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Associations looking to retain and grow membership are preparing for new marketing trends.
The most important takeaway is the increasing costs of social advertising. Associations can no longer rely on free exposure to drive organic growth. The number of people who see an Association’s Facebook posts are at an all-time low. Facebook’s algorithms value one thing: Pay to play, baby.
Fresh marketing tactics for include:
Stay ahead of the curve. Implement one or more of these marketing tactics in 2018. It could mean the difference between your Association standing out or getting lost in the crowd.
Social media marketing costs increased an average of 12% this year and are increasing. Mainstream marketers understand social advertising is hugely cost-effective. This drives up competition for keywords and prime placement.
The cost of Facebook ads, for example, increased 74% year-over-year, according to Nathan Mendenhall at Social Media Today. He writes:
A recent study shows that in the last year, the average CPM on Facebook has risen 171%, and the average CPC has increased 136%.
If you don’t plan on having or increasing your social advertising budget, consider yourself already behind your competitors.
Content marketing has been around for years. What’s different now is the cost of video production. The costs for full-scale production are dropping. Even smartphone editing is improving for sharing short clips. (Here’s how to edit video snippets on an iPhone.)
The American Marketing Association (AMA) has been in the YouTube space for years. Now, video is more accessible to small marketing teams or individuals. This changes the game.
One example is the rise of online courses. Associations can develop and distribute online video coursework easily. Marketing plans can structure content to offer members new skillsets or keep them abreast of industry changes.
WebCourseworks offers tips for associations distributing video content. Among them: offline marketing. Knitting together online and offline marketing activities is an effective strategy moving forward.
Associations have access to a wealth of data. Historically, associations have guarded this data as proprietary. However, this attitude is rapidly changing.
So-called “big data” includes all the data your organization and its members collect. Open data is scrubbed of personally identifiable information and distributed freely. Open data is offered to the public for use or examination similar to Creative Commons copyright licensing - perfect for associations with tight budgets and social missions.
Data is a unique asset. Association data can be beneficial to marketing:
Data can reveal specialized trends and be used for market differentiation. Many online tools exist to harness data in a way that is valuable to you and your membership base.
Some ideas:
“Select the SINGLE marketing activity that you think will make the largest commercial impact for your business (or your clients)” according to Forbes.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning ranked number three.
Wait - whoa! Are we talking 2023… or 2032?
Many Associations are -- for the moment -- put off by machine learning technologies. “They think the costs, talent, data requirements, and risk of failure is too high,” writes Dr. Josh Sullivan, senior vice president at Booz Allen. This attitude is shifting, and the change is brisk.
Some ideas to incorporate these technologies into your marketing plan:
“AI is also used in marketing automation, digital advertising, content management and digital experience management, e-commerce recommendation engines, analytics solutions and more,” writes Zinck.
Smart marketers will look to these and other emerging technologies to maintain a competitive edge in 2023.
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