Marketing Basics for Canadian Associations
Presented by:
Bonnie Wasser, Inukshuk Management
Friday, September 20, 2013
11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Winnipeg Convention Centre Room 11-13
AGENDA
Learning Outcomes:
•
Learn the building blocks of an integrated marketing plan in an
association context
•
Explore how the pieces of the marketing mix work together
holistically across all association activities, staff and volunteers
•
Identify how marketing principles can be used to benefit your
association
WHAT IS MARKETING?
What is different about marketing in
associations?
WHAT IS MARKETING?
A very simple definition from Merriam Webster:
“Marketing is an aggregate of functions
involved in moving goods from producer to
consumer.”
WHAT IS MARKETING?
An even simpler definition is credited to Steve Dawson,
President of Walker’s Shortbread in England:
“Marketing is products that don’t come back and
consumers that do.”
WHAT IS MARKETING?
From the Canadian Marketing Association:
“Marketing is a set of business practices designed to plan
for and present an organization’s products or services in
ways that build effective customer relationships.”
WHAT IS MARKETING?
Who?
What?
Why?
Where?
When?
How?
WHAT IS MARKETING?
What is different about marketing in
associations?
WHAT IS MARKETING?
Typical Business Organization Chart
•
•
•
•
•
•
CEO
Operations/Production
Sales
Production
Human Resources
Finance
Marketing
WHAT IS MARKETING?
Typical Business Organization Chart
Board of Directors
Executive Director/CEO
•
•
•
•
Conferences and Events
Membership
Government Relations
Professional Development
WHAT IS MARKETING?
Business
Association
Target Markets
Customer
Members,
Volunteers, Other
Stakeholders
Decision Makers
Staff
Staff, Board of
Directors,
Volunteers
Guiding Principle
Bottom Line
Association Mission
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
₊
Marketing Mix: Price, Product, Place, Promotion, People
₊
Target markets, including members and other stakeholders
₊
Brand
₊
Market research
₊
New Media and Social Media
⁼
THE MARKETING PLAN
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing mix: Five “P”s
• Product
• Place (Distribution)
• Price
• Promotion
• The Fifth “P”: People
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PRODUCT
•
What is the product in an association context?
•
Features and Benefits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsurCu2FSMg
(Chef’s Envy - from beginning and at 2:34)
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PRODUCT
Exercise: What are the features and benefits of some of your
association’s products and services?
Association
Product or Service
Features
Benefits
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing mix: Five “P”s: PLACE (Distribution)
•
Where and how are association products and services delivered?
•
What opportunities are created by distribution?
•
How does distribution create added benefits?
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PRICE
Loss Leader
Lowest
Breakeven
Cost Plus
Value Based
What the Market Will Bear
Highest
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PRICE
Incentive Pricing
Examples:
• Time Limited
• Packaging/Bundling
• Early Bird
• “Membership has its privileges”
Needs to provide VALUE to both buyer and seller
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PRICE
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PRICE - Value
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PRICE – Value
Value of belonging to an association
“People like us do stuff like this” - Seth Godin July 26, 2013
There is no more powerful tribal marketing connection than this.
More than features, more than benefits, we are driven to become a
member in good standing of the tribe. We want to be respected by
those we aspire to connect with, we want to know what we ought to do
to be part of that circle.
Not the norms of mass, but the norms of our chosen tribe.
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PROMOTION
Achieving “Top of Mind” with your Audience
• Recency
• Frequency
• Impact
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PROMOTION
Tools
• Media
• Messages
• Unique Selling Proposition:
What do you do better than anyone else?
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
Marketing Mix: Five “P”s: PEOPLE
Associations are made up of people.
