We're one day closer to 2018 and as a way to wrap up the year, we're proud to sponsor the Top 40 Association CEOs of 2017 event which happens tonight in Crystal City. You can see the full list of association CEO winners.

Winning recognition as an association CEO is no easy feat in today's changing political and economic landscape. One of the areas that we see our clients' most struggle is in digital transformation and trying to figure out how to effectively compete in markets where for-profit companies are edging in for their share of wallet traditionally taken up by the association.

In 2017, we've seen multiple associations ask us for help in putting together a growth strategy based largely in digital to combat for-profit corporations. Associations have long understood the power and value of their brand, but have not had strong lead generation capabilities. The for-profit companies, on the other hand, typically are building a brand and are close to unknown, but have strong lead generation capabilities and agile market response times that allow for rapid growth.

You may think the number one goal for marketing automation is lead generation, and it’s not far behind; however, 43% of heavy users of marketing automation claimed optimizing productivity as the most important objective according to this study by Adestra Message Focus. With small teams charged with email, marketing automation is seen as a tool that will level the field. There’s no competing with Amazon’s 300-plus professionals solely focused on email marketing, so for small teams wearing multiple hats at once as is often the case with association professionals, it may be easy to see why productivity is such a major KPI.

SEO is one of those words that you frequently hear in todays digital age. If you are already confused by the first line of this post, SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, figure out what all that means here, then read this post!

If you’ve made to this point, you probably feel like you know SEO - you’ve worked with it, started to get a sense of what’s going on. Well, Google is constantly trying to up its game (which is to be expected, it is Google) and as fast as our iPhones stopped working when the iPhone X came out, Google has released updates to the algorithm.

This time of year feels like one big Hallo-Giving-Mas-New-Year holiday; and by that we mean it will be a new year before we can finish our pumpkin spiced lattes. And because Christmas ornaments have been out at Target since August, we think it’s fair to start planning for 2018.

There’s still time to get your promotional email messaging out for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. According to Forbes, there was a 15.2% bump in online sales in 2016 versus 2015 and that trend is expected to continue. To go even further, 40% of sales occurred on a mobile device. What does this mean for associations? Associations should be looking closely at how each touchpoint on a mobile device and online overall is experienced across all digital properties during the buyer’s journey. Here are a few key trends to watch out for and how associations should respond so they don’t miss out on big opportunities.