We have all found ourselves irritated by intrusive and annoying ads.  Ads that are in no way helpful or even related to the content we are viewing.  But when ads are targeted and properly placed, they can be very effective in achieving their purpose.  Communities are a perfect environment for placing ads targeted to your members.  You know who your members are and have already established a level of trust with them.  Molly Talbert at Higher Logic has written an article with three reasons why you should incorporate ad campaigns into your community.

Focusing on optimising the customer experience continues to be the top priority for marketers in 2016.  Adobe, in association with Econsultancy, surveyed 7000 marketing professionals worldwide.  The Infographic below offers an overview of their findings.

As an email marketer in the association space, it’s important to measure not only if the email message is getting where it needs to be, but also what behaviors/actions they take based on the content you send them.

HighRoad undertook a small study to answer this question. We took a cross section of our client civic, professional and trade associations with monthly sending volumes ranging from 100,000 to 2,000,000 to review average metrics so you could see if your association measures up or surpasses the normal.

Creating a successful banner ad can be tricky.  Here is an infographic that lists 8 key elements of a great banner ad, along with 4 tips on what not to do.

We're delighted to congratulate the Tech Gurus selected for 2016 and sponsor this important award! One big trend we're seeing is that the definition of "tech guru" has expanded to include association professionals who aren't from traditional information technology backgrounds. Why is this important? It shows that we are moving even moreso into the creative economy where technology is seen as an enabler to business success and not a solution in and of itself.  This evolution is playing out in the association industry before our very eyes!

Just take a look at some of the areas the award winners are focused in and why we view them as a Tech Guru and someone to watch for 2016:

• Donna Reichle, Associated Builders & Contractors--spearheading a national project to better automate communications and reduce operational overhead of email
• Robert Wagner, American Payroll Association--spearheading a digital marketing transformation by adding inbound marketing to the organization
• Amanda Scott, Baccalaureate Social Work Directors--single-handedly running an association using her association management system to the fullest
• Kristen Garman, National Association of College Admission Counseling--in constant pursuit of how to effectively utilize data to improve digital communications
• Andrew Burch, National Federation of Independent Businesses--innovator in employing email automation to increase operational efficiency and increase the ability to measure and predict user interaction
• Melissa Garcia, Society for Neuroscience--facilitating continuous, integrated communication between business units to outfit programs with the technology that will take the organization to the next level

These are just a few of the outstanding tech gurus that we nominated that deserve the recognition for being disrupters and always pushing forward. Speaking of disrupters, we would be remiss if we didn't give a shout out to Reggie Henry of ASAE, Prabash Shrestha newly of AGA , and Ed Beck of NRA all visionaries who lead with the philosophy of "why not try it" and focus on what's to gain through change versus the fear of change.

Congratulations to all the award recipients and we look forward to hosting the award reception on May 18th in Crystal City, Virginia!