Associations, non-profits, and societies tend to find themselves in the perfect storm of resource-deprivation and program decentralization. 

This equates to small marketing teams with lean operating budgets working as in-house agencies to a suite of program managers. The fall-out from this often comes down to inefficacy, lack of focus, and inevitable burnout among team members. 

So what can marketing team leads and managers do to shore up scope with resource reality?

Breaking up can be hard. Whether you’re ending a romantic relationship or a friendship that’s no longer serving you, saying goodbye to something or someone that feels familiar is uncomfortable.

The same can be said for breaking up with data. Holding onto data, even if it’s outdated or ineffective, can feel familiar and comforting. Your mind might start racing: What if I delete it today and I need it two weeks from now? What if there is value there I just haven’t found yet? What if I delete too much and then I'm left with gaps?

If you’re feeling that way about parting with your data, you’re not alone. 

"Our stacks are mismatched to our future," said Reggie Henry, Chief Information and Engagement Officer at ASAE. 

The controversial albeit thought-provoking statement kicked off our HighRoad Spring VirCon 2021 virtual event last month, where Ron McGrath, HighRoad's CEO, interviewed Reggie in an exceptionally data-forward keynote. 

In the talk, the two industry leaders riffed on the definition of digital maturity as it becomes more and more synonymous with organizational success.

Kate Hudson was onto something. And not because she did the 60s style purple sunglasses and cream-colored boa right in the year 2000 Almost Famous film. Rather, in the same film, she coined the phrase, "It's all happening."

That's what comes to mind when I think of virtual event shift. 

Whether we're prepared for it or not, virtual events are happening. They're here and they're not going away. While in-person conferences will start to crawl back out of the cave, the sheer flexibility, potential cost savings, and, yes, data traceability afforded by virtual conferences will undoubtedly turn hybrid event models into the norm. 

You buy a Yeti—a bicycle built specifically for mountain riding. The bike itself touts a light-weight body, trail-friendliness, precision-riding, nimble climbing, among a number of other features that make it ideal for trekking in the mountains. 

You have all of these grandiose ideas of riding with the wind against your face, conquering heavy mountainous terrain and immersing yourself in the outdoors. 

And then you buy it.

And suddenly, your entire vision seems unachievable and overwhelming. So, you take it for a spin around your neighborhood block and bring it home. It's safe, easy, and you need the exercise, so you rinse and repeat every weekend. 

That's what it's like when you buy a marketing automation platform and use it as an email tool. You use a sliver of its functionality and don't necessarily achieve your goals.

Most associations don’t have a traditional sales department, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a sales team. Throughout your organization, there are people who work hard on recruitment, engagement, and event attendance.

Association sales teams may be diverse and diffuse, but they still work like a team in a for-profit business. Unfortunately, this means associations will often run into one of the most common issues for all organizations: lack of alignment between sales and marketing.

Bringing marketing and sales teams together takes effort and communication, but it can be done. First, let’s talk about why it matters.