether you’re replacing a homegrown legacy system or starting from scratch, building a list of requirements will be the most challenging and the most critical step of the process.

Each step in the evaluation process is important, but the step that is often rushed is the process of understanding your needs and identifying requirements.  

Understand Your Needs 

• Enlist the help of various departmental stakeholders beyond just the buying committee. Outlines the teams and departments that will be using the technology. This can and should include member services staff that are creating new member profiles and signing up people for programs, executive members who are leveraging the data to develop insights and drive forward the organization and events staff who are planning your annual conference.  Are all of these individuals represented in the committee that is compiling your needs and goals for an AMS? 
• Ensure that you have a comprehensive, thorough list of requirements before you ever begin your search. This will improve your odds of ending up with a solution that can meet the needs of your entire organization.  
• When gathering this information, evaluate the business processes that are needed as part of your association management system. This exercise creates an opportunity to reevaluate legacy business processes and areas of inefficiency.  
• Keep an open-mind and remind staff why you’re having these conversations- to acquire the right tools to save time, streamline operations and free up resources to work towards your mission. If the tools are not achieving these objectives, why are you expending your efforts to acquire them? 

Build Your Wish List of Requirements 

To get started building a list of requirements, outline the goals and objectives of each area of the business, including a wish list of what each program hopes to achieve with the new system. Examples may include:  

Membership 

• Support complex membership and event types  
• Streamline new member acquisition  
• Provide greater visibility into member needs and trends  

Technology  

• Deliver efficiencies to maximize staff time  
• Stand up reliable, secure systems that will withstand changing technologies  
• Protect member data  

Marketing 

• Integrate with best-in-class marketing tools
•  Ability to access reporting and analytics to understand what’s working and what’s not 
• Manage personalized communications across various channels  

Operations 

• Provide ROI and data to support the organization’s initiatives  
• Accommodate data intelligence, create workflows and clear audit trails to manage the organization’s finances  

Events

• Drive participation in annual events and meetings, whether it be as an attendee, sponsor or exhibitor  
• Evaluate the operational and financial status of meetings and events throughout the event lifecycle 
• Streamline key operational processes to deliver a smooth experience for event organizers, attendees, sponsors and vendors   

Once you have a clear understanding of your organization’s needs and specific criteria, you’ll be ready to take the next step of drafting a request for proposals!  

The post De-Code Your Association Management System Purchase: Understand Your Needs and Requirements appeared first on Personify.

And why not? The dawn of a new year presents a great opportunity for a fresh start. As organizations put together budgets to present to their executive leadership and boards, the need to understand and document these resolutions may hit your inbox soon. This is especially true for big changes, like a rebrand.

Not long ago, “investment” felt like a dirty word for nonprofits – after all, money spent on branding takes away from funds available for new programs or activities that can move an organization’s mission forward. But a strong brand can play an important, strategic role for an organization, driving long-term awareness, strengthening identity and creating cohesion among internal staff, volunteers and other constituents.

What is a Brand

Advertising executive David Ogilvy defined a brand as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes,” while AIGA, the Professional Association for Design, defines a brand as “a person’s perception of a product, service, experience or organization.”

For commercial products, proving the brand’s value can be relatively straightforward. A consumer purchases a product and the product either delivers on the brand promise or it doesn’t. M&M’s for example, “melt in your mouth, not in your hand.” Take the time to apply L’Oreal mascara, “because you’re worth it.” Spill something? Grab a Bounty paper towel as it’s the “quicker picker upper.”

These relatable consumer experiences have become a growing part of talking about branding across nonprofits of all sizes. Many nonprofit executives define brand using for-profit language, in part because they’re often discussing brand with board members and donors whose own roots are in the for-profit world.

Yet for nonprofits, their brand effectiveness can be more subjective, relying on the audience to visualize a world that’s better for them having been part of the organization’s mission. The strength of the brand is determined by the trust, loyalty and enthusiasm it elicits. A nonprofit’s brand reaches beyond the organization and its mission, appealing to what’s most meaningful to their audience. Whether a donor-focused charity or a member-driven association, the nonprofit brand must show that the organization delivers on its promises for the individual and the broader collective.

