Association Marketing

A few weeks ago, Jay Schwedelson, CEO of GURU Media Hub, hosted a session at the ASAE MMC & Tech Conference in Washington, DC. While originally planned as an email marketing session, he instead packed in insights on social media, video content, AI, audience engagement, and community building. His high-energy style, rapid-fire delivery, and pop culture references made it incredibly engaging and memorable.

The biggest takeaway?

HubSpot is always on the forefront when it comes to modernized marketing principles. As a leading AI-powered CRM, its job is to show rank, and lead by example when it comes to revenue generating strategies. 

Its newest tenant—loop marketing—is creating a perpetual growth universe that orgs can not only relate to, but dig into from a planning and spend perspective.

Loop marketing is a growth model that replaces the linear acquisition funnel with a continuous cycle of expressing value, tailoring experiences, amplifying presence, and evolving based on behavior. For associations, it means treating engagement as the main engine of revenue and retention, not just a soft “nice to have.”

To a degree, its rooted in what associations have done for quite a while, even prior to HubSpot's inception. The difference is that the 'loop' itself is now powered by AEO, AI, and omni-channel automation.

So what does AI-mechanized loop marketing look like for orgs now?

Most associations don't have a member journey problem. 

Over time, organizations add welcome emails, onboarding campaigns, event promotions, committee invitations, newsletters, renewal reminders, community notifications, surveys, and follow-up messages. Each communication is always created with good intentions. Each workflow solves a specific need. But it's rare when we step back to ask a simple question:

What does this experience feel like from the member's perspective?

The result is often a member journey that isn't intentionally designed, but that has just simply evolved. 

Humans don't always think, feel, or act in the same way. They don't want the same things all the time. And they wouldn't behave the same way today as they would two years from now, let alone two days from now. Even the most regimented, methodical human wouldn't behave in a linear fashion all the time.

Since lead scoring models are built to define, assess, and cater to human behaviors, why would they be be one-dimensional in nature? 

Modern lead scoring must move beyond form fills and linear funnels to reflect non‑linear member journeys, multi‑channel engagement, and intent-rich behaviors. This way, staff can prioritize outreach, personalize experiences, and drive membership, event, and program revenue more efficiently.

I've centered a few blogs to date around the notion of agenticity within organizations. And there's good reason for it. If you're not at least exploring agentic teams within your operations, there's risk you'll be left behind in terms of competition, capacity, and culture.

The need for agentic operating models, particularly for associations and nonprofits where teams are slim and hats are many, is well established at this point. The grey area lies in the process orgs take to get to an AI-first position.

Not to worry. If there's a org-specific framework needed, HighRoad has your back. Here's a solid program for building and establishing an AI agentic operating model within your association or nonprofit.

In the enterprise for-profit world, sales teams often get droves of leads generated by often sturdy marketing teams. Some are sales-quality standard. Some are not. But the key is that there's steady volume and a systemized qualification in place from the marketing team. Sounds great, right?

Not so much for associations and nonprofits.

It's been an ongoing challenge for association sales and marketing teams to build proper smarketing programs based on association and nonprofit org charts and business models. Marketing teams are often focused on dues and program revenue—where's there's a conversion, not a close (i.e. membership , events, etc.). And Sales teams are focused on sponsorship, advertising, and other corporate programs. Both put in a great deal of effort but often don't work together on mutual goals. 

Until lean marketing & communications teams get more team members who are solely dedicated to feeding the top of the funnel, or sales teams add marketing resources under their budget line, this problem won't be solved.

This is where AI comes in.