Trade association activities can be vast and include; conducting and reporting on market research, delivering online services through their website, representing their members to government and other industry stakeholder groups on important issues, as well as organising training and events such as conferences, meetings and seminars.

Marketing therefore has a number of key roles to play; promoting the association in order to attract new members, producing and managing a reliable and information-rich website, identifying and publishing research findings to gain valuable media coverage, as well as developing interesting event programmes to reflect the topical issues facing members and producing eye-catching materials.

However many trade associations often have small secretariat teams and so resourcing such extensive marketing activity can be a challenge. It is therefore important that they have clear marketing strategies and campaign plans to focus their efforts in areas that will deliver their objectives. Many not-for-profit associations will use the services of freelance specialists or marketing agencies to provide resources when and where it is required and to avoid the often unnecessary and expensive overheads associated with recruiting permanent marketing staff.

When developing a marketing strategy for a trade association there are 3 primary objectives;

1.       Recruitment

2.       Engagement

3.       Retention

Recruitment

Market knowledge is key to any recruitment campaign. Understanding why a company would want to join an association is really important and then translating that motivation into products and services that will meet their specific needs. This information will often be documented in the membership proposition which clearly identifies the messages to be communicated and the real benefits for members. Based on this knowledge marketing campaigns are developed to target key groups. One approach is to identify the market leaders and put significant time and energy into recruiting them so the smaller players in the industry will join just to have their brand alongside the leaders and have access to networking opportunities.   There are other techniques such as building strategic alliances to add value and offering incentives to get them to join, then, the retention strategy comes into play to keep them!

Engagement

In a corporate business the supplier often only has (and needs) a single point of contact with a customer, but in a trade association, it’s important that there are multiple touch points. When the FD at a member company is looking to cut budgets, subscriptions are often one of the first lines to go, but if they are faced with several individuals saying they need their association because; they need the market data to benchmark performance, or they need the discounts to control costs, or they are working on a project with the technical committee that affects a current product’s development, then that decision to axe the membership becomes much more difficult.  Trade associations need to develop activities and forums which encourage participation by individuals throughout the member company. 

Retention

A key indication of how well an association is meeting the needs of its members is its retention rate. Regular member satisfaction surveys provide a quick insight into whether the current benefits and services are meeting the needs of members. An association’s ability to recognise industry issues and make provisions to support members is vitally important. Likewise if a member does leave, it is important to understand why. There is little point investing in recruiting new members if existing members are leaving at a faster rate. Regularly reviewing and developing the membership proposition will ensure the membership organisation remains relevant to its members.

MRM

The key to getting all these things right is “smart marketing”. Many trade associations have poor databases and simply produce generic materials and messages that they push out to everyone they know. The problem with this is they often risk the recipient missing that vital product or service that pushes the button for them. 

A successful trade association will have good membership relationship management (MRM) (however simple). This process starts with building an understanding of the organisation and what motivates members to join. Then a database can be developed to support segmented marketing campaigns and develop materials and messages that focus on the motivations of the individual target groups. So instead of having one single marketing approach there are a series of smaller, targeted campaigns providing greater opportunity to test new ideas and deliver greater results.

The MRM should also capture details of member engagement i.e. events attended, reports downloaded etc., to enable the association to identify any potential leavers and address the issue before it comes to renewal time.

The marketing effort must be balanced across all three strategic areas; recruitment, engagement and retention to be effective. That does not mean that one area cannot be given more focus at a particularly time during the year but associations should avoid focusing all their effort on recruitment to the detriment of engagement otherwise their retention will also fall. It is a well know fact that it is easier and cheaper to keep an existing “member” than it is to find a new one!

Blue Topaz Marketing has extensive experience in helping trade associations to define their membership proposition and develop marketing campaigns that recruit, engage and retain members. If you would like to know more about how your organisation could benefit then call Cindy on 07899 988979.