Optimist Consulting

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Email plays such a large part in our lives that it’s no surprise this extends to the marketing activities of membership bodies too. According to MemberWise’s Harnessing the Web report (2016), 65% of membership organisations and associations now use email automation as a key digital activity. Automated emails, when used effectively, can be a good way to deliver a personalised feel to your communications.

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Optimist Consulting

NOVEMBER 29, 2016

Developing a membership strategy that links to organisational strategy is critical – not only does it guide you and keep you on track to deliver for members, but it ensures that what you are planning is relevant to your organisation and in tune with what your organisation is trying to achieve. Developing a membership strategy in isolation is destined to run into difficulties if it doesn’t consider your organisational objectives.

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OCTOBER 27, 2016

I recently read a great new document, Making digital work: 12 questions for trustees to consider , which contains useful guidance on what your non-profit board should be thinking about when it comes to digital. The guidance has been developed by The Charity Commission , Grant Thornton and Zoe Amar Communications. I think there are 9 key areas from the guide which are relevant to boards of membership organisations: Agile, robust governance: Digital is, by its very nature, fast.

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Optimist Consulting

OCTOBER 27, 2016

I was recently looking at the FSB’s website and was impressed by how easy it was to navigate, how clearly the information was ‘chunked’ and displayed, and how it showcases their re-brand. I thought I’d share the top 7 ideas that I think membership organisations could take from the FSB site: Hero image: The rotating hero image at the top of the homepage is very member benefits focused, which draws potential members in fast, and leaves no doubt as to what benefits they can enjoy from membership of

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Optimist Consulting

SEPTEMBER 28, 2016

I recently read CharityComms’ new free best practice guide, “How to talk to your trustees about comms” . Whilst it is aimed at more traditional charities, I found many of the insights useful and transferable to membership bodies. While some boards understand the role and remit of their communications team and actively seek their help, the report illustrates that some boards do not share this interest in communications, and it offers ideas to overcome this and work effectively with your trustees

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Optimist Consulting

SEPTEMBER 28, 2016

I was recently commissioned by a client to produce some podcasts, interviewing the winners of their awards. Podcasts are a growing medium – it is reported that 12 million podcasts are downloaded a week in the UK. The BBC shared in 2015 that its podcast downloads had increased by 36% year on year. With smartphones growing in popularity, people are choosing to consume audio, especially when on the go.

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Optimist Consulting

AUGUST 21, 2016

I am a supporter of Harnessing the web 2016 conference in October, the premier digital conference for the membership sector. I always attend the conference and enjoy speaking there, so I’m happy to be able to offer readers of my e-newsletter access to specially discounted tickets to the conference. An Early Bird discounted ticket price is available until 2nd September, allowing you to save £50 off the full ticket price.

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Optimist Consulting

AUGUST 21, 2016

I was intrigued to read ‘The future of membership’, a report from the New Citizen Project organisation. New Citizen Project was set up in 2014 with the idea that if we, as members, see ourselves as citizens as opposed to consumers, we are more likely to want to get involved in the organisation we are members of and solve some of society’s challenges.

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Optimist Consulting

AUGUST 23, 2016

I recently spoke at MemCom with CharityComms on making an impact on social media on a budget. The great thing about social is that it is generally free and the potential reach is huge, which makes it a good channel to use when you’re looking to communicate effectively on a budget. Here are my top 8 tips for organisations looking to make an impact on social: Set your objectives.

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Optimist Consulting

JULY 20, 2016

I was delighted to be invited to speak at MemberWise’s Membership Excellence 2016 conference recently about a project I worked on for the Royal Statistical Society , which delivered some difficult messages around fees and membership category changes. The 9 month project went well, with members accepting the changes and retention standing up. Here are my reflections on what you need to consider when communicating difficult messages to members.

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Optimist Consulting

JULY 20, 2016

Think is one of the UK’s leading specialist publishers for membership organisations and since 2011 it has conducted Re:member, a large annual survey of communications leaders in UK professional membership organisations. The results give a cumulative insight into best practice when communicating with a professional membership community, and the challenges that membership communications professionals face.

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Optimist Consulting

JUNE 29, 2016

I delivered an e-newsletter workshop recently for a client. One of the activities I took the group through was looking at other membership organisation’s e-newsletters. This version from the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) was a favourite among the participants. I wanted to share my thoughts on why I think it works well.

