Acronym

Scott,

I totally agree with you. And I think you got this across without overtly saying it, but with Content being King, Distribution/Consumption Method is Queen. Do you need all 43, probably not. But then you start talking long tail. If you just do the top 10, then you are losing out on the long tail of those members who might only consume your content in one of the other 33 ways. So now you have to ask yourself, what is the marginal cost/revenue of those other 33. That may be a little to for-profit/MBA-like for association folks, but it wouldn't hurt many associations to look at it that way.

Just my 2 cents...

Scott, your timing is right on target with a discussion I just had with a friend of mine. He had forwarded an article about "anti-innovation"...an argument for slowing down and reviewing for improvement. It was a plea for simplicity.

Ultimately, we want the best, most efficient, answer to help our organizations become stronger and better able to serve our members, customers, and clients. Does that mean cutting away some of the nice, but unnecessary extras? Maybe...

Whether by innovation or "anti-innovation" or by a conscious and deliberate decision to either cut away or add to the menu of services and benefits an organization provides, I think the best answers are ultimately found by taking the time to examine and define what it is we are all trying to do.

Thanks for another thought-provoking post, Scott!

Good post, Scott. You are absolutely right that we need to get outside the box and the walls of the association and view our communications and information sources from our members'/customers' perspective. They don't care where the content comes from, just whether it meets their specialized and usually immediate needs. This is where a well-thought-out and executive Communication Strategic Plan can help, good data and good old fashioned instincts.

The more we can hone our content to meet the indiviudal needs of our audiences, the more valued we become as a content provider and the strong the reader/member engagement. That's what we are all looking for, after all, a stronger tie to members and customers and a more "must- read" value for our publications and content.

Well done comment, thanks Scott!

Thank you for the comments everybody. KiKi -- love the idea of anti-innovation; it's very... innovative. Debra, as always, insightful -- it's a big picture rather than myopic view.

Matt -- I don't think you cut the total amount of content when you go from 43 ways to 10. You just quit wasting effort trying differentiate it in 43 ways. If anything, you'll free up resources and make it simpler for companies that want to partner with you. You could use the extra resources to generate more content, but I think it would be best spent trying to measure the reach and effectiveness of the 10 ways -- which would have the added benefit of helping the companies that partner with you.

Thanks for the posting Scott. It's definitely thought-provoking. You say "We do it for so many reasons: internal staff politics or turf battles, messy board or volunteer politics, because we have a crappy product we're putting lipstick on, or because we just feel like we need to." But what you don't include in this list is the number one reason I think many associations spend so much time on branding; to provide a value-added service to our members that also reminds them that we are the one providing it. They may not care where it comes from but we do and we need to make them aware. Letting our members know what we do for them is key to our survival. So while I do agree that all too much time can be spent coming up with clever and overworked acronyms, I also think we have a responsibility to our organizations to keep ourselves front and center to our members. I think we have to strike a balance.

Oh thanks for bringing this up, Tracy. I'm hoping my post isn't too misleading -- I'm not saying associations shouldn't focus time and attention on their brand -- I think it's critical that they do, and I hope anybody who reads the post that way reads these comments.

I'm saying associations waste a lot of effort trying to develop, categorize, and market what they do in too many different ways -- and that the end user doesn't care about the categories, what led to its development, or how it is marketed. They only care that it's there and it's good (all you Collins devotees out there, read "great."). In fact, I guess what I'm saying is that by doing what we do -- by having 43 different ways to compartmentalize the content we produce, we are needlessly confusing people's perceptions about who we are and what we do (by definition our brand). We try to be distinctive, but we gum it all up, because we're too complicated. Be distinctive in the quality of what you deliver, in all else, simplify, simplify.

As a member, I certainly don't feel like I have content coming at me 43 different ways.

So maybe it isn't as complex on the member side as it might appear on the staff side? Or for some it is simpler and for others more complex?

I'm all for simplifying. Focus on what works, right? And I love the idea of stripping away what doesn't work. But to build from Jeffrey's point, simplifying for staff is not necessarily simplifying for members.

The simplest thing for members could be somewhat complex, especially on the marketing and communications side, depending on how diverse your marketplace is. (And ASAE has a very diverse marketplace, and a very diverse set of products and events to sell, so to me, 43 different ways sounds pretty good.)

I'm pretty type A, so all the messiness (especially online, but also in email lists and segmentation) drives me batty. But I've made it a personal goal to just get over it. As marketing and communications moves more and more towards niche, personalized messaging, we're going to be constantly adding complexity.

I try to balance effort versus return--is that extra twist going to make enough of a difference to make it worth the extra time and administration we'll be putting into it. Or is there a ridiculously easy way to do it that makes it a no-brainer.

I think the distinction between internal & external complexity is the right one to make: we need to draw clear distinctions to guide content development and targeted promotions, but most members don't understand the product names or sub-brands we assign to our 'stuff' at all (judging from how they respond to surveys & top of mind in personal interviews--it's often 'information they deliver to me').

We do need to provide robust content in a way that allows a customer of a specific kind with a specific need to almost immediately recognize that 'it' meets their need. If our branding and promotion encourages trial and our product delivery systems facilitate sampling, most of our products can 'speak for themselves' without families of brands or evocative product names. One appropriately descriptive name and high-quality delivery will do.

BTW it's interesting to heard Steve's approach at NACDS. Sunset reviews seem to occur rarely within associations, but when I hear "take the top 10 things in terms of value, then cull" I wonder about the basics: how do we count things, what are our criteria, and in the end are the surviving things sufficient to meet the needs of all current classes of members/customers? And if not, do we accept disenfranchising the newly-underserved segment(s) who valued what we eliminated?

It's probably a bad analogy, but working for NACDS and with the members taught me that retailers have to offer an assortment to keep the customers coming in. I wonder with some of our service delivery if we don't still overdiversify our offerings because we have to if we've strategically chosen to serve a diverse audience within the industry or profession we serve ...

I have been following this discussion with interest and started out in full, raging agreement over the proposition that associations over complicate and over nuance messages to a ridiculous degree.

Then my inherent, contrarian, "Yes but" reflex kicked in.

I think it was Kevin's comments on internal and external complexity that did it for me.

True enough, our members don't care to hear 43 different pitchs on the same product/service. So if our marketing and branding proposition is based on a strategy of "I will keep throwing different spins at the same customer until one sticks" we are indeed confusing our market(and probably annoying them to the point of alienation).

On the other hand ...

If my association really does have 43 distinct customer segments AND I have identified them with accuracy and truly understand their unique perspective AND I am hitting each one of them with ONLY the ONE version of our marketing pitch that is explicitly calibrated to resonate with that segment, that is NOT creating brand confusion externally. That is meeting the customer/member where s/he is.

It does create real complexity, and potentially crippling complexity for the association internally, if they are not up to the job of acting with that level of precision. And maybe 43 (even with a community as diverse as ASAE's) is unreasonable overkill, making distinctions where there is no difference.

But the concept is not unreasonable.