Living the Brand

That’s a lot to live up to. Although the ambitions of nonprofit marketers are growing, the strategic frameworks and management tools available to them haven’t kept pace, with lots of the language and strategy borrowed from the for-profit sector brand playbook designed to boost name recognition and drive brand reputation. But optimizing your brand doesn’t have to be hard or take a back seat to other activities in your organization. Integrating the brand conversation alongside other planning discussions can ensure your brand is:

• Closely aligned with your organizational strategy
• Deeply ingrained with your nonprofit’s culture, ideas and values
• Part of each action, with staff recognizing interactions with members, donors, supporters and other constituents as unique opportunities to reinforce your brand’s value
• Reflected in what you say and how you say it
• Fully supported by your visual identity and technology tools, creating opportunities for consistent quality across all communications and interactions.

Taking Your Brand to the Next Level

Branding delivers tremendous value for nonprofits, driving the awareness that leads to acquisition, the enthusiasm that drives engagement and the loyalty necessary for strong differentiation in a crowded marketplace. While branding should be part of everyday conversations around organizational strategy, culture, messaging and tools, there are several steps nonprofits interested in improving their brand in the new year can take to get started:

1. Know Your Target Audience: Without a clear vision of who your organization engages with, building a brand to drive their support is next to impossible (or at the very least inefficient)! Personas can provide a helpful framework for identifying who’s who. Learn more about defining your target audience and personas to get the ball rolling.
2. Differentiate Yourself: Why you? Showing what makes your organization unique is paramount in helping you stand apart from other nonprofits serving a similar need and trying to reach the same audience. Does your organization have a specific goal that others aren’t working towards? Do you serve a niche audience or geography? Are your programs unique? Donors and members have a growing number of choices when it comes to which organization to support – give them a reason to choose yours.
3. Be Approachable: The ability to be relatable is essential to forming a connection and creating deep, long-lasting relationships. Articulate, as part of your brand, how donors, members and other supporters can become involved in your brand’s promise and organization’s mission.

Nonprofits who ignore their brand – or deny they have a brand – do so at their peril. People’s perception of your nonprofit can impact your acquisition, engagement and retention efforts. Strong brand cohesion, and the high levels of trust a great brand can inspire, contribute to greater organizational capacity and social impact. Bring your brand to life to influence the way your nonprofit is perceived across channels, whether in person or online, your communities and constituents in 2019 and beyond.

Want to know more about elevating your brand’s reputation across channels? Discover the must-have martech tools you need in 2019 to effectively leverage your marketing technology stack.

The post New Year…New You? 3 Steps to your Nonprofit’s Brand Makeover appeared first on Personify.

The Personify team at the ASAE Tech Conference.

If you think ASAE Tech is just for I.T. staff, think again.

While historically the industry’s marquee event for showcasing association technology of all kinds, as the impact and reach of the various tools powering today’s modern nonprofit continues to expand, so too have the opportunities for learning about how to optimize these systems across all areas of an organization.

One of the sessions kicking off today’s agenda 4 Key Steps to Digital Marketing Transformation at Your Association, led by the American College of Radiology’s Dave Martin, is one of the sessions breaking the mold.

While digital transformation has long been a cornerstone of conference programming for a technology team, Martin’s session explored best practices marketing teams can adopt to ensure they keep pace.

1.    Get the Right People on the Bus

The right approach begins with the right team. To ensure the right mindset, Martin encouraged attendees to explore the DARC model, originally introduced by HubSpot to help their CMO screen talent for their industry-leading inbound marketing team:

• D – Digital Marketers who live their lives online and are familiar and comfortable with blogging, the growing variety of social media and the Internet.
• A – Analytical: Marketers who are data-driven, always measuring what they do and making decisions based on the available information.
• R – Reach: Marketers who have a knack for growing their network with savvy for topics and the ability to create a natural, gravitational attraction to their work.
• C – Content: Marketers who are natural content creators, with a strong interest in – and willingness to – write.

