--- title: "Word of Mouth: Recruit Passionate Members As Marketers" id: "35240" type: "post" slug: "word-of-mouth-recruit-passionate-members-as-marketers" published_at: "2016-10-05T17:48:42+00:00" modified_at: "2016-10-05T17:48:42+00:00" url: "https://associationsnow.com/2016/10/05/word-of-mouth-recruit-passionate-members-as-marketers/" markdown_url: "https://associationsnow.com/2016/10/05/word-of-mouth-recruit-passionate-members-as-marketers.md" excerpt: "Leverage the importance of word of mouth by encouraging your members to volunteer their voices. Also: Dreamforce is big this year. Really big." taxonomy_category: - "Membership" taxonomy_post_tag: - "AssociationsNow" - "Member Engagement" - "Membership" - "word of mouth" taxonomy_content_format: - "Article" taxonomy_role: - "Director" - "Manager" taxonomy_persona: - "Association Professionals" --- [Home](https://associationsnow.com/) » [Articles](https://associationsnow.com/format/article/) » Word of Mouth: Recruit Passionate Members As Marketers Coordinated member marketing may be big and flashy, but the word-of-mouth variety still has its role. And if you can convince members to do this job for you, it can be a massive leg up. Tony Rossell, senior vice president of Marketing General, highlights the value of treating your most fervent supporters as volunteers who can help market your association’s membership in a more formalized way. “Some members may be more than happy to focus on engagement—helping new members get involved in the association,” [Rossell writes on the Membership Marketing Blog (opens in a new tab)](http://membershipmarketing.blogspot.com/2010/09/three-steps-to-engage-volunteers-in.html) . “Other members might be great at following up with their friends and colleagues to get them to renew.” Of course, the hard part of this might be answering why they should be involved in this way, but Rossell’s piece smartly highlights this point as well—by suggesting it’s important to focus on the value that the association has brought to the member, or, as he puts it, help them “get in touch with their own story of how membership has influenced their life and success.” [Read Rossell’s post (opens in a new tab)](http://membershipmarketing.blogspot.com/2010/09/three-steps-to-engage-volunteers-in.html) for more insights. ### Event to Keep an Eye On > Over 171,000 have now registered to attend [@dreamforce (opens in a new tab)](https://twitter.com/Dreamforce?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) > . We are officially sold out. Thank you to everyone who has made this possible. [pic.twitter.com/VlXmvoXDOE (opens in a new tab)](https://t.co/VlXmvoXDOE) > > — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) [September 29, 2016 (opens in a new tab)](https://twitter.com/Benioff/status/781298884471468033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) **The Salesforce corporate conference** Dreamforce, starting Wednesday, isn’t an association conference—it’s *bigger*. The massive software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm has 171,000 attendees coming to this year’s event, giving San Francisco a significant temporary population bump this week. [Expect the hashtag (opens in a new tab)](https://twitter.com/hashtag/DF16) to be pretty busy this week. If you want to follow along, [you can watch it live on the Salesforce website (opens in a new tab)](https://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF16/) . The most prolific tweeter at last year’s Dreamforce, social media consultant Alex Plaxen, was profiled in *Associations Now* earlier this year. [Check out the interview over this way](http://associationsnow.com/2016/05/new-strategy-event-social-media/) . ### Other Links of Note **Interesting discount strategy:** The National Tactical Officers Association [is now offering a $25 “digital” membership (opens in a new tab)](https://lauraburgessmarketing.wordpress.com/2016/10/04/ntoa-now-offers-an-individual-digital-only-membership/) . How did the group cut the price of an individual membership by $15? Easy: These members pay less in exchange for reading the member magazine online. **Google introduced a ton of new products yesterday,** including a direct competitor to the iPhone, a virtual reality platform, and a competitor to Amazon’s Echo speaker. [Lifehacker has a few of the highlights (opens in a new tab)](http://lifehacker.com/everything-google-announced-at-its-made-by-google-eve-1787404179) . **Yahoo’s been taking some pretty big bumps lately.** But as *Inc.* contributor Erik Sherman explains, some of the public-relations errors are unforced—[and associations can learn from them (opens in a new tab)](http://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/yahoos-pr-response-to-email-spying-story-is-a-massive-fail.html) . (iStock/Thinkstock) [Ernie Smith](https://associationsnow.com/author/ernie-smith/) Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. [More articles by this author](https://associationsnow.com/author/ernie-smith/) Tags: [#Member Engagement](https://associationsnow.com/tag/member-engagement/) [#Membership](https://associationsnow.com/tag/membership/) [#word of mouth](https://associationsnow.com/tag/word-of-mouth/) **Stay Informed** [Subscribe to our free newsletter](https://associationsnow.com/newsletter/) , *Associations Now Daily News*, to find out what’s happening in the association world every business day. ## You Might Like - [PodcastAssociations Now Presents: Beyond the Tech Stack: How AI Is Changing the Association PlaybookOctober 29, 2026](https://associationsnow.com/2026/10/29/associations-now-presents-beyond-the-tech-stack-how-ai-is-changing-the-association-playbook/) - [TemplateMembers onlyMember Onboarding ToolkitNovember 5, 2026](https://associationsnow.com/2026/11/05/member-onboarding-toolkit/) - [VideoThe Career Moves Every Association Leader Needs Right NowSeptember 24, 2026](https://associationsnow.com/2026/09/24/the-career-moves-every-association-leader-needs-right-now/) - [VideoNCRA: Safeguarding Cancer Surveillance: An Advocacy Response to FY26 Budget ThreatsSeptember 24, 2026](https://associationsnow.com/2026/09/24/ncra-safeguarding-cancer-surveillance-an-advocacy-response-to-fy26-budget-threats/) ## Comments **Comments are for ASAE members.** [Learn more about comments on this site.](https://associationsnow.com/comments/) [Log in](https://associationsnow.com/login?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fassociationsnow.com%2F2016%2F10%2F05%2Fword-of-mouth-recruit-passionate-members-as-marketers%2F%23comments) to your member account or [join ASAE](https://my.asaecenter.org/select-a-membership-type/) !