For many associations, the summer months can mean a slower time of year - which means greater time for reevaluating marketing efforts and budgets. The number of events held go down, kids are out of school, membership renewal drives have passed. Now is the time to look more deeply into marketing efforts that lead to greater results whether they are greater numbers in members, attendance for events, or engagement with marketing materials for education credits, industry knowledge, and more. It can be a huge asset to have an understanding of what other associations are doing in the market. While I recommend reading the State of Digital Marketing Report in full, here are a few key takeaways to get you started.

Having a good lead generation strategy is essential for an organization's continued success because it is the engine that drives profits.  In order for your lead generation strategy to produce optimal results, you need to have the right components in place  The infographic below is a detailed guide to the components needed to generate high quality leads and to keep your sales pipeline moving along.

Marketing automation is a great tool that can be used in all stages of the buyers' journey.  Email is still the preferred channel that marketers use to communicate with prospects and customers.  Marketing automation that is used for email campaigns works extremely well and generates great results.  However, marketing automation isn't just for email anymore.  While it's true that automated emails continue to be the backbone of marketing automation, you need not stop there.  If you're only using marketing automation for email, you're missing out on other communication channels it can be used for.  We have found an article at Act-On, written by Pam Neely, that lists 8 channels, in addition to email, with which to use marketing automation.  Pam explains how using marketing automation with each of these 8 other channels will benefit you.

Data is the cornerstone of digital marketing, allowing individuals to make informed and concise decisions based on facts not intuition. As digital marketers, you can track and analyze users through clicks, opens, site visits and interactive content. Interactive content is your secret weapon to gathering data and generate leads.

Digital marketing contains many components such as SEO, social media, content creation, PPC, email, and web analytics.  Each of these components should be brought together under one overall digital strategy in order to get the best results.  The infographic below explains why you need a digital marketing strategy and tips for how to build one.