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Archive for December, 2010
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010 by user
By Richard Brasser
2010 will be remembered as the year that everyone in the business world ran out and set up a Facebook fan page, started Tweeting and put together a corporate blog. It will also be remembered as the year that a lot of us forgot to apply the tried and true strategic processes that had made us successful in other mediums.
I am amazed at how many experienced marketing professionals have jumped into the social media realm, only to find that they missed their mark. Whether they were caught up in the excitement and buzz, or whether they were pressured by senior management to “get a Facebook page up ASAP,” skipping critical steps has caused a lot of heartburn. There is no doubt that social media is transforming our ability to expand our reach and connect in ways that were never possible. It is also true that a well-executed social marketing plan can pay huge dividends. However, without a well-thought through strategic approach, the effort is destined to fail…or at least underperform.
Here are 7 critical questions to answer before launching a social media initiative:
- What is the number one business driver that you are trying to influence? Leads, brand awareness, legitimacy, customer service, brand recognition, human resource management…
- Who are the most important people that you need to communicate with to achieve that goal?
- What is their Technographics profile? a.k.a. – how they currently behave in the social media world. Google it if you don’t know where to start.
- Key Performance Indicators – What are you going to measure and what results do you need to achieve to justify the budget?
- What technologies and processes are you going to use to acquire and measure the data?
- What are the specific roles and responsibilities of each key team member?
- What is the specific value that people will gain from engaging with your content? a.k.a. – Why should they care?
The social media landscape is vast and ever-changing. New platforms, technologies and communities are popping up all over the place. It can be quite overwhelming to understand and prioritize what technology to embrace. The number one mistake that I see companies large and small make every day is choosing technology without developing the tangible business objectives and strategic plan first.
To receive The Targeted Group’s Social Media Strategy Guide, complete the information form and put “Strategy” in the “subject” area http://bit.ly/ao7thm
With over 11 years of experience in the interactive media world, Richard has become one of the leading experts in social media and interactive marketing.
Connect with Richard: Twitter – @socmedia365; LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/in/brasser Email: rbrasser@targetedgroup.com; Web – www.thetargetedgroup.com
Tags: b2b marketing, digital marketing, interactive marketing, social media for business, social media marketing, social networking, social technologies
Posted in Social Media Matters | 8,282 Comments »
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 by user
By Nicole Harris
Like most Americans this holiday season, I’m being thrifty both at home and at work. At work though, I’m feeling downright Grinch-like. I must cough up an extra $25,000—at least—from my proposed 2011 budget. I won’t and can’t plump up my projected revenue for our print and online titles. The industry we serve is still flat heading into 2011 so conservative goals must stay. But after surviving 2009 and limping through 2010, I was really hoping to do three things next year:
- Fatten up my skeletal crew with extra freelance
- Add back circulation to our print runs
- Allocate dollars to launch new products
2011, I told my staff, was all about rebuilding.
I wasn’t ready to give up on these goals when my boss told me to revise. I walked back to my office and pulled out a paper weight cost analysis I reviewed in August. We’d already changed paper in 2009 to reduce costs and these were extra reduction options I’d requested from our printer. These would go a long way to ease my budget cough-up. As I whittle line items, I’m more convinced that what has to give is the wrapping. Our subscribers have seen most magazines skinny down, so it’s not like they’d be surprised—if they even noticed a paper change. Today I read the draft of one of our January industry forecast articles that sums it up: Minimal growth and tight lending conditions will continue to affect investments. The smart survivors are reevaluating their business plans and product mix, investing where they can for future prosperity.
A prosperous 2011 depends on the package and how it’s made, not the wrapping.
Nicole Harris is vice president of the National Glass Association and is responsible for its print and electronic publications.
Posted in Bottom Line | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 16th, 2010 by user
By: Rick Whelan, CDM.
Now when budgets are stretched and marketing expenses are bound to be cut, the need to know how much you can really afford to spend to recruit, renew or reinstate a member is more important to know than ever.
As a rule of thumb, if you are making net money on recruitment after all expenses, you are probably not recruiting a many new members as you could.
Aggressive marketers know you can afford to breakeven or even lose money on recruiting new members, if those members stay – on average – more than a year.
Most associations renew members in the 80%+ range, which mean most members stay for 5-years. So if your dues are $100 a year and the member is worth upwards of $500 over those years (less some level of servicing costs), you can certainly spend at least the 1st year dues ($100) recruiting those members.
Regrettably, many associations world spend far less that the $100 I suggest so never fully realize their true new member potentials.
The same holds true for renewals and reinstatements. Again here many associations have a fixed number of renewal or reinstatement efforts they do every year without thinking that many more members might renew or come back if they even did one additional effort.
Here my rule of thumb is to keep trying to renew and reinstate until the efforts begin to lose money.
Even then I would place all those lapsed members into my next new member acquisition effort.
Rick is President of Marketing General Inc, a direct marketing firm helping associations recruit, renew and reinstate members from coast to coast. Find MGI on the web at www.marketinggeneral.com
Posted in Communications News | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 by Autumn Jones
By Randy Townsend
Going paperless in a production-centered environment requires input from a number of areas that could cut across your organization. The first thing you will need to do is assemble a strong team with members representing each stage of product development. When drafting your roster, consider adding the following:
- Acquisition Specialist
- Production Coordinator
- Copy Editors
- Proofreaders
- Graphic Specialist
- Vendor Representative
With strong team collaboration, you can weaken some of the resistance from opposing colleagues, and hopefully gain support and build momentum for your cause.
