How to Increase Event Attendance with These 4 Key Marketing Tactics

Members join your association for one of two reasons: either for education or opportunities to build their network. There is no better chance for you to show the value your association provides to those members than your annual event, but do you know how to increase event attendance?  

Let’s think of a couple traditional event promotion practices.

Monthly newsletter?

Email marketing?

Social media?

Sure, those are all great options to promote an event to increase attendance, but let’s look beyond the surface at how you can attract the crowd.

Event Attendance Tip: Phone Outreach

For our clients, this has proven to be very successful means of communication to encourage members to attend meetings or events. Not only does it add a personal touch to the traditional marketing approach, but gives the member a chance to ask any specific questions they may have one on one. There can be so much clutter within the marketing channels listed above, but a phone call you can guarantee your intended message is heard.

Related Post: Why You Need to Be Calling Members Right Now  

Event Attendance Tip: Maintain a Desirable Vendor Ratio

No one wants to attend an event just to be sold to the entire time, and as an association you don’t want that reputation. Your marketing efforts should follow the below guidelines:

Too many vendors: Focus your event promotion on member registration.

Not enough, or not the type of vendors that you would expect would add value to your event: Focus promoting the upcoming event on vendor registration.

Event Attendance Tip: Utilize Lookalike Audiences

Facebook has excellent tools to help with this, and if you aren’t familiar don’t be afraid to reach out to us for help. Through Facebook’s advertising platform you can upload files of your current members and their proprietary algorithm will be able to target similar organizations who share a lot of the same traits, AKA your target audience.

If you’re ahead of the game and have a decent list of potential prospects, you can upload that as well and Facebook will make sure your content is seen by those parties.

LinkedIn is also a great place to run your B2B campaign. In the past, LinkedIn had been quite clunky to manage campaigns, but there have been some awesome improvements recently! You can use these 3 tips when creating a hyper-targeted campaign to your members.

Event Attendance Tip: Geographical Targeting

Geographically targeting members applies to you especially if you’re a national association travelling to a regional hub city for your membership event. Create a list of potential prospects for the select city and reach out to them. Not only do you now have the chance to drive attendance, but also add to your association.

Consider the lifetime value of a member. Would offering a complimentary registration, or one day pass to an outsider pay dividends in the future? For some of our clients the answer is yes. In other instances you can offer a discounted rate, etc.

It’s not enough to just simply exist and expect your members to follow through. Budgets are limited, and in most cases organizations will be a part of multiple associations. You must actively market yourself and continue to provide value in order to show your worth & keep your seats full. Be on the forefront of your industry & continue to be the best association available to your members!

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Do you know the best lead generation tactics to grow your association? Download our Lead Generation Best Practices Guide Now!

Using our experience in lead generation, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 lead generation best practices you need to implement this year.

Simply fill out the form to the right to download your guide!

5 of the Best Ways to Increase Membership Organization Recruitment

We know that impacting and helping more members is one of the most important goals of your association. While retaining association members is essential, increasing membership organization recruitment rates is just as much of a priority.

Our InceptGrows team is highly knowledgeable in the membership niche. So, what better way to give you the best advice than to round up a few members of the team to share five of the best ways to increase membership organization recruitment?!

Recruit More People That Look Like Your Best Members!

One of the best digital targeting tools is Facebook lookalike audiences. You can upload a custom audience of your best current members, website visitors, or marketing qualified leads and then use Facebook to create a new audience that has similar attributes.

Lookalike audiences have consistently been top performing ad sets for us for top-of-the-funnel campaigns on behalf of our association clients. – Sarah Nelson, Marketing Manager

Related Post: 4 Ways Social Media Helps to Recruit Association Members

Pick up the phone!

One of the quickest, and most cost effective, ways to target new members is through telephone recruitment. When used in combination with demographic and psychographic modeling you can build a profiled list of prospects who look and act like your current members.

Engaging them with a personalized phone call allows you to begin your new relationship in the channel we all use to communicate every day. – Lauren Gill, InceptGrows Senior Account Executive

Host a “Must Attend” Event!

Whether it’s annually or quarterly, most associations are known for their professional events. Focus on keeping your ideas fresh and innovative and allow members to bring a guest along to boost attendance and new member recruitment. – Ashley Bricker, Client Growth Specialist

Collect Feedback

Understand the content that appeals to your members. After all, they are your target audience! One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply offer a survey after your events. It can be written, emailed, or I encourage you to pick up the phone & give them a call!

“How was your experience?”

“What did you find most valuable?”

“Least valuable?”

Happy members will increase your retention rates and they will engage in the most effective form of marketing, word of mouth! – Cory Carney, Account Growth Specialist

Email

Email marketing is crucial to growing your association today. When 99% of people check their email everyday and 59% of them say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, why wouldn’t you utilize this platform?

