Blogging the AZA conference, part I

Sorry for not getting any posts out last week. I was at the conference for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums in Milwaukee and was taking everything in. There were a lot of specific kinds of issues I didn't realize that zoos face, but many of the problems and business practices do have a broader reach. In this series, I'm going to discuss relevant bits of information I picked up at various sessions and talk about how you can apply it to your organization to help achieve your mission.

The session: Membersip Marketing: Integrating Marketing Principles into your Membership Program

The concept: The speakers discussed having strong reporting and knowing where your market is, and taking advantage of the web to increase your reach and enrich your members' lives. This session was pretty good overall, and while a lot of the things discussed are common sense there were some cool perspectives on membership marketing and really good stuff on member retention.

The details:

Get new members to visit you as frequently as possible during that first year. An actively engaged member is much more likely to stay a member for a long time compared to a member who has only visited you once or twice in a year and doesn't know your mission. Have an inexpensive event or mixer for first-year members to get to know each other. If you're a zoo, it can be as simple as a behind-the-scenes animal feeding with a zookeeper. If you're an art museum it could be a brief lecture by a local art historian about your latest exhibition. Get creative, but get those people in!

If members get messages that aren't relevant, they will tune you out. With information overload in the form of mail, email, TV, radio and the web, you have to stay relevant in order to keep a person's filter from coming down on you. Once a member has decided that you aren't pertinent to his life, chances of renewing that membership are very low. If you send out electronic or print newsletters, there should be two versions; one that goes to visitors on your mailing list, and another one tailored specifically to members. Give the members something special, like an interview with a zookeeper/curator/creative director or extra detail about specific news items. Members aren't just visitors, they support your mission and want to know what is going on. The member-focused version should always include a web address to renew memberships on your site.

Tailor your marketing efforts to different target groups. Make sure you know who your market is made up of, and then determine the best way to reach those groups that are important to you. Do some data analysis to find out what ZIP codes are attending most frequently; send different marketing/renewal materials based on new vs. mult-year members or based on frequency of visits. One zoo wanted to to reach a large, Spanish-speaking market for membership, and did a lot of research rather than just sending out a direct mailing. The zoo determined that these folks have tightly-knit families and value family time greatly. They also frequently work overtime or more than one job, and want to relax on days off. This zoo's marketing materials described how there was "so much to see you can't finish in one day" and this was a major turn off. The organization wrote new materials that focused on the family aspect, the ability to bring a picnic, etc, written in native Spanish (not just translating the English copy). It was a hit and the zoo saw a major increase in membership by that market.

Measure marketing results. Marketing involves quite a bit of testing to see what works. Every organization creates and sends marketing materials, but many fail to measure the effectiveness of those campaigns. Simply capture the marketing information at the time of sale by having a quick "how did you hear about us", both at the point of sale and online. It doesn't require any customization and you can get the data back out using canned reports like the Marketing Campaign Report. It only adds a couple of seconds to a sale but makes a big difference in finding out whether or not you are spending your marketing dollars wisely.

Go take some of these ideas and run with them, and I'll be back again soon with more information from this and other great sessions.