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Optimist Consulting

JUNE 29, 2016

In my work with my clients, I see digital transformation in the membership sector, first-hand. So I was very interested recently to come across a digital skills toolkit from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), which I think will help many membership organisations to develop the digital skills of their staff. Building a digital workforce is specifically designed to help organisations plan, design and deliver a digital skills development programme for their workforce, but what

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Optimist Consulting

MAY 28, 2016

I recently joined the Fawcett Society (Fawcett) , the UK’s leading campaign for gender equality. I liked their welcome letter (interestingly they chose to send a hard-copy letter), so I thought I’d share with you some of the highlights, which you could use for inspiration for your next welcome message. You can download the letter as a PDF here. 1.A warm welcome.

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Optimist Consulting

MAY 31, 2016

I was delighted to recently present at CHASE on how to develop your membership marketing strategy and plan. Following on from my blog “ Top 5 essentials for your membership marketing strategy ” , I outline my thoughts here on how to develop a strong membership marketing plan that links back to your marketing strategy and helps you to grow your membership. 1.What do you need to promote across the year?

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Optimist Consulting

MARCH 27, 2016

I recently read an interesting report, Leading Engagement from the Outside In, from US based membership consultants Anna Caraveli and Elizabeth Weaver Engel, which offers an alternative view to traditional member engagement activities and metrics when considering levels of member engagement with an organisation. Some membership organisations develop programmes, products, events or even services that they think members need, without involving them in their development.

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Optimist Consulting

MARCH 27, 2016

I recently read an interesting report, Leading Engagement from the Outside In*, which offers an alternative view to traditional member engagement activities and metrics when considering levels of member engagement with an organisation. Some membership organisations develop programmes, products, events or even services that they think members need, without involving them in their development.

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Optimist Consulting

MARCH 27, 2016

I was delighted to recently present at CHASE about how to develop your membership marketing strategy. I outline my thoughts below on how to develop a strong membership marketing strategy which will help you grow your membership. 1.Why have a marketing strategy? Writing a marketing strategy will help you to: Identify what it is you want to achieve through your marketing activity.

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Optimist Consulting

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

I was interested to read the Institute of Directors’ (IoD) Policy Review 2015 , which summarises the views of the IoD’s policy panel, over a 12-month period. The policy panel is made up entirely of its members, who the IoD approach periodically for their feedback on policy issues. This is why I like the idea of a panel: It allows members to contribute.

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Optimist Consulting

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

I was delighted to attend the Social Media Exchange event on 8 February, which focused on all things digital for charities but especially storytelling. The event featured lots of excellent case studies from mainstream charities. These charities are using their beneficiaries to communicate the organisation’s key messages to campaign for social change, to fundraise and to connect with their audiences.

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FEBRUARY 24, 2016

I have been working on rolling out a re-brand for a membership client. It has made me think about the role of colour in communications, so I wanted to share a guest blog from Steven Randall of Ocean Design. They have produced some beautiful designs for membership organisations – I particularly like RIBA’s membership literature. “There is no getting away from the fact that colour is everywhere and it shapes our entire life.

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Optimist Consulting

JANUARY 27, 2016

Mapping your membership touchpoints is a great way to start the year. Understanding how your members and potential members experience your organisation is an important insight in membership development. It is easy to think we know what members are experiencing, but unless you understand and monitor where the organisation ‘touches’ them you won’t truly know what their experience is.

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JANUARY 25, 2016

If you’re wondering how to make your organisation’s digital experience more engaging for your members this year, you might want to consider what the National Trust have recently done to enhance and improve their website for potential and existing members. With over half of all their website visits coming from mobile devices, they needed a more responsive, mobile-optimised site for their members.

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DECEMBER 17, 2015

On 3 rd December I delivered a full-day workshop for the Small Charities Coalition on Building engagement through e-mail newsletters. It was interesting to hear that the challenges small charities face were very similar to those experienced by membership bodies. A recent MemberWise survey states that the most cited open rate is between 21%-30% and the average click through rate is 18%.

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Optimist Consulting

DECEMBER 17, 2015

I was interested to read a recent report about digital governance by Lisa Welchman, Digital Governance: A Primer for Content Marketers , on the Content Marketing Institute’s website. I found the report’s four-step process for creating a digital governance framework useful for helping organisations to effectively manage their digital presence. Organise the digital content ‘team’.

