Association Marketing

When it comes to Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), the engine's still an engine. It's just more robust than ever before. More power means premium upkeep. We're talking high octane.

Association success hinges on understanding the shift from short keyword searches to full questions answered directly in tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.

To stay visible, associations must infuse AEO practices into their efforts. Since associations are thought leaders, it's a matter of structuring their already authoritative content so AI systems pick up what they're putting down.

Content is even more meaningful for associations because the general value prop for most organizations comes down to the 3 Cs: communications, communities, and most importantly, content.

From this perspective, content becomes the fuel for the entire operational engine, from marketing to sales to programming. 

Did you miss out on last week’s webinar? Check out this recap of “Evolving Your Marketing Technology Stack to Drive Business Results – Personify”. Suzanne Carawan, HighRoad Solution, and Dave Sherman, American Optometric Association, walked through a case study of AOA’s journey to marketing bliss by taking initiative in the digital marketing world to generate revenue in their own organization!

Content marketing is the creation of quality blogs, articles, videos, and emails that seek to educate and inform potential buyers.  While the end game is the same as traditional marketing, content marketing is an approach that is more subtle.  By giving the buyer helpful content to make a more informed purchase decision, your brand is building a relationship with the buyer and establishing itself as knowledgeable and trustworthy.  The infographic below lists 7 reasons why content is still king.

Everyday millions of us receive emails that are marked as spam or tossed in the trash. Often time these emails aren’t personalized, however, personalization can improve clickthrough rates and increase trust and connection with members. If you want to learn more about personalization, check out my blog from last week, “The Perks of Personalization”. In short, personalization is rather simple but its benefits are plentiful. By personalizing a message, members are more likely to open and engage with emails, even if just out of curiosity. After all, it should be a no brainer for your platform to pull an individual’s name and insert it into an email. Along with personalization, creating compelling content is also important as it engages members and furthers them through the buyer’s journey.