Simply creating an email opt-in that your target members would want more information on will bring them into your funnel. This will help you engage with your email subscribers and show the value of your association and lead to more sign-ups! - Amanda Blakeman, Digital Growth Strategist

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Download our Lead Generation Best Practices Guide Now!

Using our experience in lead generation, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 lead generation best practices you need to implement this year.

Simply fill out the form to the right to download your guide!

4 Must-Haves to Boost Membership Engagement

Are you in the process of content creation? If you are, you know how frustrating it can be to make a well-rounded design that creates engagement with your members. We laid out four areas that, when done correctly, will make your content pieces have a lasting impact and increase membership engagement.

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1. Logo

First and foremost, you’ll need to include your logo in your graphic. After all, you want your members to associate it with your brand. Branding your graphic attracts viewers to your site – lack of branding in content makes your efforts unproductive.

Are you posting a fun picture of your team hard at work? Adding your logo to the picture will help viewers to remember that it’s your membership organization that has an enjoyable and lively work environment. Perhaps you’re posting a GIF that showcases the different products you offer. If you aren’t adding your logo, how will members associate the products with your organization? It’s a subtle way to make viewers correlate, for example, their favorite articles of clothing they’re seeing, or the unique restaurant they’re considering visiting, with your brand.

2.    Colors

There are countless psychological factors behind color – make sure you’re choosing the color scheme (no more than 4 main colors) that will evoke the emotion you want to your organization to give off, and overall, help your members engage with the post. Here are some meanings behind color to help you choose the perfect color combination:

·         Red: ambitious, bold, exciting, powerful and energetic.

·         Pink: warmth, sensitivity, love, respect and possibilities.

·         Blue: control, contentment, purpose and awareness.

·         Orange & Yellow: optimism, freedom, spontaneity and motivation.

·         Green: growth, clarity, safety, nature and balance.

·         Purple: wealth, conventionalism, creativity, distinguished and compassionate.

Keep in mind who your target audience is. Which colors appeal best to them? Results show that 57% of men said that their favorite color is blue, with green coming in second at 14%. Similarly, 35% of women say that blue is their favorite color, while 23% of women say that purple is their favorite.

Also, make sure to include contrasting colors to make your graphic as eye catching as possible. Don’t be afraid to play with textures and patterns too! They make your social media graphic that more appealing!

3. Fonts

If you’re a designer, you know how quickly a font choice can make or break a composition. When choosing which font(s) to use in a piece of content, you must first determine the mood that you’re trying to convey. Is your brand fun and playful? Or are you an organization that communicates deep and powerful messaging? Remember – you can use more than one font! Just make sure that you’re selecting combinations that complement each other. Try using both serifs and sans serifs to create a sleek and interesting layout.

As in every aspect of design, contrast is an important area to consider. You always want content to be easy to read, right? Contrasting the size, placement and overall font choice will allow your members to easily read and understand your message. And of course, don’t pick a font that is illegible. While it’s great to be creative, you also need to communicate as efficiently and simplistically as possible.

4.  Visuals

Since you’re going to be creating graphics on a small canvas, it’s easy for content to start to clutter up. Create a piece of content that encompasses all the principles of design: balance, emphasis, movement, pattern, repetition, proportion, rhythm, variety and unity. And, if you’re using imagery, make sure that the picture correlates to the marketing message you’re trying to communicate. Don’t make your association members think too much – make it easily digestible.

GIFs might be the content type you’re going to test out. Or, maybe you’re considering adding video to your social media pages. There are endless possibilities of types of content that you can produce. Regardless of which path you take, remember to make every design simple and easy to understand.

At the end of the day, you’re trying to create engagement with your members – so, communicate a message that they want to interact with. Always consider who your audience is, and what colors, text and format they will respond to best. You’ll also need to follow the correct marketing steps when designing a piece of content.  If you consider and incorporate the various visual elements above, your social media page will be full of engaging members that are eager to learn more.

Related Post: How to Use Video to Increase Membership Engagement

Looking for a full guide that covers every aspect to content creation? We created a detailed guide that will help you on your member engagement journey!

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Download our guide to up your digital marketing strategy

Creating effective social media content to share with your target audience is a crucial part to your marketing strategy.

Using our expertise in content creation, we’ve created this guide to help you cultivate a more engaged audience and, ultimately, help you grow your business.

In this download, you’ll receive:

• The steps you’ll need to follow in order to create social media engagement.

• 4 essential elements to add in every content piece.

• Information on different types of graphics your business can post for brand awareness and engagement

• Key strategies for lead generation

4 Steps to Creating Social Media Engagement for Your Association

Every marketer knows how tedious the journey of creating high-preforming content can be. Did I choose the right graphic? Are the color and font choices showcasing the messaging behind our brand? Before you start to dive into the nitty-gritty details, have a plan that you can follow when you start to get off track.

