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What practices are you implementing to keep your content king? This is a very good question and I think every association executive should be concerned about the value of their content. I will explain to you my thoughts on how content can help your membership retention rate, increase non dues revenue while bringing on new members
As a member-based organization one important facet to a healthy bottom line is membership retention. If you are a Membership Director and having a hard time retaining your current members, what makes you think you can sign-up new ones? As most associations are feeling the financial strains of a down economy it is extremely important they become proactive. An organization should be an advocate to both the industry they represent and the members that support them. A successful organization will have an understanding of both the immediate and ongoing needs of their constituents.
Over the last several years we has been a major shift in the way professional’s network. If you were a professional just a few short years ago, perhaps the only chance you got to meet and greet others within your respected industry, was at an annual conference. Today, professionals are using social networking tools to fill that void. I expect that some associations that provide little value outside of a yearly conference will have a hard time retaining their members.
Content for Dues Revenue
I believe some associations don’t have a grip on what’s important to their members. Survey your clients and find out what your strengths and weaknesses are. Perhaps you will receive responses regarding the information or content you are providing to them. You should also be prepared to find out what their pains are. If you are a trade organization and your members are all complaining about their sales volumes in a down economy, create content on how to better sell in this environment. Provide them additional information on research and buying habits of consumers within your respected industry. Line up speakers that have a great deal of experience in selling in down economies. My point is to find out what they want to read and hear, not what you think they want to read and hear. This type of content campaign is EXTREMELY effective. It takes a survey, research and little creativity.
I believe if more associations followed this method their membership retention rate would be much higher. Why? You are providing them with valuable content that they can use to help increase their sales volumes.
Content for Non Dues and New Members
The days of snail mail and newspapers are in the past. Marketing has changed drastically over the last several years. Using content on your website can help you increase both non dues and new membership revenue. There is a three letter word called SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization and guess what? SEO is generated through great content. You can SEO every page on your website and begin driving new traffic to your site almost immediately. With a great SEO program in place and good content on your site, you can expect to see a nice bump in both your web traffic and conversion ratios. Getting them there is half the battle but getting them to spend money is another thing. For some organization that have thousands of unique visitors a day, they can sell banner ads and advertisements directly from their site. By increasing your exposure in the major search engines it can increase your non dues revenue. The two most important things about a great SEO program is Links and Content. You should be ready to link within your pages and also from related sites around the web. An example of a good link is naming the link to the site. An example would be Lawsuit Funding This link should go directly to the company’s website. Along with this type of link exchange consider the content. The content not only gets them their through optimization but keeps them there.
I believe content can be used for a variety of different reasons in a variety of different ways.