Once you have the right people in place, Martin suggests organizing the team around the funnel:

• Attract (Top of Funnel): Personas, content strategy, SEO, PPC, blogging, webinars, social media
• Connect (Middle and Bottom of Funnel): Analytics, CRO, landing pages, marketing automation, lead scoring and nurturing
• Engage (Bottom of Funnel): Website, messaging and persuasion, sales enablement, case studies, collateral, partnerships
• Inspire (Member Marketing): Member retention, education, member-focused content, eNewsletters, online community

2.    Be Agile

Borrowing another term from the I.T. lexicon, Martin suggests that marketers need to mirror their technology peers in being more agile in their planning and execution. Instead of a “waterfall” approach, Martin suggests teams should:

• Respond to change as opposed to following a rigid plan
• Introduce rapid iterations organized around themes instead of leaning on big campaigns
• Test constantly and learn from data
• Commit to many small experiments instead of placing many large bets
• Focus on the individual and their interactions instead of broad target markets
• Collaborate across the marketing team and organizations rather than be constrained by silos

3.    Outcomes over Outputs

In one of my favorite takeaways from the session, Martin urged attendees to, “market with a magnet, not a megaphone.” While association marketing teams are often highly experienced and deeply familiar with their audiences, there’s an opportunity to change the conversation and ask strategic conversations around goals and objectives. Don’t be afraid to poke holes and leverage data to drive your decision making and support your point of view.

4.    Build Your MarTech Stack

Here at Personify we’re no strangers to the power of the MarTech stack and the transformational effect it can have on an organization (check out our recent webinar and blog post on the topic).

While nonprofits include a number of nuances specific to the work we do, there’s a great deal to learn from the commercial sector when it comes to marketing technologies. As of 2018, there are over 7,000 technology tools designed to bring marketers closer to their buyers! For-profit businesses invest heavily on systems to support data gathering, automation and conversion.

The benefits of a strong MarTech stack are just as clear for nonprofits. A MarTech stack can help an association:

• Increase membership renewals and retention
• Drive non-dues revenue, especially when it comes to events
• Attract new members
• Engage and inspire membership
• Position your organization to cross-sell and up-sell products and services

Where should you start? Martin suggests beginning with your database, whether a CRM, AMS or Constituent Management Engagement (CME) solution like Personify. Connecting your systems to your database is an essential next step in supporting activities across the funnel, from early attraction of that new lead through inspiring their continued journey as a member of your organization.

5.    Analyze and React

But I thought there were 4 steps! Martin surprised attendees with a fifth suggestion that may be the most important of all. The old adage says you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Understanding your organization’s marketing performance by the numbers is a critical step in ensuring digital transformations provide ongoing value to an association. Key performance indicators (KPIs) like website traffic, new contacts, visitor-to-new contact ratios, new contact-to-member ratios, blog traffic, organic search and keyword rankings are only some of the metrics marketers should look to.

People. Process. Results. Technology and a commitment to measure it all. While not necessarily new to marketers in the association space, Martin’s unique way of packing up his 4 (really 5!) steps in digital marketing transformation paves the way for alignment of teams across an association and success in the year to come.

The post Live from ASAE: 4 Steps to Digital Marketing Transformation appeared first on Personify.

We had a great time in Washington DC for the ASAE Marketing, Membership & Communication Conference! You could feel the buzz of energy as attendees discussed the latest marketing trends and best practices for the association space. The year’s theme was New Perspectives and many speakers and industry leaders shared their input on how to approach organizational challenges from a different point of view.

I spoke with many attendees who are focused on growing collaboration and engagement among their members. At the conference, we introduced the new Personify Mobile Events App, an industry-leading technology designed to help organizations engage with attendees at tradeshows, conferences and events of any size. It’s easy to connect with someone when you have them at your fingertips! At ASAE MM&C, we shared how the Mobile Events App allows for a personalized event experience and real-time engagement.

Connecting with familiar faces and meeting new ones during the Lunch and Exhibitor Showcase is always the best part of any conference. A topic that we discussed with several visitors to our booth is the generational shift for association membership and how to attract and engage millennial audiences. Our Small World Community platform helps empower and mobilize an organization’s member base. Nonprofit organizations can leverage Small World Community to provide a digital space where members can connect with one another and feel more invested in their organization.

The rain couldn’t hold us back as we continued our conversations from the show floor with a happy hour at Morris American Bar. We enjoyed getting to know ASAE MM&C attendees over light hors d’oeuvres and artisan cocktails; we toasted the end of the night with some champagne and were excited to leave the event with new friends and a promise to see them in Chicago for ASAE Annual.

We are already making plans for the ASAE Annual Conference in August. If you or someone from your organization will be attending the event, please visit us at Booth 539 and learn how Personify can help create more meaningful relationships with your members, donors and constituents. We look forward to seeing you there!

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