The next thing to do is clearly define your objectives by asking the right questions, posing them both to yourself and the members of your team. Before you eliminate physical documents, forms or other communications, ask yourself:
1. How else can relevant content get to everybody who relies on it?
A. Email
B. Content Management System
C. Interactive PDF
D. Intranet
E. Wiki
2. Who will this affect?
A. Primary departments contributing to product development.
B. Secondary departments generating reports for stats and billing.
C. Administration
3. What will this cost?
A. Will your organization require technology upgrades?
B. Will your organization require additional server space?
C. Will your employees require training to use new software?
4. What are the benefits?
A. Decrease in production time
B. A reduction in expenses
C. An increase in operational efficiency
D. Environmentally sound practices
5. What is the worst-case scenario?
A. Communication breakdown
B. Failure to adequately track and monitor progress
C. Employee resistance
6. What needs to be done for this workflow to become sustainable?
A. Over-communication during the transition period
B. Special attention to those having difficulty adapting
C. Establish hard and soft deadlines for transition
Remember, just because you need the information on the paper does not mean that you need the paper. Once you have begun your paperless journey, the road ahead will be much greener.
Randy Townsend is a team leader in Journals Production at the American Geophysical Union. He is currently securing a Master’s Degree in Publishing at The George Washington University.
Tags: electronic record-keeping, green printing, paperless office
Posted in Next Generation | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010 by user
By Barbara Myers Ford
Employers are facing increased pressure to accommodate employees by allowing telecommuting, which Laura Skoff of Team Dynamics emphasizes is an essential factor for retaining qualified staff. It is a matter of moving “from bricks to clicks” to create virtual operations. She explained this is important because it:
- Increases productivity
- Responds to staff realities
- Allows you to be a good employer
- Increases staff loyalty
- Improves the environment by reducing the carbon footprint of each teleworker whose commute is not contributing to the day’s emissions output.
Ken Heideman at the American Meteorological Society cautions that not all employees make good teleworking candidates. Star teleworkers exhibit the following characteristics:
- Being organized with excellent time-management skills
- Self-motivation/self-discipline
- Strong communications skills
- Needing limited supervision
- Fully trained
- Comfort with technology
- Ability work alone
- Resourcefulness
- Ability to establish work/home-life boundaries
- Having a distraction–free work environments
He also spoke frankly that assessing how well someone will perform at the time of their interview is difficult, noting that you usually “hire” star employees AFTER you hire them by recognizing them with promotions.
During her 35+ year career, Barbara M. Ford worked for societies and consulting companies before establishing Meyers Consulting Services (MCS), specializing in society management and scholarly publishing. Since starting MCS, Barbara’s work with commercial and non-profit publishers (as well as organizations in allied industries) ranges from a day of advice to months or years of service as adjunct staff in senior positions.
A co-founder of the Society for Scholarly Publishing and a past president of the Council of Science Editors, she has devoted considerable time to all the organizations serving the association community. Her most recent contributions are as adjunct faculty in the Masters in Publishing Program, George Washington University. More information can be found at www.bmeyersconsulting.com.
Tags: staff issues, telecommuting, telework
Posted in Events, TRENDS Attends | 10,751 Comments »
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010 by user
By Erik Schonher, Vice President, Marketing General Incorporated
When I played sports in high school, my coach would always have us work on “fundamentals.” For soccer (yes, the greatest sport in the world!), we would focus on kicking properly, “heading” the ball, dribbling, and a host of other activities. This helped us to create “metrics” so we could evaluate our own performance and become better players.
As membership professionals, our typical metrics are:
- Response Rate
- Renewal Rate
- Average Tenure
- Lifetime Value (LTV)
- Maximum Acquisition Cost (MAC)
- Steady State Analysis
For many of us we have computer programs that automatically calculate these metrics. However, after over 25 years in this business, I can tell you that occasionally these programs are incorrect, so it is always a good idea to understand how these metrics are calculated just in case you are suspicious of a number and you can do the math yourself.
| Metric |
Measures |
Formula |
Example |
| Response Rate |
Campaign effectiveness |
Total Responses/Total Number Promoted |
120/10,000 = 1.2% |
| Renewal Rate |
Member retention |
(Total Members Today – 12 Months of New Members)/Total Members in the Previous Year |
(10,000 – 2,000) / 9,500 = 84.21% |
| Average Tenure |
Membership duration |
1 / Reciprocal of the Renewal Rate |
Reciprocal = 1 – .8421 = .1579;
1 / .1579 = 6.333 years |
| Lifetime Value (LTV) |
Member revenue |
(Dues + Non-Dues Revenue) x Average Tenure = LTV |
($150 + $100) x 6.333 = $1,583.25 |
| Maximum Acquisition Cost (MAC) |
Member profitability |
[(Dues + Non-Dues Revenue) - (Incremental Costs[1])] x Average Tenure = MAC |
[($150 + $100) - ($50)] x 6.333 = $1,266.60 MAC |
| Steady State Analysis[2] |
Membership Projection |
Annual New Members Acquired / Reciprocal of the Renewal Rate = Total Membership Steady State |
3,000 / .1579 = 12,666 Total Membership |
[1] Incremental Costs include customer service, cost of goods sold, etc.
[2] Note that this does not tell you when it will occur, just that it may given the current situation.
Erik Schonher is Vice President of Marketing General Incorporated (MGI). In addition to providing strategic and tactical planning for a number of MGI clients, Erik also oversees MGILists which provides list management services for over 80 association clients.
MGI is America’s leading provider of membership marketing services to the association marketplace. For over 31 years, MGI has provided strategic and tactical services that have successfully grown associations’ memberships and driven non-dues revenue. Visit MGI on the web here.
Tags: calculating membership value, membership metrics
Posted in Communications News, Membership | 15,204 Comments »
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