Help wanted: MGAM ambassadors
Edward P. Salek, CAE, Executive Director | TLT Headquarters Report December 2010
STLE invites you to become a person of influence in 2011.
A vital and growing STLE means greater recognition of the profession and improved educational and networking opportunities for all.
IF you ask someone how they got involved with STLE or another membership organization, the No. 1 reason cited is almost always “referral by a colleague.”
In STLE’s case, this statement is more than just a rule of thumb. Market research conducted in 2009 by McKinley Marketing concluded, “A large percentage of current members were introduced to STLE through a colleague, supervisor or mentor.”
The study report also recommended that, “Current members could make an immediate impact on membership by simply acting as ambassadors in their own organizations. When members were asked if there were others at their organization who could benefit from membership, about half of the respondents answered yes. Members from larger companies in particular said there were significant numbers of membership prospects for STLE to contact.”
Not surprisingly, STLE’s membership development team is in the process of working with McKinley (a highly regarded association marketing consultancy) to craft a Member-Get-A-Member (MGAM) campaign. The new initiative enables the society to take advantage of the positive word-of-mouth discussions that occur between current members and prospects. The goal of the project is to formalize and incentivize these recruitment efforts and further develop them from their grass-roots foundation.
If you are a current STLE member, you may at this point be asking two pertinent questions. Question No. 1 would be, “Why spend my time on a Member-Get-A-Member campaign? You can’t give me enough incentives to add another job to my busy schedule.”
While we promise the program incentives will be attractive, there’s a less tangible but more significant reward associated with inviting colleagues into the organization. Every time you recruit a new member, you strengthen STLE. A vital and growing STLE means greater recognition of the profession, improved educational and networking opportunities for all members and the advancement of the profession worldwide.
Question No. 2: “Even if the benefits are worthwhile, this sounds complicated!” Actually, the process can be amazingly simple. Here are some examples. If you are a reader of the digital version of TLT, you may have noticed the Share with a Friend link at the top of the screen. This enables you to send a link to an article or even the entire magazine directly to a colleague via e-mail along with a personal message about STLE. There are also other distribution options available such as posting the article link and message to your Facebook or LinkedIn page.
If this sort of digital networking sounds baffling, MGAM can work in more traditional ways. For example, inviting a business contact to an STLE section meeting or other live event is a highly effective way of demonstrating STLE’s value as a source of technical education and information.
One last thought. There is no shortage of prospects waiting for encouragement to take the next step and join STLE. In round numbers, STLE’ s database includes nearly 10,000 people who have interacted with the organization in some way, such as visiting the STLE Web site, but who are not members.
Although the membership team has been working to stay in touch with this audience of potential members, we hope you’ll join us as we roll out the full-blown MGAM campaign in 2011.
You can reach Certified Association Executive Ed Salek at esalek@stle.org.