In the Actual Disruption Webinar series’ episode 8, sponsored by Breezio and Adage Technologies, titled “Got Leads? Now what?”, HighRoad’s leaders joined industry partners last week to share valuable insights to guide association marketers on how to activate on net new leads and data collected in recent months. I listened closely and want to share some key takeaways.

Each individual member of your target audience is a on a journey of discovery and fulfillment, spanning from personal needs to career goals. This journey begins long before they are members of your association and extends throughout their professional life.

If you have been to an association technology conference, you have seen organizations get recognized for their innovation and execution when it comes to membership management and marketing.

Banner ads are still an up and coming topic in the association space.  Currently many associations are using banner ads as ways to promote their vendors and sponsors and their products or current promotions.  So the first thing to ask is: do you leverage your own banner ad program to promote your organizational activities and generate leads?

That time of year is here again! As summer winds down and school starts back up, it is time to refocus and reorganize your organization’s digital strategy.  After all, “email is a powerful tool that helps you build relationships, create brand engagement and increase revenue”. We have found a great article from Adestra titled 5 Ways to Refresh Your Emails for the Spring/Summer season and have transformed it into a back to school special! Take this as an opportunity for growth – just like your kiddos – it is time to learn and grow. See below for the 5 Ways to Refresh Your Emails!

1. An enticing subject line is as important as ever: Think of your subject line as your homeroom for the day. The subject line sets the entire tone of the day, gives you the important announcements and lets the reader know whether it is worth their time to open the email to delve deeper. It must capture the attention of your audience and engage them from the get-go! For associations, be factual, but don’t be afraid to infuse some fun. Many of our clients have started using emoticons to huge effect!

2. Use seasonal themes in your design: Be creative with your email! Use dynamic content to switch out the images so that members in New England see back-to-school fall color changing images while those in southern California continue to see sunshine!  Use colors to reflect the seasons and images that relate to what is actually happening in the individual user’s world to help your email resonate. Use that to your advantage and pull in some pumpkin spice references for the upcoming fall months.

3. Create a sense of urgency: It is important to create a sense of urgency with your audience so they are encouraged to act and act fast! Take this time of year into considerate and offer a back to school special! Better yet, relate to the student in all of us and emphasize the start of a new semester, deadlines and tests that will need to be passed to continue with certification, registration and subscriptions. There is a natural tendency for many of us to want to get organized at the start of school and you can tap into this by promoting your products, programs and services in such a way that positions them as a means to get organized and ahead.

4. Incentivize your subscribers: Show your members that you value them and their loyalty to your organization. Offer a discount, free shipping or even loyalty member points that can add up to free merchandise! However you choose to offer an incentive, there is no doubt it will reflect positively with your members! Think about how your email can be seen as a backpack holding different bundles that would be helpful to take advantage of today!

5. Add movement with animated GIFs: GIFs are popping up everywhere in today’s digital landscape. According to a Marketing Sherpa case study, “ GIFs can increase the click rate by 42% and the conversion rate by 103%”. Add some movement to your audience’s inbox to grab their attention in a fun and interactive way.

The main takeaway = be creative and engaging! Put yourself in the back-to-school mindset of your audience. What kind of email are you more likely to engage with? Go through your last email send and take the top 10 people that opened the soonest and examine what they clicked on, the heatmap and where they’re based to get a sense of what is really working. Then, take this and build a back-to-school themed email around it with the idea of “here’s what’s buzzing in the halls at school”. People love to know what other people are doing, so use this to your email advantage!

Information Courtesy of 5 Ways to Refresh Your Emails for the Spring/Summer season

You’ve come to the conclusion that you are sending too many emails without any real lift in leads, conversions or ROI. Maybe you’ve been using the same technology to send emails for some time now and it is time for a switch, so you begin to explore the buzz around marketing automation.