Associations serve their members
Members help create the association’s
products and services
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
TARGET MARKETS
Understanding Your Target Markets
• Who They Are
• What They Need
• How to Connect with Them
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
TARGET MARKETS
Members
Prospective members
Industry partners
Sponsors
Other funders
Media
Students pursuing an association’s educational offerings and/or credentials
University, college and high school students (future members)
Governments and regulatory agencies
Academics/academic institutions with an interest in the association’s industy or
profession
Other associations operating in related professions or industries
General business community: our members’ organizations, customers and suppliers
The public: customers and potential customers of our members
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
TARGET MARKETS
Segmentation
MAILBOXERS: primarily want involvement through the mail, computer or
hand-helds
RELEVANT PARTICIPANTS: attend conventions and seminars if relevant
SHAPERS: most active and want to shape association policy
BOOSTERS: the association improves their image or that of the profession
COMPSHOPPERS: compare this association to other organizations or
info/benefits
COGNOSCENTI: want the association to add to their fund of knowledge
NON-RELEVANTS: status has changed and association may not be relevant
From ytheyjoin.com
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
BRAND
Competition
Positioning
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
BRAND
• Communicates and reinforces the association’s mission
• Conveys emotions such as pride, belonging, and trust
• Expresses thoughts such as, “I can depend on my association to help me in
my career and to help my organization in the marketplace”, and “My
association is the place to be”
• Positions your association as the thought leader and “go to” organization
for your industry or profession
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
BRAND
• Promotes your association as the “good guys, the ethical club that is
helping to shape the future of an industry or profession”
• Is the foundation for the consistency of your message across all channels
• Helps to identify an association’s intangible services
• Enables associations to extend their reach - when you offer a new product
or service using your existing recognized brand, potential users can use the
brand as shorthand to implicitly understand attributes of the new product
or service.
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
BRAND
Brand Perception: Association vs. Member
“Based on our work with these groups over thirty years, we found that we
had consistently asked them the same questions over time, and in looking at
the answers, we noticed some significant differences between how these
non-profits gauged their own brand awareness and power, and how their
constituents and members gauged that same power. These organizations
have been underestimating their own importance to members, and the level
of trust they’ve built up over the years in their brand. Many of them can be
leveraging that difference to recruit and retain new members, open new
segments, “ notes David Poulos, principal of the firm and author of the study.
From <http://themarketingdr.blogspot.ca/2013/08/new-study-releasedshows-non-profit.html>
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
BRAND
From the Gallup Business Journal:
“The world's best brand ambassadors are your employees. To maximize the
power of this resource, however, you must arm your employees with the
knowledge and resources they need to be effective brand ambassadors. They
must:
• know what your organization stands for and what makes it different from
others in the marketplace
• understand your brand promise and be able to explain the most important
elements of your brand identity
• be empowered to deliver on your brand promise”
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
BRAND
Be active, not passive, in promoting your brand.
Is your brand consistent in all of your association’s communications?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Five P’s
Messages
Media
Graphic Design
Staff, Volunteer and Chapter Training
Live events
Membership campaigns
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
MARKET RESEARCH
A disciplined approach to listening to your members
and other target markets to understand their needs,
challenges and desires
• Collecting Data to Support Decisions
• Quantitative
• Qualitative
MARKETING BUILDING BLOCKS
NEW MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA
• A new way to talk and a new way to listen
• This is where your new generation of members and
volunteers are
• Use the media that your association needs
 to communicate your messages to your target
markets
 to get feedback from them
Who is responsible for marketing in an association?
Does your association’s marketing look like this?
Membership
Conferences &
Events
Government
Relations
Communications
It should look
more like this:
Government
Relations
Membership
MARKETING STRATEGY
Marketing Mix
Target Markets
Brand
Market
Research
Communications
Conferences &
Events
Membership
Why?
To ensure brand
integrity across all of
the activities of the
association
Government
Relations
MARKETING STRATEGY
Marketing Mix
Target Markets
Brand
Market
Research
Communications
Conferences &
Events
Consistent use of
brand across all
› STAFF
› VOLUNTEERS
› ACTIVITIES
THE MARKETING PLAN
Marketing Mix Element
Name of Product or Service: ___________________
Starting Point: ______________________________
Goal (Desired End Result) using specific numbers:
__________________________________________
Environment: _______________________________
Brand
Market Research Results
Target Markets
Marketing Mix: Product, Distribution, Pricing Strategy, Promotion
(Messages and Media), People
Benchmarks
Actual Results
Evaluation: Measuring Success/Lessons Learned
Report back to members on how activities supported association
mission
Action Plan Responsibility
What?
Who?
Why?
Where?
When?
How?
Budget
How
Much?
Be on the lookout for CSAE’s new publication
Canadian Association Marketing
Available Fall 2013
Thank you!
Contact Information:
Bonnie Wasser
Inukshuk Management
email: bwasser@sympatico.ca
Phone: 416.636.9745
Twitter: @InukshukMgmt