Thursday Buzz: The Secret to Staying Relevant

Associations strive to stay valuable, but each association has its own struggles for relevance.

Amanda Kaiser lays out several of those challenges in a recent Smooth the Path blog post  (opens in a new tab). She says that some associations serve industries in decline, while others have outdated delivery methods. Some groups aren’t innovating on their offerings, and others aren’t doing enough to recruit young members.

Kaiser contends that focusing on and recruiting next-gen members can help to solve a lot of the other problems. “Understanding our youngest members, in the same way we know our Boomer and Gen X members, is critical to forming great organizational growth strategies, solving many marketing woes, and getting our innovation engine started.”

Kaiser also points to a few lessons from other blog posts about better serving your young members. One suggestion is to create a young professionals page on your group’s website that’s tailored to their needs. She also recommends offering a strong career training program.

Liven Up a Meeting

New post: The best way to fundamentally improve your dull conference

In 1992, circumstances made me change how I started a meeting. That happy accident started 25 years of designing & facilitating conferences that people love. #eventprofs  (opens in a new tab) #assnchat  (opens in a new tab) https://t.co/I3FDWj6W0e  (opens in a new tab) pic.twitter.com/P3VRRxwgfj  (opens in a new tab)

— ConferencesThatWork (@ConfThatWork) February 14, 2018  (opens in a new tab)

Event pros, what’s one thing you can do to make a less-than-exciting meeting more interesting?

Meeting designer and facilitator Adrian Segar reveals his one key secret  (opens in a new tab): “I facilitate discovery of interesting people, ideas, and resources at the start of the event.”

Segar points out that most people meet compelling people at conferences by chance, but he likes to take a more proactive approach. Soon after the conference gets started, Segar runs “one or more roundtables that use The Three Questions  (opens in a new tab), allowing participants to learn about each other, share what they would like to learn and discuss, and proffer their relevant expertise and experience.”

Other Links of Note

Is video a part of your communications strategy this year? Beth’s Blog shares video advice from experienced nonprofit marketers  (opens in a new tab).

Energize your email subject lines. Future Fundraising Now offers up creative prompts for brainstorming  (opens in a new tab) new lines.

Event tracking can happen in a variety of ways. Here are a few ways to optimize your data collection  (opens in a new tab) from The Marketing Scope.

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