Whether you rely on recommendations from your current members or are on trend with tech savvy marketing campaigns, every association relies heavily on lead generation to prosper. Here are some specific tips for 6 of the sectors we’ve encountered most often in our work with membership organisations that you can adopt today.
Sports
Sports organisations lend themselves to more fun and unique marketing campaigns, as competition and games can be both a profession and recreational pastime. A picture competition is often a really fun way of raising awareness and getting people involved with your organisation, and as a fantastic visual medium it’s very socially shareable. You could encourage professionals in your industry to recreate famous sporting moments from history with their local teams or partners, or conduct a nationwide search for the best team mascot.
Science & engineering
A good way to secure the growth of your organisation is to invest in young people who have yet to choose to study within these sectors. Reports from Education in Chemistry state that students are put off science at school due to “Perception of difficulty and lack of relevance to careers”. A study also found that female students are less likely to drop engineering programmes if they have access to female mentors. Encourage young people into your profession through representation, diversity and communication of science and engineering as an inclusive, engaging and important career and you’ll lay the foundation for growth within your industry and organisation for the future.
Animals & the environment
An offline or print campaign would be interesting for an organisation who deals in the protection of the environment or animals. You could shout about the fact that you’re using recycled and recyclable materials, and maybe share a pack of wild bee friendly flower seeds which you can get in 'seed bombs' or small dissolvable packets. Encouraging your prospects to cut out and keep a section of your marketing and then recycle or compost or even donate to their local pet shop ( shredded paper can offer cozy bedding for small mammals) the rest could also be a good idea. Composting paper can be made safe for animals and the environment as most inks can be soy-based and paper made from wood pulp.
Food & drink
The British Soft Drinks Association are an example of an organisation which excells at creativity we come to time and time again, as their ideas for offline marketing campaigns are always on point. Their campaigns are always slick, glossy and packed with vital and well thought-out studies and industry information. There are however, plenty of other more left-field things you could do. Video is a fantastic way to market food and drinks information, especially on social platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Look at how companies like Tastey (who have nearly 4.5 million subscribers to their YouTube channel) use video to create appealing, addictive and viral campaigns through use of music, trends and relevant ideas.
Healthcare
Health, medicine and wellbeing can be a serious subject and one which should be treated with a professional air. In the simplest terms there are usually two types of organisations within this bracket. The first are non-profit or charitable organisations who aim to raise awareness, encourage donations and support people afflicted with health problems like CCLG, who run a range of campaigns to achieve these goals. The other seeks to encourage and educate health practitioners. To increase lead generation for these, it’s important to offer them a place in an organisation which offers Continuing Professional Development and access to the best events and resources the industry has to offer.
Education
Organisations who work within the education sector are usually aiming their services at schools and teachers, and often represent just one subject or learning stage. Associations within this sector could make use of a print campaign, perhaps sending prospective members a poster with an inspiring literary quote, fact sheet or poster they could decorate their classrooms with. You could also build a fantastic online game which teachers could play with their students to educate them. Showing that you have access to these resources will demonstrate your worth and imagination to potential members.
As you might expect all of the above are marketing campaigns we can equip you with, just talk to one of the Senior team here at Senior to find out how. If you're not looking to start work straight away, but you just want some ideas, feel free to use any of these and get in touch via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn to let us know how they go!
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