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1. Goal

First and foremost, determine your end goal. Are you trying to build brand awareness? Increase website visits? Educate your members? Typically, there’s an 80/20 rule when sharing content online. This means that 80% of your posts should be increasing interest, informing association members and engaging with your audience. While the other 20% of shared posts should be direct selling of your product or service.

If your 80% includes informing members, consider sharing blog posts or quotes that drive your message. Choosing a goal will pave the way for the rest of your social media graphic creation.

2. Which Graphic?

Figure out which graphics will produce the most engagement. Maybe you’ve seen trends of your viewers engaging with GIFs more, or maybe you’ve noticed that themed posts drive social media engagements. Don’t be afraid to try new types of content as well! There are countless ways to communicate with your audience, so pick a graphic that will showcase your membership organization’s message and personality!

In the marketing world, it can quickly become overwhelming to keep up with the latest social media trends. We know how difficult it can be to pinpoint which graphics are creating the most member engagement. So, we created a guide that explains the multiple graphic types you could start posting!

3. Organize

Make sure that all of your content is well organized so that all marketing team members have access to it. It’s always a good idea to double-check that your content meets all the social media platform’s expectations as well. Check the amount of text you have on your graphics, as well as the length of any videos.

It is super beneficial to create a social media calendar as well. If you’re getting caught up in the business of being a marketer, having a social media calendar to refer to can be a life saver!

4. Design and Share!

Whether you’re using free sites that give you templates to help during the creation process, or you’re using Photoshop to construct eye-catching designs – let the creative juices flow! Once you’ve got a solid design, share away!

If you follow these strategic content creation steps, you’ll be on your way to increasing association membership engagements and overall brand awareness.

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Download our guide to up your digital marketing strategy

Creating effective social media content to share with your target audience is a crucial part to your marketing strategy.

Using our expertise in content creation, we’ve created this guide to help you cultivate a more engaged audience and, ultimately, help you grow your business.

In this download, you’ll receive:

• The steps you’ll need to follow in order to create social media engagement.

• 4 essential elements to add in every content piece.

• Information on different types of graphics your business can post for brand awareness and engagement

• Key strategies for lead generation

How to Engage Association Members with an Email Welcome Sequence

We are huge fans of quickly following up with inbound leads and sending new member welcome emails. But if you really want your association’s new members to feel even more a part of your community, creating a new member welcome email sequence will take your relationship with them steps further.

Welcome email campaigns range from standard, with about 3 emails, or more complex, with up to 7 or more emails. The length of your email sequence depends on your goal that you want to accomplish at the end of the sequence.

Because this is targeting new members, your goal for this email sequence should be to get them more involved in your organization. This could include getting to know your members better, encouraging them to sign up for a conference, or even complimenting any phone efforts to reach association members.

Email 1

When to Send: Immediately after sign-up

What to Send: Welcome and important information regarding their membership

You want to send a welcome email to any new member immediately. We’re in a day in this technological age when people expect something immediately. We dive even deeper in this post on how to craft the perfect welcome email.

In this first email, it’s also a great idea to encourage members to add your email to their contacts to ensure they never miss any important information.

Email 2

When to Send: 1-2 days after Email 1

What to Send:  Additional information and membership benefits.

Now is the time to really explain membership benefits and what’s in it for them. Some ideas to include in your second email include:

• Restating important information from Email 1

• Inviting them to join your online community, such as Facebook group or other place online where you bring members together

• Information on special discounts/freebies that come with their membership

• Linking to most popular blog posts or articles

Email 3

When to Send: 3-4 days after Email 2

What to Send:  Get to know your members

One thing email automation is great for is personalizing your emails. Within your CRM, you can tag your email subscribers based on actions they take in your emails. In this email, you can ask specific questions so that future emails are more relevant to them and therefore are more engaged with your association!

This can easily be done in a short in-email survey asking about various demographics that pertain to your association. For example, if you have regional chapters or events, you can segment by geographical location.

Don’t Stop There!

Your email communication with members shouldn’t stop at the last welcome email. If you really want to increase membership engagement, regular email updates are essential. Assuming that your members will remember (or have the time) to regularly check the association website for updates will leave you disappointed with an inactive membership base.

Download our email marketing guide to make sure you include everything that will make your new members excited that they joined and eager to get involved!

Download our guide to sending the best emails that delight your members!

When people sign up for your association, you need to have a plan in place to welcome and on-board them.

Using our expertise in lead generation, we’ve created this guide to help you cultivate a more engaged association.

In this download, you’ll receive:

• The ultimate email sequence to welcome new members into your association

• Information on WHEN to send and WHAT to include

• Swipe-copy email templates to copy and past into your email sequence