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Optimist Consulting

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

I think hard copy mailings still have a place in your marketing plan. I think they have a unique ‘stand out’ these days. I outline my thoughts below. Less post. Firstly, there is evidence to show that we now receive less and less post 1. This creates an opportunity for your hard copy mailing to get noticed – fewer pieces of mail equals more of a chance to shine. 11% of respondents aged 16-34 to a recent Ofcom survey 2 said they were more likely than other age groups to have received no pos

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Optimist Consulting

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

There’s some great new research from the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) in their recent paper, Understanding the Value of Professionals and Professional Bodies. The paper addresses the perceptions of more than 2,000 members of the public and over 150 MPs on the value of professional bodies. Overall findings are that professional bodies add huge value to society and most commonly agreed that professional qualifications help people to earn more and raise standards, and that they would trus

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Optimist Consulting

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

33% of organisations say that their main barrier to growth is effectively communicating the value of membership. One of the difficulties for organisations is that the perceived value of membership is different depending upon the member and what they see as a valuable part of membership could be quite different to someone else. What do members want? So what do members look for and value in the membership package an organisation offers?

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Optimist Consulting

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

I think hard copy mailings still have a place in your marketing plan. I think they have a unique ‘stand out’ these days. I outline my thoughts below. Less post. Firstly, there is evidence to show that we now receive less and less post 1. This creates an opportunity for your hard copy mailing to get noticed – fewer pieces of mail equals more of a chance to shine. 11% of respondents aged 16-34 to a recent Ofcom survey 2 said they were more likely than other age groups to have received no pos

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Optimist Consulting

MARCH 12, 2015

I was delighted to be invited to speak at MemberWise’s 2nd Membership Excellence conference on Wednesday 11 March. I spoke about crowdsourcing and how membership bodies can use it. I also include a great case study courtesy of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Download my presentation here. If you would like to talk to me about how crowdsourcing can be used at your organisation please contact me for a no-obligation chat.

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MARCH 30, 2015

I recently carried out some membership focus groups for a client. One of the topics that came up was how to remind members about the access they have to discounted services or special offers from the membership organisation, and h. ow to make it easy for them to keep up to date with these kinds of benefits. With 61% of UK adults owning a smartphone (Ofcom) it seems obvious to me that membership bodies should be attempting to take up more space on people’s mobile devices – helping members access

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Optimist Consulting

MARCH 30, 2015

I recently read ‘ One Voice – A Best Practice Guide to integrated communications ’, which is a great free guide from CharityComms, the charity PR and marketing professionals membership body. It is focused on more traditional fundraising and campaigning charities but I felt there were some useful lessons for membership organisations. The value of taking a more integrated approach with communications is to ensure that all your audiences (members, trustees, event attendees, customers, service users

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Optimist Consulting

MARCH 30, 2015

I recently attended the launch of the annual MemberWise ‘Harnessing the Web’ survey report. More than 200 organisations contributed to report on how they were using digital platforms at their membership organisation. Below are the five things that stood out for me. 82% expect their website to offer ‘self-service’ functionality to members. This is a 21% increase on last year’s survey.

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MARCH 30, 2015

I was delighted to deliver a presentation about crowdsourcing at the recent MemberWise ‘Membership Excellence’ conference. I thought I’d share six examples of membership organisations that are using crowdsourcing well. What is crowdsourcing? Firstly, I just wanted to start off with a definition of crowdsourcing from crowdsourcingweek.com: Crowdsourcing is the practice of engaging a ‘crowd’ or group for a common goal – often innovation, problem solving, or efficiency.

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MAY 13, 2015

I was delighted to be asked to deliver a workshop on using the telephone in the marketing mix. Many membership bodies only use the phone when chasing for renewals – which is a missed opportunity to cut through the information overload to reach and then engage members. Download my presentation. If you would like more information about how I can help your organisation improve your member engagement and marketing communications please contact me for a no-obligation quote.

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MAY 13, 2015

Last month I highlighted six membership bodies that I felt made good use of crowdsourcing; a term coined ten years ago to describe the act of outsourcing tasks to a wide audience. This month I want to share my recommendations for creating your own crowdsourcing plan, which will may well help lead your organisation to similar success. Just to recap, crowdsourcing is defined by crowdsourcingweek.com as: “the practice of engaging a ‘crowd’ or group for a common goal – often innovation, problem solv

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Optimist Consulting

MAY 15, 2015

I was delighted to be invited to attend the recent launch of the Professional Associations Research Network’s ‘ Professional Body Sector Review 2015 ’ at the Law Society’s impressive building in London. This annual publication collates the latest research and first-hand accounts of more than 15 professional bodies. Below are the five findings I found the most interesting: Only 23% of governing-body members are given a formal review.

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